NH hotel funds expire April 1. Hundreds in Strafford County, Seacoast could lose housing.

Seacoast homeless shelters and social service agencies are bracing for the impact on local people as a federally funded program paying for residents to stay in hotels is expiring, starting this week. An estimated 200-plus people in Strafford County could be forced to leave their lodging in the weeks to come, with dozens more in Rockingham County.

The New Hampshire Emergency Rental Program stopped taking applications in October because the state was not awarded the federal Emergency Rental Assistance funds necessary to keep the program running past Dec. 29.

The New Hampshire Executive Council in early December approved $20 million in American Rescue Plan money to fund New Hampshire residents facing housing instability to continue staying in hotels. Under the parameters of the Emergency Temporary Housing program, participating households have been required to search for permanent housing.

Emergency Temporary Housing program funding for households without children ends this Saturday, April 1. Funding for families will run through June 15.

Strafford County seeking solutions for lack of attainable housing

George Maglaras, chairperson of the Strafford County commissioners, reported Tuesday that in the county, there were “a couple hundred” people in county hotels that could be impacted by the expiration of the funding in a few days’ time.

“At present, I can only assume that the municipalities are going to have to meet their statutory obligation to help as many people as they can through the typical welfare system,” he said.

Maglaras said he has reached out to the mayors, city managers and welfare directors of Dover, Rochester and Somersworth, calling for a coordinated response to assist people leaving hotels.

In Rochester alone, as of March 12, there were 94 households temporarily residing in Lilac City hotels, according to Todd Marsh, the city’s welfare department director.

Of those households, 21 include children, while 36 households staying in Rochester hotels were from outside the city. Twenty-four city residents were staying in hotels in other municipalities, he added.

“People have to recognize that these programs are all temporary in nature. Until we get to the root of the problem, which is creating more attainable housing, there’s just a lot of folks that become homeless through no fault of their own,” Maglaras said. “It's just market conditions that are driving them out. I feel their pain.”

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Community Action Partnership of Strafford County director of community services Daniel Clark reported that since December, agency staff have been working with individuals and families in the hotels since December to help them before funding ran out.

While some have moved into permanent housing, many do not have plans in place.

“Over the last month, our housing staff have been going to all the hotels daily (on a rotating basis) to meet with folks to provide them with contact information for shelters, partner landlords, city welfare offices, mental health and substance use/recovery agencies, etc.,” he wrote in an email.

Marsh, in addition to his role in Rochester, serves as the president of the New Hampshire Local Welfare Administrators Association.

Last week, Marsh contacted municipal welfare officials and administrators in advance of the end of the Emergency Temporary Program, noting households can stay through the night on the April 1 end date.

“Emergency housing assistance will be practiced differently than the minimal eligibility expectations of (the Emergency Temporary Program) or (the New Hampshire Emergency Rental Program),” he wrote in an email. “In most cases, traditional emergency shelter services, if available, can be provided as options versus continued emergency motel stays. Income, cash resources, and expense information can be required and used for decision-making. Increased case management services provided by your municipal welfare officials and administrators will minimize length of assistance and maximize progress. Assistance navigation and decisions should remain consistently professional, humane, and customer service centered.”

Earlier in the winter, Strafford County state legislators rejected a county commission-led initiative to issue a $150 million bond for construction of a new nursing home in Dover to replace the aging Riverside Rest Home. The proposal called for the construction of a new 215-bed nursing home facility on County Farm Road and transforming the existing Riverside Rest Home into a transitional housing shelter modeled after Cross Roads House in Portsmouth.

The county's delegation members, however, passed a motion for the issuance of a $6.2 million bond requiring the project architect, Concord-based firm Warrenstreet, to complete a full design of the facility in the next two years.

This week, Maglaras again cited the importance of the proposal in serving the region's aging population and those in need of temporary housing and social services. However, even if the proposal had been passed during its December vote, Maglaras noted that construction of a facility could take upwards of two to three years.

"We’ve got a real housing problem here, there’s no question about it," he said. "Everybody knows it. The average person on the street is feeling it."

Cross Roads House of Portsmouth could see increased demand

At Cross Roads House, the social services organization is closing its warming center this Friday, March 31 after serving as Rockingham County’s official warming center for the 2022-23 winter season.

Sandy Beaudry, the agency’s program director, said there might be a delayed response in terms of people leaving hotels and potentially seeking out Cross Roads House for shelter. However, if requests come in, she said the management team will look to accommodate as many people as possible.

Predicting the additional number of people who may seek Cross Roads House’s services after April 1 may not be possible. But Beaudry estimated Southern New Hampshire Services alone, which covers Rockingham County and Hillsborough County, could see 150 people leaving hotels due to the end of program funding.

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“Some people may pay for the hotel a little while longer themselves. Some people may have already made arrangements to stay with family and friends. Some people might have housing pending, because they may already have put their names on housing lists,” Beaudry said. “But we’re trying to figure out if we can be available as a shelter and we’ll try to help as many people as we can. We just don’t know whether next week we’re going to get a lot of phone calls because we don’t have a lot of beds.”

Cross Roads House housing liaison working to find landlords to rent units

Cross Roads House, which only has a handful of beds available within its male and female dormitories, already has to consider people currently on its waitlists.

The agency’s housing liaison, Allyson McCormick, spends the bulk of her work week speaking with area landlords about vacant apartment units for Cross Roads House tenants transitioning out of the facility and searching for permanent housing.

The housing liaison, funded with a grant from TD Bank, further connects prospective landlords with Home For All, a Seacoast area initiative to end homelessness and expand access to affordable housing via incentives for renting to Cross Roads House tenants.

Since coming into the position last July, McCormick’s efforts have led to approximately 30 households that utilized Cross Roads House’s services to find housing, with landlords as far away as Seabrook, Milton and Raymond, as well as South Berwick, Maine.

A constant roadblock she hits, however, are low vacancy rates in highly populated areas like Portsmouth, where many Cross Roads House tenants hold jobs, and the stigma surrounding renting units to those who’ve sought social services.

“People think that when I reach out to them, we only have public assistance or we only have people who aren’t going to pay their rent,” McCormick said. “But a lot of people we have are pretty consistently employed and just kind of missed that gap between being able to receive assistance and being able to afford an apartment in this area, so we have to ultimately displace people, which takes away from our workforce.”

Landlords and property management companies interested in renting units to Cross Roads House tenants can contact McCormick at a.mccormick@crossroadshouse.org.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: NH hotel funds to expire. Hundreds locally at risk of being homeless.