By Shamecca Brown-Granite State News Collaborative
The homelessness crisis isn’t suddenly new in New Hampshire, but I’m seeing more people experiencing homelessness.
And as somebody who lives in Concord, works here, raises a family here and pays attention to what is happening around me, I have to ask a very simple question: Where the hell are people supposed to go?
And let me be clear: Yes, there are shelters, but that’s what makes this conversation more complicated, and more important.
Concord has the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness, the Edna McKenna House, the Friends Program has emergency housing and other resources. The city maintains a list of shelters and homelessness resources.
The Concord Coalition to End Homelessness also operates a resource center where people can get showers, laundry, computers, phones, help with benefits, housing applications, case management and connections to other services. That work matters – a lot. And the people doing the work deserve recognition because they are trying to hold together a system that is dealing with a problem much bigger than a single organization.
But we need to stop patting ourselves on the back simply because the resources exist on paper. A resource center isn’t a bedroom. A shower isn’t a bed. A housing application isn’t an apartment. And a referral isn’t the same thing as having somewhere safe to sleep tonight.
The Concord Coalition’s emergency winter shelter is a low-barrier shelter for adults. It operates from Dec. 1 through March 31, from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., and has 40 beds. Forty.
During the 2025-26 winter season, that 40-bed shelter served 172 unique people, provided 4,466 bed nights, and averaged 37 guests per night over 121 nights. Thirty-seven people per night, on average, in a 40-bed shelter. That doesn’t sound like an empty system waiting for people to show up. It sounds like a system operating pretty damn close to capacity.
But here’s another uncomfortable reality: The emergency winter shelter is seasonal, December through March. What happens from April to November?
Outside of the emergency winter shelter, the coalition says it does not provide emergency housing. People needing emergency housing are directed to call 211 for referrals. Again, I’m not attacking the coalition. I’m asking whether the community has enough emergency housing options for the people who need them.
Not the finish line
We need to understand that homelessness doesn’t look one particular way. It can be the person sleeping in a tent, or in their car, or surfing from one friend’s house to another. It can be a mother and her children staying somewhere temporarily because they have nowhere else to go, or somebody who lost a job, or whose rent increased, or has left an abusive relationship. Some homeless people are dealing with mental-health or substance use challenges. Or they can be someone who had a financial emergency that turned into three, and suddenly the math stopped math-ing.
And sometimes it is simply somebody who cannot find an affordable place to live.
So when I see somebody sleeping outside, I don’t automatically think: “What’s wrong with them?” I think: “What happened to them?” And then I think: “What happens next?”
An emergency shelter is important, but it is not the finish line.
The goal should be getting somebody from outside into stable housing, and that requires more than a bed. It requires affordable housing. Permanent supportive housing. Mental health services. Substance use treatment. Employment support. Transportation. Benefits assistance. Identification documents. Case management.
And, sometimes, somebody willing to keep working with a person after they have fallen down five times.
The Concord Coalition reports that from July 2025 through June 2026, its resource center served 59 unique clients per month, had 369 case management clients, helped 135 people with housing applications, and helped 43 people get housed. Those numbers tell that people aren’t simply looking for somewhere to sleep. They’re looking for a way out.
So maybe the question shouldn’t be: “Why are there homeless people in Concord?” Maybe it should be: “What are we doing to make sure people don’t have to remain homeless?”
The same is true for Manchester and other places around New Hampshire. Because this isn’t a Concord problem. It’s a New Hampshire problem. And I’m not asking for someone to magically solve homelessness. I’m asking us to stop pretending that having a list of shelters means the problem is solved. That’s the conversation we need to have before the temperature drops, not after.
Shamecca Brown is a New Hampshire-based columnist who is family-oriented and passionate about serving underserved communities. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.