This past election cycle, Mayor Ruais promised a different approach to the homelessness crisis. Unfortunately, he seems poised to repeat some of the immoral and ineffective policies of past administrations.
The cafe’s example of giving is but one among many people and organizations from all walks of life doing what they can to assist Manchester’s homeless community.
Over the weekend a group of about 30 people, many of whom have been living homeless in the city for well over a year, returned to a nomadic existence. They were moved several times by police who have been citing them for various violations of city ordinances that address sidewalk encumbrances and public/private property.
Addressing Gov. Chris Sununu’s budget director, officials with DHHS argued that the state had been underfunding the shelters in the state for years. Currently, the state allocates just under $5 million in state funds per year; the department asked Sununu to fund them at $12 million per year in his next proposed budget.
The shelter for women is one of three shelter initiatives the city has stood up since the beginning of January to meet the need for basic shelter for the homeless.
“I’m grateful that the meeting occurred and I think it was eye-opening for the state to hear directly from the mayors, and what we are encountering in our communities,” Mayor Joyce Craig said of the Jan. 20 meeting with DHHS interim commissioner Lori Weaver and others in Concord.
A fire underneath the I–293 northbound bridge in Manchester was temporarily closed Wednesday morning after a fire was reported at a homeless encampment.
I didn’t want to write anything today. Then I got a text message and a voicemail from two separate people around Manchester telling me they are living in their cars with no place to go. I am a community organizer with Rights & Democracy, not a social worker, but people are increasingly coming to me for help – help I’m unable to provide.
New Hampshire is in the midst of a housing crisis that extends beyond the shortage of market-rate units, past the working poor to include the state’s homeless population, a problem that has been accelerated by a lapse in statewide emergency housing funding and an increasing number of people being evicted after the COVID-19 eviction moratorium expired over the summer.
Activists organized in Veterans Park ahead of Tuesday’s scheduled Board of Aldermen meeting in protest of an ordinance aimed at the homeless pertaining to camping, shopping carts and bicycles in public parks.