A second unhoused man in Concord has filed a federal lawsuit challenging New Hampshire’s loitering law, and the ACLU is asking a judge to consolidate it with an earlier, similar case.
Robert Gaynor, 42, filed the lawsuit on Oct. 8 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire. With it, Gaynor filed a motion to consolidate his case with one filed in September 2025 by another unhoused man, Robert Clark.
Clark has since found housing and now lives in Franklin. But he still returns to Concord often, both to use services and to visit his father.
Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) New Hampshire represent both plaintiffs.
Gilles Bissonnette, an attorney with the ACLU, said another person coming forward shows the magnitude of the issue.
“This law is incredibly problematic and allows for police to arbitrarily stop people based on their subjective discretion,” he said.
New Hampshire’s loitering or prowling law states: “A person commits a violation if he knowingly appears at a place, or at a time, under circumstances that warrant alarm for the safety of persons or property in the vicinity.”
Reasons for alarm can include running from police, concealing one’s identity, possession of tools that could be used in a burglary, or inspecting the entrances to a building.
In both lawsuits, the plaintiffs argue that the state’s loitering statute is unconstitutionally vague, that it violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments by denying due process and permitting unreasonable searches and seizures, and that it disproportionately targets the homeless population.
Between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2023, the 6th Circuit Court District Division dismissed 23 loitering cases brought by the Concord Police Department.
Ten of those cases, or 43%, involved unhoused individuals, according to the ACLU.
“Without consolidation, there is a possibility of inconsistent or conflicting rulings at the various stages of this case,” Gaynor’s motion states.
Gaynor’s complaint says he has been unhoused for seven years and currently sleeps outside in northern Concord.
He has been charged with loitering multiple times. In one case, police charged him while he stood under the Water Street Bridge in Concord, and a judge later ruled the seizure unlawful, the lawsuit states.
The cases of Clark and Gaynor are not isolated.
According to data compiled by the ACLU, the violation of the loitering law was charged about 260 times across 244 cases filed in New Hampshire courts between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2025.
More than 83% of those charges were filed in the New Hampshire Circuit Court system, which handles violation-level and misdemeanor offenses.
The complaint also argues that “New Hampshire’s loitering law is both an outlier and a relic.”
