The United Way of Merrimack County and the Community Provider Network of Central New Hampshire endorse the appropriation of funds this legislative session to reestablish the New Hampshire Affordable Housing Fund.

Money for the fund, which provides an important source of development subsidies for housing across the state, will be decided in a conference committee in the next few days. The House has set $100,000 aside; the Senate $1 million.

Unfortunately, evidence of the need for affordable housing and temporary housing is easy to find, even in our own backyard. When asked their opinion of the community's most pressing needs, participants at a series of recent United Way-sponsored focus group meetings across Merrimack County placed affordable housing on the tops of their lists. Participants explained that high rents coupled with low wages create an almost insurmountable challenge to finding housing that is affordable.

Housing is generally believed to be affordable if it costs 30 percent or less of a household's gross monthly income. A single parent working full-time, at $10 per hour, receiving $200 per month in child support, and spending 30 percent of gross income on rent can afford no more than $580 per month in rent.

In 2006, the median monthly gross rent for two bedroom units in Merrimack County was $950. Last year's Livable Wage Report for New Hampshire reported that a single woman with two or more children would need to earn an annual income of $40,561 to afford such a dwelling.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2005 American Community Survey, 25 percent of Merrimack County renters - at all income levels - spend 35 percent or more of their monthly income on rent. For low-income households, the situation is exacerbated. In 2000, more than half of all households making 30 percent or less of area median income were paying more than half their incomes for housing. A March 2007 report from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire indicates that increasing income disparities have been and are likely to continue impacting New England's low-income families.

Over the past decade, average real income for New England's lowest-income families has declined by 2-5 percent, making even modest increases in housing costs impossible for low-income households to manage.

Housing supports do exist in the community, but they aren't always able to help. For example, the waiting list for a Section 8 housing voucher - the federally-funded subsidized housing for low-income families and individuals - can be three to five years. And according to the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority's 2006 Action Plan, New Hampshire homeless shelters provided temporary refuge to 6,435 individuals but needed to turn away 9,634 people for lack of space and other resources.

Since its inception in 1887, the New Hampshire Affordable Housing Fund has been used to facilitate the creation of 59 housing projects totaling 1,626 units.

In Concord, the fund was integral to the financing of the Families in Transition project on Bicentennial Square and has supported numerous CATCH initiatives, such as Willow Crossing, Perley Street and the Eastside Drive townhouses.

It is clear that the lack of affordable housing creates a hardship on our citizens at the low and middle income levels. We believe it has the potential to threaten New Hampshire's economic health and future as well. Therefore, we applaud any efforts to increase the availability of affordable homes in our community and our state and encourage our representatives and senators to re-fund the Affordable Housing Fund in the capital budget.

(Ed Barnwell is president of the United Way of Merrimack County Board of Governors. Mary DeVeau is chair of the Community Provider Network of Central New Hampshire.)(next page »)