Faces of affordable housing: Meet Carrie Duran of Wolfeboro

Editor's note: Affordable housing is about everyone in our community being able to afford a home that supports good physical, financial, and emotional well-being. This occasional series produced by Lakes Region Community Developers and Lakes Region Community Services features stories of people who live in affordable housing in the Lakes Region. The columns will share their life journeys, struggles, triumphs, and aspirations. They think readers will find that their goals and dreams are not so different from their own.

Mother, college student, hard worker, community-driven, and advocate are just a few of the words one could use to describe Lakes Region Community Developers resident and board member Carrie Duran.

The New Hampshire native and divorced, single mom of three girls, moved back to NH in 2013 after spending several years in Los Angeles where she had hopes of becoming a star, and later got married and started a family. While she may not be a star in Hollywood’s terms (she decided it wasn’t the right path for her), she is a star right here in her community. When her marriage ended, Carrie moved home to NH with her twin daughters (now 15 years old), and youngest daughter (now 10 years old) who has down syndrome, to be closer to her greatest support system, her family.

Carrie and her “girls,” as she likes to refer to them, are residents in LRCD’s Harriman Hill apartments in Wolfeboro. Since her return to NH, Carrie has not stopped. In addition to raising two busy teen daughters and one younger daughter with special developmental and medical needs, Carrie works part time remotely for Lakes Region Community Services as their legislative liaison. She is also a full-time college student working towards a bachelor of arts degree in human services, and serves on about 10 committees, councils and boards, all of which are interconnected to support those with developmental disabilities. “I drink lots of coffee,” laughs Carrie.

In her work with LRCS, Carrie’s job is to sit in on hearings, testify, help families testify, and essentially educate legislators on how bills meant to help those with developmental disabilities may or may not be effective. Carrie says, “I love it. I get to do what I love.”

Interestingly, Carrie earned her job at LRCS thanks to all her volunteer experience where she has served passionately as an advocate for lower income families and those with developmental disabilities. She serves on the Expanded Medicaid Council, the governor-appointed NH Council on Developmental Disabilities, the legislatively-mandated Quality Council, and Wentworth Economic Development Corporation, just to name a few.

Carried was recognized for her work last year, when she was awarded the 2021 Virginia Bowden Award for Advocacy “for her steadfast commitment to advocacy, through her participation on various councils and committees aimed at improving the lives of those with disabilities in NH.” She also received a health and wellness scholarship from New Futures for her advocacy for expanded Medicaid.

Carrie is passionate about her work and shares, “With testifying, especially testifying about Medicaid and the child tax credit, I try to dispel the myth of what a lower income, single mother, on benefits looks like, appears like, talks like. I want to dispel that myth of the 'welfare queen' that just doesn’t exist. Most people are like me. They’re hard working, they have a child with a disability, they’re participating in their communities, but they also need some extra support.”

Carrie credits some of that “extra support” to affordable housing such as what LRCD provides to her and her girls, as well as hundreds of other families and individuals throughout the greater Lakes Region. “As a single mom, to live in a safe and beautiful home is the most important thing because I have a healthy home for my children to grow up in,” says Carrie. Not only does LRCD offer its residents low rent, they offer a support system that includes things like rental assistance, help with paying electricity, community involvement with fellow LRCD residents, financial education, dental care assistance, and more. Carrie explains it as “almost like having another partner in my struggle. Someone else I can look toward, as a single parent.”

She adds, “It’s been incredibly important and helpful to me, to live somewhere that I’m not just my rent check. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and they care about the wellbeing of me and my family.”

Without the benefit of living in an LRCD apartment, Carrie’s situation would be much different, and when she first moved here, it was.

She and her girls first lived in a typical market rental when they moved back to NH, but with Carrie working part-time and no option to work full-time, it was nearly impossible to make ends meet. When they moved out of that rental, it took Carrie a year just to pay off her water bill.

Many may be wondering why she couldn’t work full-time. 

As Carried explains, “There are many lower income folks that can’t work full-time jobs.” In her situation, her youngest required 24-hour oxygen at the time, taking daycare off the table for Carrie to get a full-time job. Today, while her daughter is now in school with a para-educator who has a nursing background, she also requires many trips each month to places like Dartmouth, Boston Children’s Hospital, Mass General, speech therapy appointments and medical appointments. To have a typical full-time position just hasn’t been possible since her daughter was born.

As Carries puts it though, she is “perfectly capable of working full-time.” So, the flexibility she needs to be able to tend to her daughter’s needs, has also afforded her community the great gift of her time and her voice. And, with the breathing room that affordable housing and LRCD specifically provides, Carrie can shine like the star she is for her girls and her community.

She states, “My girls have come with me all over the state to different meetings and to testify. I’ve really tried to show them why getting involved in the community is important.”