Carmen Lorentz: Vulnerable Granite Staters being priced out of housing market all together

To The Daily Sun,

I read a recent blog post by the Josiah Bartlett Center that claims that deregulation is the answer to our housing crisis and that subsidies have no impact. Based on my experience, that is not true. We need a multi-pronged approach to ensure that housing is created for renters in New Hampshire with low incomes. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, NH has over 40,000 renters with very low income (below 30% of the median). For every 100 such renter households, there are only 39 apartments affordable to them. Vulnerable Granite Staters are being priced out of our housing market all together.

Zoning reform is important. It will facilitate the development of more housing overall, which will ease the lack of supply and cause rents and home prices to stop increasing so fast. But zoning reform will not result in developers creating housing for people with very low income. This housing product requires subsidy in order to be created because it does not generate a profit for developers.

With the strong demand in the Lakes Region for second homes for wealthy out-of-state people, I can guarantee that zoning reform will result in more vacation homes and condos being built. And yes, some first-time homebuyers may benefit from this. But zoning reform alone won’t result in rental units for our seniors living on low fixed incomes or for single parents who work in our tourism industry or for anyone in our community who has a disability that limits their earning potential. Zoning reform alone is not going to ease the housing crisis for them.

The Legislature should increase funding for the NH Affordable Housing Fund to complement the excellent zoning reforms that have been achieved this session. A multi-pronged approach will be more effective.

Carmen Lorentz

Laconia