Parallel projects underway to address housing shortages in Laconia

Carmen Lorentz, executive director of Lakes Region Community Developers, said her organization has closed
on this property on Bay Street. She expects to break ground this spring on an apartment building that will
provide shelter as well as mental health services to people currently unhoused or at risk of experiencing
homelessness. (Adam Drapcho/The Laconia Daily Sun photo)

The Lakes Region’s housing shortage has been brewing for years, with several, sometimes overlapping, causes. Those working to fix the issue say there won’t be a single fix: any solution would have to be as varied as the causes for why people might find themselves without housing.

A couple of those solutions, which have each been in the planning stages for months if not years, are reaching a point where they might soon move from paper to concrete, and the people behind the plans say they hope to start housing people in 2025.

Bay Street

Lakes Region Community Developers, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding affordable housing, first brought its plan for a small apartment building offering efficiency units coupled with case management by Lakes Region Mental Health Center to city boards more than a year ago. It took nearly a full year, but the project finally got approval late in 2023, and Carmen Lorentz, executive director, said she expects to break ground on the project this spring.

The new apartment building will be constructed on a Bay Street lot that currently features a burned-out home vacant since a catastrophic fire in February 2022. In its place, LRCD plans to build a 12-unit, single occupancy apartment building.

Lorentz has described the project as being intended to house people who are currently unhoused or at risk of homelessness. The building will include an office for case managers from LRMHC.

A dozen units is modest in the face of the problem, Lorentz acknowledged, but she countered that any meaningful project must be built somewhere that’s walkable to city services and employment. In order to achieve affordability, it needs to be able to connect to city water and sewer infrastructure.

“If anyone has an idea for another site, we’d be happy to hear it,” Lorentz said.

Referring to the size of this project, she said it was important to do what was achievable.

“It’s not the kind of thing where one project is going to solve the problem,” she said. Funding sources are limited, and building regulations provide “multiple constraints. … We’re talking about having to do multiple projects of this nature in order to make a dent in this problem.”

The Bay Street project might be small, but is also serving as a kind of pilot. It’s the first project LRCD has attempted that will combine single-occupancy apartments with case management for mental health services. She said she expects some residents to use the housing as an opportunity to stabilize their life and then move on to another living situation, while other residents will live there for many years.

The Bay Street building is expected to cost $2.67 million, with funds coming from NH Housing’s Supportive Housing Program, a Community Development Block Grant and a conventional loan. Lorentz said she is still waiting on an InvestNH grant for $60,000 the city applied for, to help pay for demolition of the existing structure.

Pallet village

It’s never been done in New Hampshire before, but in Boston and in Burlington, Vermont, some success has been found with the use of so-called “pallet villages,” clusters of small homes, each not much larger than a tent, which can provide a measure of security necessary for people seeking to escape homelessness.

The idea is being developed by the Mayor’s Housing Task Force. Daisy Pierce, a member of the task force’s steering committee, said she will present the plan to council at a meeting on Monday, Feb. 12.

The pallet homes, which look similar in size to a garden shed, are indeed small — tiny, even — but Pierce said they are a cost-effective way to provide safety, shelter and privacy.

“It’s safer than a tent, it’s warmer than a tent, they can lock their belongings,” Pierce said. “It’s a little village and people will have their own little community.”

Having a safe and warm place to sleep at night, and a secure place to keep important items such as documents and medication, provides space in a person’s life for them to build for a better future, Pierce said.

“Each pallet shelter can lock, that means that at night they’re sleeping and safe, but during the day they can go on a job interview, or run errands, and know that their stuff is safe,” Pierce said.

The task force plan is to construct around 30 pallet shelters in one location. The smallest units would be able to accommodate either a single person or a couple, and Pierce said they would like to add at least a few large enough for a family.

The cost is estimated at $2.1 million, she said. A couple locations are currently under consideration, though Pierce said the pallet village would need to be somewhere within walking distance to downtown.

The current plan for the village is to make it open to people who are currently unhoused and connected to at least one local social service agency. Pierce said it would be a “low-barrier shelter,” in that sobriety would not be a requirement for residency. Tenants wouldn’t be able to use substances onsite, however.

The intention for the pallet village is to provide a transition opportunity, a possibility for people to have their immediate safety needs met, while they work on finding longer-term housing.

Tim Joubert, the city’s fire chief and a member of the task force, said even moving people from a tent in the woods to a secure, fixed address would be a benefit to city services.

Joubert said he’s spoken to officials in Burlington, and found the pallet village there was not a meaningful source of emergency calls.

“The impact was minimal, because it’s a managed care system, there are people in charge there, the people living in that community are identified and their needs are being met,” Joubert said. “The use of 911 wasn’t needed there, they are already in a system of care.”

That’s in stark contrast to the situation of unmanaged homelessness, where people are often pushed into makeshift shelters such as tents, which they place in areas that are hard to find, and often difficult to access.

A routine medical call, Joubert said, usually takes two personnel from the fire department to handle. But when someone in a homeless encampment is in medical crisis, it takes usually at least seven people to respond. “It takes a lot of manpower to go in and find someone, and then to carry them out,” he said. “It does have an impact on what we do.”

Joubert praised the work of the task force. “One thing we keep talking about is that there’s not one solution to this project,” he said. “It’s going to be a handful of things to improve the situation, it’s looking at it from all sides.”

Shawn Rowell, 56, has had two experiences with homelessness. The first came as a young man, when he was experiencing alcoholism. He’s been sober for more than 30 years, but still found himself in the situation so many do, when one misfortune spun him back into crisis.

Last summer, Rowell was riding his bike in Concord, on the way to a friend’s house where he was planning to stay for a while. Someone jumped out from the shadows and knocked him from his bike, beat him and stole everything they could take from him — his wallet, his banking information, his identification and his bike.

“I had a support network, but my phone was stolen from me, and I was unable to reach out. I was in a predicament,” Rowell said.

Despite the fact that Rowell held firm to his sobriety, he still fell into homelessness. He knew, though, he had many contacts in Laconia, so he made his way here and, after six weeks of living unhoused, he was able to start to rebuild again.

“I was able to piece my life back together, through my faith and people who really love and care for me,” Rowell said. He’s currently living in a sober home in Laconia, where he has gone through recovery coach training and helps other people to wrest back control over their lives.

He said the recent experience with homelessness gave him a fresh perspective.

“It’s a trauma within itself, becoming homeless, dealing with the basic needs of everyday living: hygiene, toiletries, all that stuff. People don’t realize the burden that takes,” he said. “The basic need for survival came first. Where am I going to eat, where am I going to sleep tonight? Those basic survival needs come first and foremost.”

That’s the power of transitional housing, he said. It allows people to take certain basics for granted, and instead think about their longer-term needs and desires.

“It’s just that hand-up, everything would be in one place. … It’s a stepping stone to a better solution, a more permanent solution,” and the current two proposals in development are only the first of many such stepping stones needed, Rowell said. “More low-income housing, being able to direct them into jobs, job training, mental health counseling, substance abuse counseling, all those hands-up are hugely lacking in the community right now.

“Some people are working really hard, compassionately and empathetically, to change that,” Rowell added. “It really goes to my heart. I can’t keep what I have unless I share it. By sharing my message of hope with others, it gives them hope.”

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