Housing Challenges & Solutions

Engagement, Policy, and Communications

Empowering informed decision-making, the Engagement, Policy and Communications Group drives positive change in New Hampshire’s housing landscape through innovative research, strategic communications, impactful publications, and targeted marketing efforts. By collaborating with community partners and advocating for balanced, diverse, and affordable housing policies, the group aims to shape effective solutions, influence policy, and foster thriving communities. Key functions of the group include: Providing critical housing data and research, offering technical assistance, developing outreach communications, and building partnerships to strengthen advocacy. 

Housing Challenges and Solutions

New Hampshire’s economic well-being depends on a sufficient supply of housing to support our diverse workforce. By ensuring there is a balanced and affordable supply of housing in our state, New Hampshire businesses – present and future – will view our state as an attractive place to operate and for their employees to live and work. In our communities, the interplay of demand, demographics, land use regulations, development, geography, and other factors can make it difficult to find affordable housing solutions for our workforce. NH Housing works with local, regional, and state organizations to promote discussions in our communities about preserving and creating a variety of housing. 

The Community Engagement team at NH Housing provides technical assistance to municipalities and housing coalitions with the goal of helping Granite States understand how our programs and products advance housing across the state. Approaching your community’s housing challenges – and the possible solutions – with curiosity, creativity, and willingness to explore is key. Our team can help you understand how to engage community members to look at tools and techniques to expand housing diversity, supply, and affordability. 

Meet our team: 

The Issues, Challenges, and Solutions

Housing terminology can be confusing. Click here for definitions of commonly used terms!

While there is agreement that New Hampshire has a housing crisis, how to address the housing shortfall will require a multi-pronged focus. There are many reasons for the shortage, some of them are: a misalignment between housing supply and future demand, shifts in housing preferences among younger generations, and an aging population. In particular, restrictive city and town land use regulations have made it difficult for developers to add new housing stock in communities around the state.

Resources

To support the efforts of housing advocates, public officials, builders and developers, employers, and citizens talk about housing needs throughout our state, NH Housing has a number of resources available:

• Publications and Reports – A collection of PDF reports and documents to help talk about housing.
• Housing and Demographic Data – Visit our dashboard page for up to date analysis on trends of statewide MLS housing data.
• Housing Fact or Fiction – Series of short films that tackle commonly held misconceptions about housing, and how we can turn the facts into housing solutions.
• Housing Education Grants – Available for technical assistance and education/advocacy efforts.
• Fact Sheets – Click any of the images below for PDF versions of one-page fact sheets on Workforce Housing, Manufactured Housing, and ADUs!