New Hampshire Humanities faces a new reality after abrupt withdrawal of federal support

Funding cuts have a ripple effect on cultural programming, communities across the state

By Kelly Burch, Granite State News Collaborative

Funding cuts have a ripple effect on cultural programming, communities across the stateThis spring, about 1,100 people — more than live in the entire town — visited a former elementary school in Jefferson to view a Smithsonian exhibit about rural America. 

Schoolchildren, elderly residents and everyone in between discussed the present and past of the North Country, creating new bonds within the community.

“We don’t know each other well, but we are starting to now,” said Joe Marshall, president of the Jefferson Historical Society, which orchestrated the event. “This brought a lot of people together, and everybody has really really enjoyed it.”

The exhibit, which has since moved to Plymouth, took place in part through a $3,000 grant from New Hampshire Humanities, a nonprofit that distributes federal funding to support humanities activities — those that explore culture, history and social values. Last year, grants from the organization touched 172 of New Hampshire’s 234 cities and towns, said Michael Haley Goldman, executive director of the organization.  

The Smithsonian exhibit, ‘Crossroads: Change in Rural America,’ drew hundreds of people to the North Country town of Jefferson this spring. The exhibit was ‘a real game changer’ for the community, says Joe Marshall, president of the Jefferson Historical Society. (Courtesy Jefferson Historical Society).

But similar programs across the state are facing an uncertain future — and some are already canceled — because of federal funding cuts. In April, the National Endowment for the Humanities canceled nearly all its grants, including to New Hampshire Humanities, to comply with requests from the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. In turn, NH Humanities has had to reduce its own grantmaking, canceling grants to a program exploring artificial intelligence in Hampton Falls and Holocaust education in Meredith, among others. 

“We’re already thinking about cutting back on the programs we’re going to offer next year because the funding has ceased,” said JerriAnne Boggis, executive director of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, which depends on grants from NH Humanities for its Tea Talks series exploring the Black experience.

At the same time, funding has been halted for Granite State organizations that had received grants directly from the National Endowment for the Humanities, including the state’s largest-ever humanities grant, awarded to support a library currently under construction in Mont Vernon. 

“It’s a betrayal,” said Cindy Raspiller, a trustee at the Mont Vernon Library. “It sounds harsh, but it’s an apt word.”

‘A real game changer’

Each year, NH Humanities has received about $900,000 from the federal endowment. A large portion of that money must be matched through private fundraising, bringing the organization’s operating budget to $1.6 million annually, said Haley Goldman. The organization doesn’t receive any state government funding.

NH Humanities then makes 20 to 25 grants each year to support organizations around the state, Haley Goldman said. That includes major project grants of up to $10,000 and mini-project grants of up to $2,000. 

In addition, NH Humanities provides ongoing programs for organizations like libraries, schools and community groups around the state. One of its most popular programs — Humanities to Go — is a speaker series.

With the funding cuts, many of those operations are on pause. So far this fiscal year, NH Humanities has awarded about two-thirds of its allocated grant funding, Haley Goldman said. Programs that have already been promised a commitment will go ahead, but the other third of grant dollars will not be given out, and NH Humanities is not accepting applications for in-house programs such as Humanities to Go or Perspectives, a book group. 

Instead, the organization is focused on making sense of its new funding reality. 

“We’re really trying to figure out what’s sustainable for next year,” Haley Goldman said. “There is a sustainable path forward, which relies on the support of the community."

Funding from NH Humanities has a ripple effect for communities. The Jefferson Historical Society, for example, used its $3,000 grant for the Smithsonian exhibit as a “springboard to generate all the other in-kind dollars,” Marshall said. It also led to community partnerships and connections that will continue long after the exhibit leaves. 

“This is a real game changer,” Marshall said. 

‘Deep conversations’

Last fall, the Cohen Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College received a grant from NH Humanities to host a series of book groups centered on the book “Treblinka: Archaeological and Artistic Responses,” which explores the response to human remains and artifacts found at the notorious Nazi concentration camp in Poland. 

The recent showing in Jefferson of ‘Crossroads: Change in Rural America’ led to community partnerships and connections that will continue long after the exhibit leaves, says Joe Marshall, president of the Jefferson Historical Society. (Courtesy Jefferson Historical Society).

Participants received the book for free and were invited to attend a lecture by author Caroline Sturdy Colls last September. 

The program “opened up deep conversations about the meaning of human remains (both historically and today), and it also inspired some of my own students at (Keene State College) to delve deeper into the field of forensic anthropology,” said Kate Gibeault, director of the Cohen Institute.

In addition, the funding allowed the Cohen Institute to partner with other libraries and schools across the state “in ways that otherwise wouldn’t have been feasible,” Gibeault said. 

Often, NH Humanities grants support programs that are replicable in other communities, amplifying the impact of the dollars spent. 

“It’s one of the things that is special about New Hampshire — being able to share this information freely,” said Erin Sniderman, outreach librarian at the Hampton Falls Free Library. 

Sniderman has used NH Humanities funding in the past to create events that weave together Hampton Falls’ past and present, including a 2023 historical display and expert lecture about indigenous artifacts in town, after a community reading of “Braiding Sweetgrass,” a book that brings together indigenous wisdom and science. 

“Being able to pull all of these elements in together … we wouldn’t be able to do that without the humanities funding,” Sniderman said. 

Sniderman was planning a similar community event this summer, exploring the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics. The program was meant to serve as a template that other libraries could use to open discussions about those technologies, but it’s been scaled back now that NH Humanities isn’t making new grants. 

Some elements — such as a robot petting zoo — have found other funding sources, but without funding from NH Humanities, “we lose those professional scholars,” Sniderman said. “We get the toys, but we don’t get the education.”

A small library forges ahead

Mont Vernon is a small town of about 2,500 people in Hillsborough County. It’s also the location of the largest National Endowment for the Humanities grant in New Hampshire’s history: $655,000 to support construction of a new library. 

“We were very impressed with ourselves that we won,” said Raspiller, the library trustee.

Winning the grant — one of 23 given out nationwide — was only the beginning, however. The grant required $4 in matching funds for each $1 of grant money. The community met the challenge, and last September broke ground on the new library, which is slated to be finished in the fall, Raspiller said. 

So far, the project has collected about $164,000 from the national endowment, but on April 29 Raspiller received a notification that the grant had been terminated. No appeals process was available, the notice said. 

Now, the town is left scrambling to finish the library without the federal funding. Luckily — with many adjustments and with contingency funding — the project remains on track, but the loss of the grant is a major upset. 

A Smithsonian exhibit came to Jefferson earlier this spring, in part thanks to a $3,000 grant from NH Humanities. Similar programs are now under threat due to federal funding cuts. (Courtesy Jefferson Historical Society).

“It’s a little like someone tripping you at mile 25 of the marathon,” said Bonnie Angulas, library director in Mount Vernon. “You know you’re going to finish, but you might crawl across the line.”

The substantial federal humanities grant wasn’t a win just for Mont Vernon, Angulas said, but for New Hampshire as a whole. Each day she was fielding calls from other librarians, asking for advice on their own grant applications. 

“They were so hopeful about this project,” she said. After the cancellation, “it’s a little disheartening to everyone. … The federal government should come through on their promise.”

Planning for the future

Previous grant recipients say less funding for NH Humanities could lead to fewer community events and deeper discussions that bring people together. 

“Grants like these are critical in ensuring that all community members have access to conversations about what it means to be human,” said Gibeault of the Cohen Institute. 

Boggis, of the Black Heritage Trail, said that, just as the grants have a ripple effect, so does their cancellation.

“The trickle-down effect of this loss of funds is more than that one grant,” she said. “It’s felt in the community.”

Small organizations that “can’t go one season without that support may never come back,” she added.

Nevertheless, NH Humanities will continue to exist, no matter what happens with federal funding, Haley Goldman emphasized. 

“We see a path to sustainability without the federal funding because of the type of support we’ve had within the state,” he said. “Not every state is feeling as fortunate.”

In April, the Mellon Foundation announced $15 million in emergency funding to state humanities councils, including NH Humanities. That infusion of about $200,000, plus possible matching funds, will allow NH Humanities “to start next financial year in a much better place,” said Haley Goldman. Yet the organization is still working hard to decide what its new normal will look like without federal funds. That loss remains “detrimental,” he said, especially at a moment when Americans are feeling increasingly disconnected from those around them. 

"The cultural work of our communities isn’t a nice bonus if we can do it,” he said. “It’s the core of what we do as a society.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

60 years later, Community Action Programs are still on the front lines of fighting poverty

Amid threats to their funding, CAPs around New Hampshire remain determined to provide assistance

By Scott Merrill, Granite State News Collaborative

Sixty years after President Lyndon Johnson declared a “War on Poverty” and launched his vision for a “Great Society,” the ideals of equal opportunity and human dignity can feel distant, especially amid moves right now to roll back the programs and initiatives enacted in the 1960s that were meant to uplift marginalized communities.

A Head Start classroom in Tamworth that’s run by the Tri-County Cap. (Courtesy Tri-County Cap)

Among programs in the crosshairs are the funding sources for over 1,000 Community Action Agencies across the country — including five in New Hampshire – that were created through the landmark Economic Opportunity Act in 1964. The agencies administer anti-poverty initiatives such as Head Start and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program and distribute food to pantries and soup kitchens. 

In his 2026 budget request, President Donald Trump is seeking to eliminate the $770 million Community Services Block Grant program, a key funding stream exclusively for Community Action Agencies. Though relatively modest, the grants are highly flexible.They’re used to fill service gaps, support clients who fall outside typical funding categories and leverage additional resources. Last year, New Hampshire’s share of that block grant funding totaled nearly $4 million, helping local Community Action Programs attract an additional $152 million from federal, state, local, and private sources. Agency officials warn that losing the block grants could seriously undermine their ability to secure matching funds.

Trump’s budget request would eliminate the $4 billion Low-Income Heating Assistance Program,  and in March the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a $500 million funding cut for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which supplies USDA food to Community Action Programs for distribution.

Amid the uncertainty, the agencies still quietly carry out President Johnson’s vision of providing food, housing, job training and financial literacy services to thousands in the Granite State and millions across the country, and CAP leaders in New Hampshire remain committed.

“What I really love about community action is that we are built to respond to specific community needs,” said Betsy Andrews Parker, CEO of the Dover-based Community Action Partnership of Strafford County. “We are truly the backbone of keeping people fed, housed, warm and in jobs, and most people don’t even realize it’s us doing that work.”

Every corner of the state

The Community Action Partnership of New Hampshire  — a collaboration of the state’s five Community Action agencies — is celebrating its 60th anniversary in May. The agencies serve every corner of the state, from the North Country south to the Monadnock Region and the Seacoast, and provided services last year to 111,638 low-income individuals in New Hampshire. Last winter, the LIHEAP program alone provided fuel assistance to 28,235 low-income individuals — those who earn 60% or less of the state median income. They received an average benefit of $1,049.

• SIDEBAR: CAPs: At the heart of food distribution in New Hampshire

  In Berlin, 74-year-old George Sanschagrin volunteers for the Tri-County Community Action Program, which runs the Senior Center of Coös County’s Senior Meals Program. 

  He does everything at the center, from fixing doors to delivering hot meals, often offering a warm hello to folks who might not see anyone else that day.

  Sanschagrin, who retired from millwork at age 62, calls volunteering the best decision he ever made. “I started volunteering after retirement and I’ve been volunteering ever since,” he said. Much of his work involves serving and delivering food to North Country seniors.

  Among the most essential yet under-recognized roles Community Action Programs play in New Hampshire is food distribution, says Betsy Andrews Parker, CEO of the Strafford County CAP. 

  “If you want to see something incredible, watch the tractor-trailers roll up to our agencies and start distributing thousands of pounds of food,” she said. “That food is what supplements nearly every food pantry and soup kitchen in the state.”

  Much of that food comes through TEFAP — The Emergency Food Assistance Program — which supplies U.S. Department of Agriculture food to agencies such as Tri-County CAP. In March, the USDA paused half of TEFAP’s funding, $500 million.

  The scale of food distribution is massive, said Michael Tabory, chief operating officer of the Concord-based Community Action Partnership of Belknap and Merrimack Counties. “Last year, we distributed over 4 million pounds of food. That’s more than $6 million worth, reaching over 225 organizations and about 25,000 households each month.”

  Sanschagrin, born and raised in Berlin, worked for 32 years in the city’s once-thriving mills. His French-Canadian family was part of the town’s industrial fabric. 

  “Back in the day, you had to know someone to get a job at the mill,” he says. “It was a real community — French Canadians on one side of town, Italians and English on the other.”

  That community spirit lives on in Sanschagrin. At the senior center, he sharpens knives, assembles furniture, unpacks food, installs bolts and serves garlic bread — his specialty — on pasta days. “I have all kinds of tools. I can do a lot of stuff,” he says. “Whatever needs to be done.”

  Beth Daniels, CEO of Southwestern Community Services, the CAP based in Keene, says the impact of its food distribution goes well beyond groceries. “We’re also providing administrative infrastructure — completing the paperwork, organizing the distribution, making it possible for tiny volunteer-run pantries to exist,” she said. “It’s not just food. We’re supporting a whole system that delivers the food.”

  Food programs are especially vital for seniors, Tabory said: “Meals on Wheels, for instance, is more than just food. It helps seniors stay in their homes longer by providing daily welfare checks and socialization.”

  In Berlin, Sanschagrin’s dedication extends beyond the senior center. He also delivers meals to more than 100 seniors through the home-delivered meals program. For many, those visits are more than a delivery — they’re a lifeline.

  “You don’t just knock and leave the meal,” Sanschagrin said. “You knock, talk to them a bit. Sometimes it’s the only person they’ll talk to all day.”

From shelter beds to food boxes and job training, New Hampshire's CAPs offer a wide range of services, often using volunteers, and tailor their work to meet local needs. While offerings vary slightly across the state’s five CAPs, core programs remain consistent nationwide. All told, New Hampshire’s CAPs operate more than 70 programs. 

“We’re often the first point of contact when someone needs help,” said Andrews Parker.

“There’s fuel assistance, electric assistance, weatherization, Head Start, emergency food through TEFAP, WIC, senior housing, Meals on Wheels, housing stability services, and even public transit in some places,” said Jeanne Robillard, CEO of Tri-County CAP in Berlin. “No matter where you are in the U.S., there’s a CAP agency doing these things.”

Donnalee Lozeau, CEO of the Community Action Partnership of Hillsborough and Rockingham, was one among the first Head Start students in New Hampshire. She is shown here with her Head Start teacher at the White Wing School in Nashua in 1965. The Head Start program in New Hampshire is administered by CAPs around the state. (Courtesy Donnalee Lozeau)

CAP Hillsborough and Rockingham, based in Manchester, runs workforce development programs that help hundreds throughout southern New Hampshire, and it operates Head Start, Early Head Start and child care programs. CEO Donnallee Lozeau — who herself was part of an early Head Start class as a child in 1965 — said demand is high for the services.

Last year, she said, “we served a total of 432 children, and sadly we have a waitlist. Even if we were fully staffed and opened all the rooms, we would still have a waitlist.”

‘The glue that lets us do the work we do’

Statewide, CAPs serve one in every 13 New Hampshire residents; in the North Country, it’s one in six, Robillard said. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Coös County has a 13.1% poverty rate, the highest in the state. The statewide average is 7.6%.

Beth Daniels, CEO of Keene-based CAP Southwestern Community Services, said her agency provides hundreds of affordable housing units and operates six shelters, with a seventh in winter. In Strafford County, the Community Action Partnership runs almost all homeless services, including a new shelter, rapid rehousing and outreach. 

Daniels’ agency had revenue of $23 million, including money from Community Services Block Grant funds that were shared among all five CAPs statewide. “CSBG is the glue that lets us do the work we do,” she said.

George Sanschagrin is a volunteer for Tri-County Community Action Program in Berlin. Much of his work involves serving and delivering food to North Country seniors. (Photo by Scott Merrill)

CAP leaders say that, while people may know about programs like Head Start, they rarely understand those services fall under the Community Action umbrella, or how interconnected they are.

“We’re helping to keep fuel vendors’ accounts current, reassuring landlords their tenants’ pipes won’t freeze, making sure people have IDs so they can apply for housing,” said Andrews Parker. “None of that would happen without CAPs.”

“Not all the money gets handed directly out the door to clients,” said Michael Tabory, chief operating officer of CAP Belknap-Merrimack in Concord. “A lot of the money stimulates local economies. We hire local contractors for weatherization projects and support fuel providers — money goes back into communities.”

In total, the CAPS in New Hampshire employ a total of over 1,114 staff members and have over 5,000 volunteers.

CAPs receive a mix of federal, state and local funding, along with private donations, to carry out services. The federal block grants are a key source of funding, allowing them to leverage other funds, Robillard said.

The block-grant program “isn’t tied to a specific service area and that’s part of what makes it so powerful,” said Robillard. “Betsy [Andrews Parker] might use hers for a shelter start-up. I might use mine for our low-cost dental clinic. It’s tailored to what the community needs.”

Doris McDonald is another volunteer at the Tri-County CAP’s Berlin Senior Center. (Courtesy Tri-County CAP)

In 2024, New Hampshire Community Acting Programs received $3,965,243 in federal block grants, and a total of $152 million from a variety of sources — other federal funds, private industry, and state funding — all leveraged from CSBG dollars. The state provided CAPs with $6,043,729 last year, which helped fulfill state contracts for a variety of services, including child care and shelters.

As legislators continue their state budget work, it’s unclear how much money will go to the Community Action Programs over the next two years. While the overall N.H. Department of Health and Human Services budget would increase under Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s spending plan, 13 of the 28 sub-agencies within those departments would get less money than they got this fiscal year, according to the N.H. Fiscal Policy Institute. Two of those agencies include child behavioral health and child development.

‘Stability and dignity’

As an example of the flexibility of the block grant funding, Parker pointed to an initiative being undertaken by the Strafford County CAP. It has been awarded money for a new bus to expand bus routes, but needs to make a 5% match. “If we don’t have CSBG dollars, we’ll need to find the match somewhere else,” she said. “Without those funds, we won’t be able to do a lot of the work we do, including training for child care workers, which the state depends on.”

In rural areas, philanthropic support is thin, Robillard said, which makes the block grants even more important. “There are fewer large businesses and wealthy donors to shoulder the burden,” she said. “You can only tap a small donor pool so many times.”

The Community Action executives warn that federal cuts in programs such as LIHEAP and the block grants would harm efforts to lift people out of poverty. Still, they remain hopeful.

“LIHEAP was zeroed out,” Lozeau said, “but I have confidence elected officials have seen the benefit of those dollars and how they help people.”

Adds Robillard: “We’ve been doing this for 60 years. We take a nonpartisan approach to advocacy, but we’re clear: These services are essential.“

Betty Gilcris, health and nutrition director at Tri-County CAP in Berlin remains optimistic about the future of Community Action Programs in New Hampshire. ‘We’ll weather the storm,’ she says. (Photo by Scott Merrill)

Betty Gilcris, health and nutrition director at at the Tri-County CAP in Berlin, also remains optimistic. “We’ll weather the storm,” she said, noting contingency plans are being developed for state-subsidized child care and other programs.

As funding questions loom, CAP leaders say their mission — connecting dollars to human need — has never been more vital.

“We’re helping people move toward stability with dignity,” Andrews Parker said.

Tabory, who worked in the corporate world earlier in his career, said his community action work has set an example for his children. “I look at them and they are sensitive to the needs of other people. They’re conscious of inequalities,” he said. “The fact that I've been able to instill in them the values of community action makes me feel they’re going to be good contributors to society.”

“When it comes right down to it, ” said Robillard, “Community Action Programs are about helping people and changing lives. Our goal is helping families become self-sufficient.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

The impact on New Hampshire of potential massive cuts in public funding for the humanities

Art, culture, literature, thought — collectively, these disciplines and others make up what’s known as the humanities. Recently, the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, cut 80% of the National Endowment for the Humanities’s staff, also cutting almost all grant programs and rescinding grants and program contracts that have already been awarded. Why are the humanities important, and how does public funding help society — and you? Here to explain that, we have two guests — Michael Haley Goldman, executive director of New Hampshire Humanities, and Joe Marshall, president of the Jefferson Historical Society. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Michael, can you give us some background on the cuts? What happened and when? How did you find out?

Michael Haley Goldman:

This has all taken place in just the last few weeks, really. April was when we got notice of the changes in policy. 

It's probably important to take a step back and think about how this federal funding has been coming. New Hampshire Humanities is an independent nonprofit, so we're a little bit different from some of the other groups that have been seeing changes to the federal funding coming in the state, like the State Library or the State Council for the 

We aren't part of the state government, but we do have an affiliation with the National Endowment for the Humanities, meaning that, even though we're a nonprofit, we receive federal funding that is matched by private funding here in the state of New Hampshire. That federal funding is something that we usually get in about a five-year contract, and we received notice late on April 2nd that an email came out from the National Endowment for the Humanities indicating that our existing grants in contract had been fully canceled. 

So that means all funding before April 1st was stopped, which is about $500,000 of funding for New Hampshire Humanities to support the cultural sector of New Hampshire that was pretty much unavailable in the middle of our year.

Melanie Plenda:

What impact has this had so far on New Hampshire Humanities and New Hampshire?

Michael Haley Goldman:

I’ve been proud to say that we've been able to head off a lot of the worst possible impacts. But that doesn't mean there's not been a lot of damage here in New Hampshire from this change. We've been as careful and clever as we can be in using the funding that we have available. All of the grants that we give out — we usually give out more than $100,000 in direct grants each year — that we had already scheduled are going out, but there's about $40,000 that we were planning to, with the second half of the year, that's just not going out to New Hampshire. 

We had to reduce it by a little less than 100 programs this year. That's usually hundreds of programs that we do around the state that we basically fund in what you could call mini-grants.

Melanie Plenda:

Joe, please tell us about the Jefferson Historical Society and its work with New Hampshire Humanities. 

Joe Marshall:

The Jefferson Historical Society is also an independent nonprofit, and we are staffed entirely by volunteers. Our mission is to preserve and promote the town of Jefferson's history.

In regards to Michael and his staff and our deepening relationship with them over the past couple years, we applied for us to be able to present an exhibition, “Crossroad Changes in Rural America.” We worked with Michael and his team through that application process. 

Through the process as we were ultimately chosen to be one of the venues to host the exhibit,our relationship with the humanities has deepened, and it is become extremely obvious to us as to how important it is for organizations like ourselves, to be able to bring what is really quite a large event to our community, and it's all been through the help of the New Hampshire Humanities.

There's been a tremendous, tremendous amount of training in personal work and site visits and just overall support and encouragement through the humanities to essentially help all of us bring our communities together up here.

Melanie Plenda:

And Joe, that exhibit is going on now. What impact has the society or Jefferson seen from it?

Joe Marshall:

In regards to Jefferson, we have been through quite a little bit, as with everybody else, during the tail end of COVID. We lost our town hall to a fire in February of 2021, and with that, we had to find a new home for the town to do its work. We are now situated in what's known as the Jefferson Community Center, and it's a very large building, a former elementary school, and is being repurposed to house the community. 

That is when we applied for the exhibit. It was kind of a crossroads moment for us as a community, with this type of venue becoming available to us. As far as I'm concerned, and I know there are many others that feel the same way, it has enhanced our ability to function as a community and brought people together in a way that we have not been able to do previously. So we're pretty excited about that and what it opens up to us for the future. 

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s talk more about the benefits of the humanities. What are the tangible, or perhaps in tangible, benefits for having the humanities and these public programs? 

Michael Haley Goldman:

People get hung up on this idea of “what is the humanities?” and you can go through this laundry list of academic subjects, but what I think is really important, what's often maybe intangible, is what the humanities does, and at the heart of that is how it brings people together in community. Just like what's happening in Jefferson, just like what's going to be happening around the project at the Museum of the White Mountains at Plymouth State University.

It's really about the way that we come together to talk about who we are as individuals, talk about who we are as communities, and talk about where we're going. The humanities is the fabric within which all of that happens. When we go into communities, we are trying to help those communities do what they want to do as a group. We are about how they come together to talk about the problems they have, about what's important to them, about how they see their challenges and their solutions — all of those things come naturally out in the kind of humanities program that we do. We've been learning over the last 50 years as an organization, how to create the environment for that to happen. 

Joe Marshall:

We've had this fantastic run of togetherness within our community. This has been something that has built a great deal of anticipation over the past two years, brought the community together, and that has been a wonderful thing to see. I believe it's helped us as an organization, and it will help us in the future. We cannot thank the humanities enough for what they've done to help us move forward. 

Michael and his group have promoted and made available to us some of those “New Hampshire Humanities To Go” programs. We've had four of them here, and it has brought in incredible audiences and tremendous speakers, and it is really bringing that community aspect, and I can’t say this enough. I can just see this after all this happening just moving forward exponentially.

Melanie Plenda:

Michael, you mentioned investing in the humanities. Can you talk about the economic impact of that?  

Michael Haley Goldman:

There's a lot of different numbers, and I will talk about the economic impact, because that  knowledge is really important and a really big part of why it's necessary to have cultural investment within the state. But I also want to remember that economic value is only one value, as we are investing in New Hampshire.

But economically, we know that we have a pretty much a 2-1 investment. So for every dollar of investment from the federal government, there's $2 invested privately to respond to that. And if you look at the creative economy, which we’re a part of and is an affiliated, but not identical, part of what we do, that's more of an average of 5-1.

Even for what we're talking about with Jefferson — this is a small Smithsonian exhibit that my organization and organizations like mine bring to the entire country, and they talk about even larger investments around the idea that this little exhibit is really having something like a 7-1 impact in terms of what it brings to a community, because people come to see an exhibit, and then they spend their time in town spending money that they wouldn't otherwise spend.

So this is really not something that we should see as a free meal that is being given to New Hampshire. It is an investment that brings back far more local investment than what it actually costs us to do in the state.

Melanie Plenda:

Michael, what happens next for New Hampshire Humanities? How will it deal with these cuts going forward?

Michael Haley Goldman:

I think the most important thing for me to say is that we are not going away. We have been in the state for 50 years, and we intend to be here for the next 50 years. But I also can't say that that is going to be as easy as it would have been under other conditions, and that we really need the community to show its support for New Hampshire Humanities and show its support for the cultural sector at large. 

This is a really difficult time for all of the cultural organizations within the state as we look at the possibility that the State Council for the Arts might be dropped from the state budget. I realize that is not final yet, but the fact that we're even talking about that as a real concern. The fact that the Institute for Museum and Library Services, which is one of the least-known federal groups but is a huge underpinning of libraries across New Hampshire through the State Library, is talking about having that funding lost to the state. This is an incredibly important time for groups like mine to be present and to be supporting amazing groups like Joe's and other groups in every city and community. All these places in New Hampshire that need their support to keep these cultural touchstones, these incredible organizations that underpin our communities alive and well and active within New Hampshire, and we intend to do that. But we are going to need culture, we are going to need the support, and we aren't going to do the work at the level that we've been doing if we have half the budget that we had last year. We won’t be in 172 communities next year. We will still be there, but it will be on a much lower level. It’s going to be felt town by town in New Hampshire.

Melanie Plenda:

Well, good luck to you both. Michael Haley Goldman, executive director of New Hampshire Humanities, and Joe Marshall, president of the Jefferson Historical Society. Thank you for joining us. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

How will New Hampshire’s summer tourism industry fare amid a Canadian boycott?

Despite uncertainty and concerns, hospitality businesses try to remain hopeful

By Jon Decker-Granite State News Collaborative

Businesses across the Granite State are bracing for what could be a momentous decline in the number of Canadian tourists this summer, the result of souring relations between the U.S. and its northern neighbor. 

Many Canadians have essentially been boycotting the United States in response to President Trump’s trade policies and rhetoric. The president threatened to make Canada the 51st U.S. state on Jan. 23, shortly after he took office — a threat he has repeated several times since. He followed that up by implementing 25% tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S. 

Since then, land travel has declined 32 percent from March 2024 to March 2025, according to Statistics Canada. The U.S. Travel Association reports air travel from Canada dropped 14% during the same period.

Canada is the top source of international visitors to the U.S. as well as to New Hampshire. In 2024, there were 20.4 million visits by Canadians to the U.S., generating $20.5 billion in spending and supporting 140,000 American jobs.  A 10% reduction in Canadian travel could mean 2 million fewer visits, $2.1 billion in lost spending and 14,000 job losses, the organization estimated.

“It’s not so much the tariffs,” said Nathale Hirte, assistant director of Manchester’s Franco-American Center. “It's the attitude, not of Americans in general. It's the whole ‘Canada is the 51st state,’ disrespect of calling the prime minister the governor. It’s the disrespect towards the country of Canada that has been the biggest impact.”

As a dual citizen, Hirte travels frequently between the two countries to visit family, and vice versa. This year, Hirte says, her family will not be visiting the U.S. They’ve even started avoiding American-made products in their day-to-day shopping. 

“That started before the tariffs. That started more because of the disrespect,” Hirte said. “The attitude is ‘F you Trump.’”

Trump’s comments may even have played a pivotal role in boosting the floundering Canadian Liberal Party to electoral victory last month. 

Stores throughout the country are emphasizing the purchase of Canadian-made products over American ones, while marketing campaigns encourage citizens to travel within the country and keep their money out of the U.S. 

“At night, when I was going through New York and Ohio, I was listening to a Canadian station, AM 740. They have ads every few hours that say, ‘Stay in Canada. Spend your money here,’” said Charlie St. Clair, president of Laconia’s Motorcycle Week, the annual event that will take place this year from June 14 to 22. “There is a concerted effort in Canada to get that message out, and it’s resonating.”

St. Clair heard the ads on his annual journey to spread the word about Motorcycle Week. According to St. Clair, the motorcycle festival world has already been hit by the Canadian travel boycott.  

“It affected Bike Week in Daytona in March,” St. Clair said. “I’ve had nine different people call me personally to say they were canceling their trip to Laconia. They felt it was important enough to call me to say their piece.” 

While nine people doesn’t seem like much, St. Clair iterated that every single Motorcycle Week visitor is economically significant to the Lakes Region. The event attracts between 275,000 and 300,000 bikers each year.

“Even if only 50 tourists don’t come because of this, that equals a lot of money in Motorcycle Week,” St. Clair said. “Talking to other business owners, this is not good.”

St. Clair acknowledged Trump’s ultimate alleged goal of using tariffs to bring manufacturing to the United States, but noted that most of the businesses moved production overseas on their own accord. 

“It’s going to take a long time to build that stuff up,” St. Clair said. “Meanwhile, we're going to suffer greatly, and I don’t know if this is the way to do it. This is just like the high school bully going nuts.”

A sign on display at a liquor store in Vancouver, British Columbia. Stores throughout the country are emphasizing purchasing Canadian-made products over American ones as part of a wider boycott of the U.S., including travel. (Photo by Jeff Feingold)

‘Volatility and uncertainty’

Hirte of the Franco-American Center became a U.S. citizen 29 years ago. Her love of both countries has only made the current situation more painful, she said. 

“It’s so hurtful, sad and stupid, and there’s absolutely no reason for it,” Hirte said of Trump’s tariffs and comments. “I feel bad for those small businesses, especially on the border, that live off of tourism. The businesses, the hotels, how are they going to suffer? They suffered bad enough over the pandemic, and they're finally recovering, now this crap? My heart goes out to them.”

“Certainly, Canadian visitation is a topic of interest right now,” said Mike Somers, president of the N.H. Lodging & Restaurant Association. “We've seen that in the first quarter — Canadian visitation to the northern border was down 20%, or something like that. There is concern that will carry through the important summer season.”

Somers stated that some of his members have already seen cancellations from Canadian visitors, but the exact forecast for the coming summer is uncertain. Decreased gas prices, he said, could offset some of the loss by increasing the total number of drive-in visitors to the state. Anecdotally, Summers said, the areas where Canadians stay — including North Conway, the Lakes Region and Hampton Beach — could account for 5 to 15 percent of New Hampshire tourism. 

“We had a discussion with our board of directors this morning,” Summers said. “Most are anticipating they will be flat, slightly up by the end of this year, maybe next year with slight growth.”

“The whole tariff thing, quite frankly, causes a lot of volatility and uncertainty,” said René Sylvestre, delegate of the Quebec Government Office in Boston. “It costs more for Canadians to travel to the U.S., and more people are afraid to lose their jobs because of the tariffs.”

Sylvestre did say that economic impacts of the tariffs vary greatly from industry to industry, and many Canadian businesses are continuing to trade with their American counterparts. 

“The real impact is around tourism. In Vermont, in New Hampshire, Maine as well,” Sylvestre said. The U.S. immigration crackdown has made traveling in and out of the states a much more uncomfortable process, he said. “More questions are being asked of more travelers, and some are now afraid to travel to the U.S., based on perceptions,” Sylvestre said.

 “It’s unfortunate, the current situation. We have to get through this, because our economies are intertwined, especially upstate New England,” Sylvestre said. “Today I was in Maine, and we get the same kind of comments; ‘I’ve been doing business with Canadians for decades, and we have great business partners, so let's find ways to get through this.’” 

Dampened expectations

Scott Labnon, owner of the Town & Country Inn in Gorham, said he doesn’t expect to be affected by a Canadian travel boycott, but it’s tough to gauge or predict the number of Canadian travelers this early in the season. 

“A pretty good percentage of people don’t book out as far as they used to,” Labnon said. 

According to Butch Ladd, executive director of the North Country Chamber of Commerce, the brunt of the boycott has yet to come to his territory, and it will be a few more weeks before the picture becomes more clear.

“The general thought is that business is probably going to be down,” he said. “I don't think it will be as bad as Covid. If something doesn’t change, there will be people that just decide to spend their money in Canada. I hope not, but I get it.”

At Hampton Beach, John Nyhan, director of the Chamber of Commerce, estimated that Canadians provide 10 to 15 percent of the tourism revenue in his neck of the woods. 

“They’ll spend three to three and a half million (dollars) during their stays at Hampton Beach,” Nyhan said. He expects a drop in the number of Canadian visitors, but “I don’t project it right now to be a massive drop.”

In March, Nyhan and other U.S. Chamber of Commerce heads attended an outdoor recreation event in Montreal to speak face-to-face with Canadians in light of the “confusion in Washington,” he said.

“Everyone coming to our booths were very friendly. We found that the seasoned travelers, the people over 50, would come up and say, ‘We love Hampton Beach, we’ve been coming for years, and we’re going to postpone this year,’” Nyhan said. “Those in the range of 25 to 40, primarily couples, didn't care about what was going on in Washington. They were going to come because they really want outdoor recreation and that the state offers a variety of outdoor recreation, from the mountains to the lakes to the beaches.”

Karmen Gifford, director of the Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce, said she had a similar experience at the expo. 

“‘Not this year’ was the comment that came back, but it was very positive other than that,” Gifford said. “There’s just uncertainty. That’s their way of addressing it.”

Regardless of the economic impact this summer season, the relationship between the two long-term allies is clearly strained.

“Saying sorry is not enough,” Hirte said. “I think the injuries are so deep, it’s like a cancer that needs to be completely cut out. It’s going to take decades.”

But she hopes for signs of improvement over the next few months.

“There are people who still work together, talk to each other, and so on,” she said. “At the end of the day, we live in the same region, so hopefully things will be back to normal.”

She pointed out that her daughter recently drove through Vermont with Nova Scotia license plates on her car and found a note on her windshield that read: 

“Dear Canadian friend, thank you for being here.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

After House passage, bill to allow no-cause evictions is in the hands of the N.H. Senate

Measure would overturn 2005 state Supreme Court ruling requiring ‘good cause’ before tenant can be evicted

By Aimee Rothman-Granite State News Collaborative

Amid New Hampshire’s continuing tight housing market, legislators are considering a bill that threatens to strip what critics see as vital protections for renters, contending it would put thousands at greater risk of eviction and homelessness.

House Bill 60 seeks to remove protections that have been in place since 2005. In March, the House of Representatives approved the bill, and the Senate is now considering it. If approved and signed by the governor, it would go into effect Jan. 1, 2026.

New Hampshire Housing’s 2023 Residential Cost Survey report found that the state had a 0.6% vacancy rate for apartments, far below the 6.6% national average. According to a 2024 analysis by the N.H. Fiscal Policy Institute,  the vacancy rate needed to create a balanced rental market is 5 percent — a percentage not seen in New Hampshire since 2010. 

The result: a 36% jump in the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment — to $1,833 — between 2015 and 2024, according to New Hampshire Housing..

Under HB60, landlords could evict a tenant without cause at the end of a lease period. Since a 2005 N.H. Supreme Court decision, landlords have been required to show “good cause” to evict tenants, even after a lease ends. That means landlords can't simply remove a tenant at the end of a lease without a valid reason. 

Current legal protections for tenants means they ‘can stay at their apartments for perpetuity,’ says House Bill 60 sponsor Robert Lynn, whose bill would eliminate once again allow no-cause evictions at the termination of a lease. The Windham Republican adds that the protections also discourage landlords in the business. (Screenshot)

State Rep. Robert J.  Lynn — a former chief justice of the state’s top court — is the bill’s sponsor. “The Supreme Court decision in 2005 was really the wrong decision,” he said, and HB60 would “ really return the law to what it should have always been.” 

Under current protections, “tenants can stay at their apartments for perpetuity,” Lynn said. By adding expiration of a lease as a “good cause” to evict a tenant,  landlords could feel more encouraged “to take risks on riskier applicants,” such as people who have a low credit score, unstable job history or a criminal record, Lynn said.

According to Lynn, HB60 would simply enforce the terms of a lease agreement in which a tenant and landlord agree that the tenant can live at the apartment and pay rent for an agreed upon period, “which would be mutually beneficial for both tenants and landlords.”

While Lynn acknowledged that landlords “could abuse the law if they had the mind for it,” overall, “landlords are in the business of making money, so it doesn’t line up that they would kick out a good tenant.” 

Bill raises concerns

Housing advocates disagree. They say HB60 could make the search for housing even more competitive for renters and could open the door for no-cause evictions and housing discrimination.

“Our biggest concern as a housing provider is that evictions on tenants’ records make them that much harder to place in housing down the road, and we do everything we can to avoid evictions,” said Betsey Andrews Parker, chief executive officer of the Community Action Partnership of Strafford County. “Otherwise, those that are hard to house — those with bad credit, those with an unstable job history — it’s one more strike against them.”

Senate approval of HB60 would be “an even bigger detriment for tenants and housing advocates in the state,” Andrews Parker said, “It concerns me in an already-tight housing market that we are making it harder for people to obtain housing.”

Housing providers already “did not have adequate resources to meet the demands before our current budget cycle,” she said.

Others in the housing field agree that HB60 could intensify the housing crisis for tenants.

“We’re very concerned about this bill,” said Nick Taylor, director of Housing Action NH. “With the housing market as tight as it is, any increase in evictions or increase in folks who are displaced unnecessarily could lead to increased homelessness, and it is going to be really hard for those folks to find a place that they can afford moving forward.”

He said the bill “is overturning years of precedents when it comes to allowable evictions, and in this market, that is really concerning. There are already processes in place for cause evictions that cover a whole range of reasons why a landlord might want to remove a tenant.”

House Bill 60, which would once again allow no-cause evictions, 'has the potential to increase discrimination against people with mental illness,’ said NAMI NH Executive Director Susan Stearns. (Courtesy photo)

He’s concerned “that if someone is complaining about real repairs that need to be done to their unit, maybe the landlord will say, ‘OK, we’re going to evict you instead of having to deal with your complaints’ and wait for someone else who is more desperate or more willing to go along with the current status of a unit and rent to them.”

The National Alliance on Mental Illness New Hampshire has been following the bill in the Legislature, because “the bill has the potential to increase discrimination against people with mental illness,” said NAMI NH Executive Director Susan Stearns. “There are a lot of areas of significant concern.”

In written testimony submitted to the Senate, Holly Stevens, director of public policy at NAMI NH, stated that “individuals with serious mental health conditions already experience discrimination in the housing rental process. HB60 would only suffice to make it easier for landlords to discriminate against a person who they find out during the tenancy period has a mental illness.“

 “Given the housing crisis facing NH and the overrepresentation of individuals with a mental health condition in the unhoused population, the passage of HB60 would only contribute to the increase of unhoused, hospitalized, or incarcerated individuals with a mental illness,” her testimony concludes.

The bill is currently in the Senate Commerce Committee. It was also tucked into the budget trailer bill (HB2) by the House.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Breaking down the potential fate of key bills in the Legislature after crossover

The current legislative session at the State House is winding down. What have our legislators been up to? And what’s next in the current session? To discuss that is Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating voters about the political process, as well executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This folder is edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

You’ve been following the work at the State House. The Legislature recently had something called crossover. Can you explain to our audience what that is and why it’s important? 

Anna Brown:

Crossover is the last chance to vote on bills before they cross over to the other chamber. You can sort of think of it as halftime in the Legislature. In New Hampshire, they vote from January to June, and at this halfway point, we really see what bills really have a chance to become laws, and which bills just don't stand a chance.

Melanie Plenda:

Which bills made the cut at crossover? 

Anna Brown: 

The state budget passed to the House, and that kind of is its own story. We could do an entire interview all about that budget, but certainly there were other big bills that moved forward. 

We have both the House and Senate passing bills to expand eligibility for the Education Freedom Account program, which lets students take the per–pupil share of state education funding and spend it on private or homeschool expenses. The House and Senate have also passed parental Bill of Rights, which vary a little bit, but among other things, they would require teachers to respond to parent inquiries within five to 10 days. And both the House and Senate have passed versions of a ban on sanctuary cities. So what that means is towns and cities would have to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. They couldn't adopt policies that are intended to block immigration officials.

Melanie Plenda:

Were there any surprises? 

Anna Brown: 

I was surprised that the state Senate passed a lot of bills that are pushing back on restrictive zoning at the local level. Historically, in recent years, the Senate has really been hesitant to say what local cities and towns can and can't do when it comes to minimum lot sizes or parking requirements, and so on. A lot of those bills moved forward. 

Also, one thing that surprised me a little bit is there is a bill that passed the Senate that would increase eligibility for free meals for students at up to 200% of the federal poverty level, with some reimbursement from the state. But this would allow schools to do it. It would sort of be an opt-in. That's not the full-blown expansion that Democrats have been advocating for in the past, but it was still movement forward on an issue that I wasn't sure was going to change this year.

Melanie Plenda:

Which bills have a chance of passing both houses and head to the governor for approval or veto? 

Anna Brown:

I mentioned the Parents’ Bill of Rights, the expanded eligibility for the Education Freedom Account, the bills that are related to immigration enforcement. Those are moving simultaneously, with slightly different versions in both the House and the Senate, and we've seen Governor Ayotte indicate she's in favor of these sorts of things.

Also, I think that it's likely we're going to see a bill that would move the state primary from September to June. This was another issue that the House and Senate wrangled with in the past, but now we have some new legislators, and it looks like it's going to happen — not for the next election, but the one after that. Lastly, we actually already saw the House and Senate fast-track a bill to roll back some bail reform measures, and that has been signed by Governor Ayotte already. It was a big priority for her, and so we're seeing some additional restrictions on bail.

Melanie Plenda:

Which ones are unlikely to pass, and thus stall at the State House?

Anna Brown:

When I'm looking at bills that were popular in the House of Representatives and really have no chance in the Senate, the first thing that comes to mind is bills to expand legal marijuana. Expanding legal use — whether it's medical or saying you can use it for private consumption — all of those bills, I think, are pretty much dead on arrival in the Senate. 

I think the Senate is also going to be hesitant on some bills related to harm reduction. So in particular, HB226 would allow drug-checking equipment, which is currently illegal, to be used for some harm-reduction purposes. So think a fentanyl test strip, right? So people using drugs, ideally, are not going to use something that is highly lethal or contaminated, but the Senate has been pretty unsure about that. 

There's also a bill that would limit the ability of the Department of Health and Human Services to require vaccinations beyond what is in state law. The bill specifically notes requirements for chicken pox, hepatitis B vaccinations will expire, and it would just limit that ability going forward, unless the Legislature specifically puts it in law and says, ‘This specific vaccine can be required.’ So I'm not sure how that's going to fare in the Senate, and definitely I'm going to keep an eye on it more if that.

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s talk more about housing. We already discussed zoning. What else about housing made it to crossover and what might make it to the governor’s desk?

Anna Brown:

We are seeing simultaneous bills moving forward in the House and the Senate that block local regulations that are stricter than state building codes, cap minimum lot sizes, allow residential development in commercial zones most of the time, and limit parking requirements to no more than one space per unit. So, as I said, it's moving in the House. It's moving in the Senate. Those seem likely to move forward to the governor. 

A couple other bills: In the House, we have HB577, which would expand the right to build a detached ADU, which stands for accessory dwelling unit. The size of those would go up under this bill. So that one passed the House. We're waiting to see what will happen in the Senate. Then the House also had a big priority, which would allow eviction at the end of a lease without cause, HB60. This has come up a couple times in the House of Representatives over the years, and so that's another one that we'll wait to see what happens in the State Senate.

Melanie Plenda:

What about education bills? What did and didn’t make the cut? 

Anna Brown: 

Education was probably one of the biggest topics this year. So much legislation has moved forward on this issue. We've already touched on Education Freedom Account eligibility. We've talked about the Parents’ Bill of Rights. Governor Ayotte has also prioritized adding restrictions on cellphones in classrooms. We are seeing that move forward. But then there's sort of social issue policies that are moving forward that we're seeing, particularly coming out of the House. 

HB446 would require parental consent to administer the annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, and that's from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It asks questions about potentially harmful behavior, such as drug use or violence in your home. I remember when I took it in high school, there were also questions about how much milk you drink a day. It's a public health piece, and there's always been, or not always, but there is a state law that requires opting in for parents for other general surveys. But there was an exception for this, so parents can opt out, but there's this assumption that students are going to participate. This would reverse that, and it could potentially decrease our ability to get data on some of these public health concerns, and potentially could reduce funding. 

Another one, HB324, prohibits K through 12 schools from making, “any material that is harmful to minors available to students.” That's a pretty subjective phrase. The bill defines the material to include various content related to sex and violence, so it requires school boards to adopt policies that would address complaints regarding harmful material and so on. This is definitely one of those trickier social issues. Is this a book ban? Is this about protecting children from groomers? You'll hear a lot of really heated language. So watch for that in the Senate as well.

Melanie Plenda:

Related to that, let’s explore bills connected to trans rights. What has gone through the Legislature so far? 

Anna Brown:

There is an intersection with school policy here, for sure. For example, SB211, would limit school sports teams based on the biological sex of each student's birth certificate issued at the time of birth. Male sports would be open to all sexes. It would apply to grades 6 through 12, as well as public colleges and universities. So that's definitely been a big priority for a lot of Republicans. I think that it probably has a pretty good chance of passing in the Senate.

The House and Senate have also passed their own versions of a bill that would create an exception to the state anti-discrimination law related to gender so that you could segregate biological sex for locker rooms, sports, hospitals, and so on. Sununu vetoed a very similar bill last year because he said it conflicted with current state law against discrimination based on gender. But it looks like the House and Senate are eager to see if Governor Ayotte has a different position.

There are two other bills that would prohibit medical treatment or interventions related to gender. So HB377 would make it a felony to provide hormone treatments and puberty blockers to a minor unless there is a “medically verifiable disorder of sex development,” and then HB712 would prohibit breast surgery on persons under age 18. Once again, exceptions in the bill are malignancy, injury, infection or malformation.

Melanie Plenda:

What about immigration? How will the bills that made it to crossover fare? 

Anna Brown:

This is definitely something Governor Ayotte has been very vocal about. I definitely expect those bills to become law.

There are a couple of bills that we're still sort of waiting to see what happens. SB13 prohibits undocumented or illegal immigrants that were issued a license in another state from driving in New Hampshire. This has come up in the past. It hasn't gone through because there are some concerns about, “aren't we supposed to have reciprocity with other states and driver's licenses?” What would this look like? It would be a violation, similar to a speeding ticket at this point. So that bill passed the Senate and is going to the House.

The Senate passed another bill that prohibits state and local government from blocking law enforcement participation in a federal program that allows law enforcement to perform some immigration enforcement duties. I think that will go forward because it's very similar and sort of in tandem with that anti-sanctuary city stance that a lot of Republicans are talking about. Of note, though, the House and the Senate both rejected bills that would require employers to use E-verify. That's a system from the federal government that checks the identity of someone who's authorized to work in the United States. But there was a lot of opposition from businesses in particular, because they say there are errors in the system. It slows things down. It's a burden. So that's definitely not an immigration policy that we will see come to.

Melanie Plenda:

What about bills concerning abortion? What’s going on with those?

Anna Brown:

We all know this was a big topic of conversation during the 2024 elections, but we're not seeing a ton of big movements on that issue right now. In New Hampshire, the Legislature has not passed any direct restrictions, and in fact, they voted down a 15-week ban. There are bills on the margins, however.

HB191 passed the House, and now it's on to the Senate. It was originally focused on making it a misdemeanor to help a pregnant minor obtain an abortion without parental consent. The House amended the bill to more generally prohibit transporting a minor to a surgical procedure without parental consent. Also, the Senate passed SB36, which requires healthcare providers to report non-personally identifiable data about abortions to the state and then provide an annual report on this aggregate data. This has come up more than once in the past, and the argument is, “How can we make really good policy around this issue if we don't have data on how often it's happening, where it's happening, what else might this be related to? Are there other underlying health issues or public health concerns we should know about?” It’s worth noting that New Hampshire is definitely a minority here. Most other states are collecting this data and publishing it in some form, but there's a lot of privacy concerns in New Hampshire. So we'll see how that bill fares in the House.

Melanie Plenda:

As always, very interesting. Thank you for breaking that down Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count and executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

Centuries-old traditions of medieval combat flourish in a Nashua mill building

A diverse community of combatants helps keep an over 600-year-old sport alive

By Jon Decker-Granite State News Collaborative

On the top floor of the Lake Street Mill building in Nashua, tucked among various studios and workshops, is The Knights Hall, “an armored combat training and fitness center” where students learn to master the ways of war from over half a millennium ago as a means of getting and staying physically and mentally fit.

Amid the battle ropes, kettlebells and weights, one can find battleaxes, polearms and steel swords tucked in corners and shelves. Knight-themed trophies and medals decorate the walls, while European and Pride flags dangle from the ceiling 

During a recent session, students practiced swings on dummies as Knights Hall founder Jaye Brooks wove his way through the flailing foam blades like a cat through high grass, pausing to provide instruction. The 59-year-old Brooks has practiced medieval combat since 1981. He opened The Knights Hall to the public in 2014, and ever since has been shaping fantasy and history lovers into armored athletes who compete against their counterparts across the globe. 

“Just about everyone here is into science fiction, fantasy, comics,” said Brooks, a lifelong Tolkein reader, said of his students. “It’s kind of a Venn diagram of nerd pancakes, and the overlaps are continual.”

At competitions, the foam and plastic is replaced with steel, transforming padded 21st century history buffs into 15th century armored warriors. Period-accurate metal axes, blades and maces crack against armored suits that weigh up to 95 pounds. Matches range from one-on-one duels to massive 16-vs.-16 melees, where fighters can trip, throw, grapple, kick and punch their opponents with metal gauntlets. (Gauntlets are the gloves worn by medieval knights.)

“There’s a certain savagery to it – but also esoteric. There is nothing else like it.” said student Jack Conway, after watching a bout of armored duels at a recent demonstration held at New England College in Henniker. 

Despite the intensity, numerous safety precautions are taken. Axe and sword blades are dulled, and stabbing and thrusting strikes are completely forbidden. The helmets worn by combatants are thicker and heavier than those used by their historical counterparts in battle, and they employ modern padding to reduce the chance of a concussion. 

During the 14th and 15th centuries, Brooks explained, European knights and men at arms demonstrated their prowess in tournament-like sporting events. The goal was not to kill, but to best their opponent to gain renown as well as military and social status.

Today, Brooks and other practitioners rely on techniques straight out of medieval fencing manuals. Brooks’ expertise has also landed him a few consulting roles for fantasy books, film projects and video fighting games, including “For Honor.” 

Armored combat fighting, he said, is “a thing of valor, it’s hard. It’s difficult, and there’s risk. “I tried to make myself as good as I could be as a fighter, so I trained in medieval combat maybe four days a week since the 1980s.”

Brooks eventually found his way to The Knights Hall because of his fragile health condition growing up. 

 “I was the asthmatic with bad eyes and a trach,” Brooks said, pointing to a scar on his throat from a tracheotomy.

Brooks’ condition kept him cooped up in the winters due to the effects of living among the family’s pets and with his father’s smoking habit. 

“I got sick, so I’d be stuck in my room. So I read fantasy books,” Brooks said. 

Brooks’s literary wanderings in the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien and other writers struck a chord. He became an avid Dungeons & Dragons player during the popular role-playing game’s infancy in the 1970s. D&D led to participating in Renaissance fairs, ultimately sealing Brooks’ fate.

In 1981, Brooks attended the Florentine Fair in Lincoln, R.I., and saw his first armored fight, albeit with wooden weapons and metal armor. It was “the coolest thing ever,” for the teenaged Brooks, he said.

From there, he started training and competing through the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), an organization that re-creates history through combat and cultural reenactments. For three decades, Brooks moved up the ranks, and eventually became the U.S. champion of the SCA’s combat league. In this version of the sport, competitors wear metal armor, but use wooden weapons.

At the time, Brooks said he had a day job in “corporate America,” and found himself somewhat bored, feeling constrained by the required use of weapons that didn’t meet medieval standards. 

“I said, ‘What do I do now?” Brooks recalled. He found the answer online.

‘Where has this been my whole life’?

Just as medieval reenactments like the SCA grew in the West, so did historical societies throughout Eastern Europe, in countries like Ukraine and Russia. In the late ‘90s, Eastern European reenactors were already using steel weapons and armor. In 2010, the first official “Battle of the Nations” was held in Ukraine. 

In 2011, Brooks saw a Battle of the Nations video on Facebook. He was enthralled with the use of full armor and steel weapons. After watching, Brooks said to himself, “Where has this been my whole life?”

By October, Brooks reached out to old reenactor friends and members of the SCA to build a team to fight at the third Battle of the Nations in Warsaw, Poland. 

“I opened up The Knights Hall to kind of train me to do this,” Brooks said. “We were doing SCA stuff here and some steel stuff here. I invited people here to come and try out and play with it. Next thing you know, I got people coming here to train pretty regularly.”

Brooks cobbled together a team for the third Battle of the Nations in Warsaw. Team USA finished among the top four countries overall, and Brooks received a mention in the Congressional Record for his efforts. 

“A couple years go by, and it's 2014, and we come home from Spain with two world championships, and Team USA wins seven out of nine events in 2014,” That’s when he decided to open The Knights Hall to the public.

As part of Brooks’ efforts to introduce more people to the sport, The Knights Hall hosts Renaissance fairs and other public events across New England. Spectators get to watch bouts, learn some history and hold the weapons and armor used in matches. 

One of Brooks’ top fighters, Colton Kilcoyn, a former Nashua resident who now lives in Rhode Island, demonstrated their prowess at a Renaissance fair held in early April at New England College. Kilcoyne’s brigandine – a piece of chest armor – was purchased abroad while in Ukraine, which continues to be a hub for both the sport and the equipment.

However, due to the ongoing war there, it’s been harder and harder to obtain armor and weapons. Since the Russian invasion, members of Ukraine’s men’s team have traded their blunted battle axes and swords for automatic weapons and hand grenades, and smiths who once dedicated their talents to making replicas of historical armor are using their skills to make weapons of modern war. 

‘All types’ welcome

For Kilcoyne, it is the combination of competitive intensity, athleticism and the tight-knit community that keeps them coming back. Many of the practitioners are neurodivergent, or like Kilcoyne, are members of the LGBTQ community. On the battlefield and in the training hall, they find acceptance and camaraderie. 

“We’re very open to all types here,” Kilcoyne explained. “We have people who have never played a sport in their life before, and they’re just like, ‘This is what I’m going to do,’ and we will go from start to finish with you.”

“You will see the flavors of autism, ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder), nerd overlap with everyone here,” added Kilcoyne, who has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. “Where else are you going to get so much stimulus all ot once where you have to think strategically and keep moving?”

“If I were to write an autobiography, it would probably be titled, ‘Sword Fighting Saved My Life’,” said student Brian Chabot, a Nashua resident who has trained in the sport since 2012. “When I started, I couldn’t get up a flight of stairs without getting winded. My asthma was out of control, I was drinking heavily, smoking heavily, living a pretty sedentary lifestyle.”

Chabot is now learning horseback riding in the hopes of competing in modern jousting competitions, further fueling his love for history, which drew him into the sport initially. 

Chabot joined The Knights Hall in 2012 to hone his rapier fencing skills, and by 2018 switched to armored combat. After over a decade of training, he now helps museums with weapons and armor curation on the side. He remains connected to The Knights Hall for the community, he said,

“The chivalry aspects come with it as a sport,” Chabot said. “There’s no bullying. No matter how bad or good you are. If you take to the ring, you have the respect of everybody.”

Kilcoyne started their medieval journey after 10 years of roller derby and 16 years of horseback riding. Unlike many other practitioners, Kilcoyne didn’t have childhood dreams of knighthood, instead, they digitally stumbled into the sport.

“I got this Facebook invite to an all-women’s combat practice,” Kilcoyne recalled. “I said, ‘Let me go support it and see what happens.’ I never left.”

Since then, Kilcoyne has competed internationally and nationally, collecting medals as they go. The sport, in Kilcoyne’s own words, has taken over half of their life. 

“It’s my job, it’s my profession.It’s my life,” Kilcoyne, who started running a second Knight’s Hall location in Charlton, Mass., said. 

The Knights Hall doesn’t just value diversity in athletic ability. On its website, is a statement  describing the institution as an “unapologetic ally of women’s rights, the LGBTQ and BI-POC communities and freedom of religion.”

Kilcoyne wears a small shield on their hip bearing the colors of the pride flag, a decision that has turned heads in certain countries when competing internationally. 

“You’re going to meet people from other countries, and you’re going to have to figure out how the sport works with their culture in a way,” Kilcoyne explained. “I’m not going to get into it, but in Spain I had some issues, partially because I had a rainbow flag on.”

“It just depends on what kind of battles you want to fight there,” Kilcoyne added. “But I’m going to continue fighting for everyone to be able to fight in the division that they believe they should be in.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Breaking down the economic effects of tariffs and market fluctuations

[Click here to watch the full conversation on The State We’re In]

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

What’s going on with the economy? It seems a lot like typical New England weather lately — wait awhile, and it might change. But how do changes like tariffs, inflation and stock market fluctuations — and the ones coming down the pike — affect your wallet? Here to discuss that is Dr. Marie Duggan, professor of business management at Keene State College.

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s start with tariffs. What are they exactly, and why do they matter? 

Marie Duggan:

Tariffs are a tax on an import. Recently, my students and I were looking at Apple and the iPhone 16. The Wall Street Journal had a little article about it — it was selling in the United States for $1,100 and it cost $550 to make, mostly in Asia.

On the day we were looking, the tariffs were 54% and that was going to raise the selling cost of making the product to $850, so you would have the original $550 that was the cost of making the iPhone in China before the tariffs, then you have an extra $300, which is this tax that importers have to pay. So Apple, importing the phone to the United States, would pay the $300 to the U.S. government. The question comes up: Would Apple accept a lower profit margin,or would they pass the increase on to customers by raising the selling price from $1,100 to $1,400? So that's kind of how a tariff works. 

One of the reasons the United States wanted to put tariffs in place is because we've really had a skyrocketing situation with our national debt in the past, really the past 15 years, and we either have to raise taxes, especially on the rich, who are the people that have most of the money. We can't really cut spending more than we already have. It seemed to some people like a good loophole to create this tax on imports, and that would be a way for the government to amass more money, and it would also tend to make companies such as Apple reconsider their decision to make the product overseas and to consider making more parts of it in the United States. It seemed like a win-win in that situation. 

Melanie Plenda:

What do they have to do with the trade deficit? And what exactly is a trade deficit?

Marie Duggan:

A trade deficit is exports minus imports. Exports are things we build in the United States and sell to other countries. Here in Cheshire County, we build a machine called the diamond turning machine, and it is used to make touchscreens. We don't make touchscreens here, but we make the machine that makes touchscreens. The touchscreens are often made in Asia, so we make these machines here, and we export them around the world. We sell them to people in other countries. 

When we look at the amount we export minus the amount we import, we get to the trade deficit. It's basically like you earn foreign exchange when you sell exports and you spend foreign exchange when you buy imports. Of course, I personally don't have to spend Chinese yuan when I go to buy an iPhone, but Apple does. Apple has to pay and they ask us to pay people in China through some point in their supply chain.

So what happens if there's a gap? Well, if there's a gap, you have to borrow from the rest of the world. In the same way, if I have my income and I have repairs to my house that exceed my income, I'm going to have to go borrow a loan to solve the problem. If we export less than we import, we're going to run a trade deficit, and we're going to have to borrow from the rest of the world to plug the hole. We borrow tremendous amounts from the rest of the world. You might not be really aware of that, because the borrowing comes in kind of funny forms. Yes, sometimes foreigners buy U.S. Treasuries or they buy stocks and bonds. But even when I go to get a loan from the bank, say, for a new car, a lot of the money that's in the banking system may be coming from Japan or China or Saudi Arabia. It's just a giant swimming pool full of money in our banking system that we're lending out to people, and a good bit of the money comes from other countries.

Melanie Plenda:

Before President Trump, how would you describe the United States’ approach to tariffs? 

Marie Duggan:
Well, I would say that our approach to tariffs actually started to shift in 2016 with the first Trump election, but Joe Biden also had a different approach to tariffs than other Democratic presidents had.

Prior to the Obama era, the Clinton era, the George Bush era, going back many decades, the United States believed in having no tariffs. The argument was that it was a wonderful position to have if you're the world's leading exporter. So this was a position the United States came up with between 1945 and 1973, when we were the world's leading exporter. We wanted nobody to put any barriers to anybody in the world buying American items. 

So we always said, “Don't put tariffs in place. Remove as many tariffs as you possibly can.” But that did change.

Melanie Plenda:

If these tariffs go into effect, what will that mean for the average consumer here in New Hampshire? What will that mean for the state economy?

Marie Duggan:
I'm someone who firmly believes that we can do more manufacturing in the United States. However, tariffs have to be used judiciously.

For example, a 5% tariff would be a significant tariff, and right now, as it stands today, Donald Trump has put a 145% tariff, an additional tariff, on Chinese goods. I think some goods already had tariffs. For example, Joe Biden had put a 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars. So that is now 245%, and, as you said, they change day to day. First of all, they're too drastic, and they're too changeable. 

If you're going to suddenly say, “There's a 145% tariff,” then the companies in Keene that have worked for 20 years to develop customer relationships with people are going to see orders for their million-dollar machines suddenly canceled. That could really kill what has been a bright spot. It could cause firms to go belly-up.

So putting dramatic tariffs suddenly does not have the effect of protecting U.S. industry. It has the effect of causing immediate loss of customers. So that really creates instability, and I'm afraid we might see that. I really hope that none of the diamond turning machines or optics companies in Cheshire County fail. I hope they all make it. 

There are some benefits to tariffs. We have had this problem of companies going offshore for about 20 years now, of moving manufacturing offshore. So some American companies will begin to consider, for example, buying a machine here in Cheshire County, instead of buying a machine in Germany. 

Melanie Plenda:

As you mentioned, President Trump is doing all this in an effort to bring back manufacturing to the United States. What do you think of that idea? What will that look like? How long will that take? 

Marie Duggan:
I think I want to make it very clear, I don't think that President Trump is putting tariffs in place primarily to bring back manufacturing. I think that the national debt situation in the United States is critical at the moment, and he has to raise taxes. He has to raise taxes on rich people, unless he can find a way out, and it’s very difficult for any politician of either political party to raise taxes on the top earners in the system where we have a political system financed by donations.

So Trump thought he had found a way out. He could tax imports, and that would be a really different way to raise money that could be used to pay down the national debt. So I think that was the desire to find a way to pay down the national debt without raising income taxes at the high end. It was a really important part of his decision process. 

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s move to another related topic — the stock market fluctuations. What role has tariff news played in that? 

Marie Duggan:
I think it played a major role. If you just think of Apple where the $1,100 selling price for the iPhone 16 Pro — if the cost is $550 to produce it in China and there's a 54% tariff, well, then Apple's profits are going to fall from like $550 per phone to like $150 per phone. So that is immediately going to make Apple stock price fall. Then, if you remove the tariffs — boom, Apple’s stock price rises. 

Every company would like to pass the cost of a tariff on to its consumers. So we are all going to have to pay more too, but companies are going to have to absorb some of the cost too, and that's going to push their profits down. That's why the stock market reacts — if expected future profits are falling, then your stock price will drop like a stone.

Melanie Plenda:

Some people, especially Democrats, have asked for an investigation into stock market manipulation. Why is that? And what does that mean? 

Marie Duggan:
When we heard 54% tariffs on China, Apple’s stock did drop quite a bit because everybody knows that Apple's supply chain comes from the production in China and other parts of Asia. Now, if eventually Donald Trump removed the tariff on Apple, so if you or a staffer was at a meeting who heard that Donald Trump was planning to remove the tariff on Apple, you could have run out and purchased Apple stock at a low price, and then once the tariff is removed on Apple, it's going to rise immediately. Depending on how much money you put into that you could make quite a bit in one day.

Melanie Plenda:

Many people are invested in the stock market in a variety of ways — through personal accounts, or something like a 401(k) or IRA. What should people be asking their investment or financial advisers when they see this kind of volatility? 

Marie Duggan:
I'm not a financial advisor. I see what businesses do, like Elon Musk with Tesla — they have investments in different countries. Tesla isn't like

Apple. Tesla makes the entire car in China to sell it mainly to Chinese people. It makes the car in Germany to sell to Europeans, and makes the car in the United States to sell to Americans. But what they've done is they kind of insulated themselves from dramatic changes in any one country by being tied to three different parts of the global economy.

So it seems that when we talk about diversification with investments, people are always talking about whether you should have stocks or you should have bonds, and that's probably a good idea. But it also seems to me that right now, diversifying in terms of investments in different parts of the globe, because we don't really know how it's all going to shake out. 

Melanie Plenda:

Given this volatile economy, what will the future financial situation look like in the next year, or the next five years? What should consumers or businesses do to navigate this environment?

 Marie Duggan:
Well, things are going to freeze up because businesses don't know what's going to come next. They don't really know right now what kind of technology or partnerships around the globe they should invest in. What's going to happen to their old relationships? Are their Chinese customers even going to talk to them now? Is this going to be something where it's kind of like the Cold War, where you have a total break?

Also, people think reducing government spending is going to solve everything. Actually, the businesses in Cheshire County have long relied on producing under government contracts. So that's been kind of a quiet backbone to a lot of industry in this area.  I think businesses had planned to make products that would be sold to the government, and now there's a lot of uncertainty as to whether those government contracts will be solid as they were in the past. So there's a lot of uncertainty, and when businesses have uncertainty, they kind of freeze.They don't spend, and that's what could cause us to have a recession. 

Melanie Plenda:

Fascinating. Dr, Marie Duggan, Keene State College professor of business management, thank you for joining us and discussing these issues. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

‘Trying to find a life’: telling the stories of the immigrants among us

Who are the immigrants among us? Where do they live? And what do they do?Thanks to Nashua Ink Link and the Granite State News Collaborative, we have some answers to these questions — and many more. Ink Link publisher, editor and founder Carol Robidoux and writer/photographer Dan Splaine join us to talk about the news outlet’s special report, “Immigrants Among Us.” This project was made possible through support from the Eppes-Jefferson Foundation. The Granite State News Collaborative and Ink Link maintained editorial control over the contents.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Carol, how did this series come about? 

Carol Robidoux:

Just like everything else, it came from conversations around what we're seeing and hearing in the news and trying to kind of figure out how to relate that to our coverage area. So in this case, it's Nashua and the greater Nashua area. Dan felt strongly compelled to tell a story that might actually balance out some of the negativity that we were hearing. Now, remember, this kind of all took shape well before the election last year, so it was really an idea of what role the idea of immigration was going to play in the election and what was going to happen in the aftermath, depending on the outcome. 

So there were a lot of unknown factors in all of that. Dan, who's primarily a photographer with a strong photographic sensibility in terms of storytelling — I think he just felt that seeing, hearing, connecting tangibly, one-on-one with people in our community who are new immigrants or who are long-established immigrants would really tell a more authentic story, especially for our readers

Melanie Plenda:

Dan, what got you interested in this subject? Why did you want to tell this story?

Dan Splaine:

Let's go back to last spring and summer. There was an onslaught of just this use of the words “immigrant” and “immigration.” It was almost an amorphous thing, and I found it dehumanizing, because we were just using this big, broad term to describe people. For me, I thought the best thing I could do with my camera was kind of humanize, put a human face on the people, and in the naive belief maybe that it's hard to hate someone, have much contempt or malice if maybe people actually knew. 

I pitched the idea as a photo story to Carol, and then we went into a much more elaborate process that took a few months of thinking and putting it together, but I'm glad we did. 

Melanie Plenda:

Dan, talk about reporting these stories. How long did it take and what was involved? 

Dan Splaine:

It took about six months. Carol had good wisdom on this — to talk to first-generation immigrants on the complete spectrum of status, from undocumented to permanent green card and naturalized citizen. I also had the objective to try to talk to as many people from as many distinct countries of origin, just because one thing is that we really do have a wide range of people in New Hampshire. But also, just the stories of them, where they're from, their journey to get here, and then what their experience has been here — they’re all very individual, and yet it's very universal to the moment. I just thought a wider range would be better.

Melanie Plenda:

Dan, how did you find the people you spoke to for these stories? Were any of your sources reluctant to talk, given the current climate? 

Dan Splaine:

A lot of time was spent making connections, particularly with refugee agencies and some of the service groups in the state that work with refugee communities in particular, and then kind of building trust. It really took a lot more legwork up front than I actually anticipated, because people are reluctant. As we progressed through the summer, that climate of fear was gaining momentum, but people did speak up, and I found some really great stories.

Melanie Plenda:

Dan, what were some of the key takeaways from your reporting? Were there any surprises? 

Dan Splaine:

One thing I thought is that — and it may be just because of my sample and how I was directed to it — but I found a lot of individuals that really are engaged in their communities, in lots of civic organizations, in their faith groups, in their ethnic communities, some are politically active. I saw the embrace of democracy by some of these people, and it reminds me of my grandfather. My grandparents are Irish, and for him to be able to vote, and the importance of voting — I saw that kind of embrace of our institution and values. That’s the secret sauce for America.

Melanie Plenda:

Carol, what about you? What were some of your takeaways from these stories?

Carol Ribidoux:

There's a phrase I've heard, “immigrants are like astronauts,” and I've thought about that with my own family as well. My grandparents came here from Germany sometime between World War I and World War II. My dad was born here — the only one in his family who was born here — but for his family to leave their country, centuries of established history, family history and familiarity to come to this strange new world with hope, obviously, for their children and their children's children. It's a humbling idea. I think that's another part of the humanity that we miss when we talk about immigrants, refugees, people seeking asylum. We clump them into a group that doesn't have any faces or names or ideas about why.

As a journalist, it's troubling to me. I have deep thoughts and deep feelings about things like this, but I don't know how to translate that to people, or how to get people to think bigger and deeper about the world. Why do we accept things as they are without even questioning them? Or why do we operate from a place of fear instead of understanding? Everything we do, we try to do something that allows people to have a deeper understanding of themselves in the context of the world. 

Melanie Plenda:

Carol, what has the reaction been from readers? 

Carol Robidoux:

One reader commented, “I'm not against immigration. It's illegal immigration.That's a criminal thing, and that's what we're against”.

Again, the narrative that we get a lot of is there's this swarm of dangerous people, like killer bees moving up from South America, and when they get here with their knives and guns and ill intent and cross over our borders illegally and sneakily, they're bringing backpacks full of dangerous drugs, and they want to do everybody harm, so we must build a fence and stop them at all costs. That's probably true that there are some people with bad intentions who want to come to the United States to capitalize on some of our problems here. There's guns going in the other direction to fuel some of that violence and gang activity and illegal drug activity. But I don't think it's a genuine picture of what happens at the entry points, whether it's north or south, and the media has to help to tell the truth. 

Melanie Plenda:

Dan, what about the people featured? Have you heard anything from them?

Dan Splaine:

What I'm hearing is that people appreciate the insights. I suspect that people who are anti-immigrant are not going to, but I think it is important we put the marker down, particularly now in the last eight to weeks, when all of the administration's immigration policies are in hyper drive, and they're much more excessive. 

People appreciate hearing the story. Also maybe it will help motivate people to act, to maybe say, “Hey, we have something that's at risk here, something that we're going to lose if we keep on this path.”

Melanie Plenda:

So what happens now? What’s the next step in this story? Let’s start with Dan and then to Carol.

 Dan Splaine:

I think I've made connections with people, and I'm going to stay in touch. I think there's a nascent reaction, mostly grassroots. It's starting to happen, particularly around ICE enforcement, and I think that's a story that should be tracked. 

Carol Robidoux:

One thing I learned in some of this process was that the vetting process for people to come into the United States is something we don't hear a lot about unless you've gone through it yourself. So it's like understanding that you're not just opening the floodgates and welcoming people into the United States without really knowing who they are or what there is to know about them. 

Another is that people just don't really have a great understanding of it — myself included, prior to that. Also, the idea of weighing out whether it is more important to be angry at people for coming here if they came illegally, or saying, “Why are you here? Let's find a pathway to citizenship if that's possible.” Same with anybody who tries to apply to get here as a student, or as a green card holder, or any of those things.

Again, humanity is absent from the equation. They’re criminals, not good guys, or need to be locked up forever with no hope of anything. Some of the people who came here didn't have a choice. They were just on a list of places they could go that wasn't their home country with war, turmoil, or violence. They didn’t come here to take our jobs and make our lives miserable. They’re just trying to find a life and as good people we owe it to them to try to do better, to come up with some better processes, to use our elected officials to help us figure that out. What can we do differently? Maybe it's time to rethink all of this. How do we shake that up a little bit?

Melanie Plenda:

Great work you two. Ink Link publisher, editor and founder Carol Robidoux and writer/photographer Dan Splaine — thank you for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Are local zoning rules the biggest impediment to solving the N.H. housing crisis?

Legislation seeks to limit regulations to encourage more development

By Jon Decker, Granite State News Collaborative

The N.H. Legislature is weighing several bills that would strip local zoning obstacles in favor of state mandates to speed up and cheapen construction, particularly for multi-family homes like townhouses, duplexes or cottage courts — that is, the higher-density, so-called “missing middle” homes that advocates support to help address the state’s formidable shortage of housing.

However, many communities oppose stripping away local control in favor of developers’ ambitions. According to the National League of Cities, single-family zoning laws, which often require that homes be built on relatively large lots, have made construction of smaller multifamily structures difficult or outright illegal. New Hampshire, a state known for its strong local zoning laws, is no exception. 

In fact, according to the New Hampshire Zoning Atlas — a comprehensive study conducted in 2021 — single-family homes are allowed on less than 1 acre on only 16% of New Hampshire's buildable land.

Builders and housing advocates have called for allowing denser housing projects, but critics of that approach, especially in small, more rural communities, worry about their impact on local infrastructure and character. 

“Our position is that the Legislature gave zoning to municipalities because it empowered them,” said Margaret Byrnes, executive director of the N.H. Municipal Association. “What we’re seeing this session is close to, if not a complete, dismantling of local authority, government and resident input in decision-making in zoning in cities and towns.”

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Granite State went through a population boom, with growth rates of over 20 percent. Some towns began requiring large building lots to preserve the rural feel of their communities. Some communities required 1, 2 or 3-acre lots for single-family residences, driving up construction costs considerably. 

“It was that sort of growth in population and building patterns that freaked people out,” recalled Rob Dapice, CEO of the N.H. Housing and Finance Authority, also known as New Hampshire Housing. “I don't want to say that everything about that was wrong. Some of it was sprawling and forced people to be more car-dependent than needed; it ate up more farmland than was maybe necessary. 

“I’m not saying that everything about zoning is bad. I think conservation, agriculture and open space are really important.”

But, Dapice said, “What people fail to grasp is that the ordinances in response to that growth requiring larger lots have sort of produced the opposite of what they wanted in terms of open space. Now you have a house every 2 to 3 acres, and everyone wants to think their community is perfect the day they build their house, and nothing should change.”

But change is inevitable, Dapice said, and the choices communities make about construction will dictate the nature of that change, with prices rising if nothing new is built. 

Moving the needle?

For Matt Mayberry, executive director of the N.H. Home Builders Association, the key to solving the housing shortage is modifying legislation to make it easier, faster and cheaper to build homes. 

“There are nine bills the New Hampshire Home Builders association has drafted, is tracking, and lobbying, because we feel they will move the needle in a positive way to help housing,” Mayberry said.

One of the bills, Senate Bill 84, introduced by Sen. Keith Murphy, R-Manchester, is a “game changer,” Mayberry said, that “shifts power from communities to builders.” 

Under the bill, he said, “if you have a building lot that has town water and sewer, the town cannot mandate that you build on more than half an acre. We have municipalities dictating 3- and 5-acre minimums. If you look at land at roughly $250,000 an acre and you have a town like Hanover, that's over 600k before you cut the grass.”

Under SB84, if the lot is linked to town water but not sewer, that minimum lot size goes up to 1 acre, instead of one-half, Mayberry said.

But New Hampshire has long been defined by a sense of “local control,” with individual towns setting many of their own rules. As a result, many of these bills are facing strong opposition from the N.H. Municipal Association and many of its member communities. 

Byrnes, at the municipal association, said the causes of the housing crisis are both multifaceted and wide in scope, and the United States as whole, not just New Hampshire, is facing similar problems. 

“The Legislature is taking a complete tunnel-vision approach of ‘focus on slash-and-burn of local zoning and regulations and that will be the answer to the housing crisis,’” Byrnes said. “I feel certain that the average person in New Hampshire doesn't understand the extent to which their decision-making and authority at the local level is being razed, for lack of a better term.”

Dapice, at New Hampshire Housing, said “the framing of this as a battle between towns and state has been a misperception that many have an interest in perpetuating. There are plenty of towns with exclusionary zoning that want to cast this as big government stamping down, but the reality is that there are some towns allowing construction of all kinds — affordable, market rate, townhouses — and there are other towns that are not.”

Dapice noted that, despite perceptions, New Hampshire is not a “home rule state.” 
“We are a Dillon’s Rule state,” Dapice explained. “Municipalities do not have a right to do anything except when the state grants it. It’s in the (state) constitution.” 

“That’s a convenient and easy argument to make,” Byrnes said of Dillon’s Rule, while citing the 1925 New Hampshire Zoning Enabling Act. ”We gave municipalities zoning, so it's disingenuous to use that as an argument to take over local decisions and commitments that have been made by communities who were granted authority to regulate zoning.”

Other development rules

Other pieces of legislation touted by Mayberry, at the builders association, include HB577, which would loosen restrictions on homeowners interested in building accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. The bill would allow ADUs to include “detached units, adds definitions related to accessory dwelling units, and increases the maximum square footage.”

“This says ADUs are allowed by right, so the town has to start with ‘yes, but let's see if we can make this work,’” Mayberry said, with “common sense” provisions such as acreage, septic and well capacity.

Byrnes expressed skepticism that expansion of ADU rights would translate to more affordable housing because of the costs of construction.

“I struggle to see how that’s going to make a dent in the housing need, especially since we’ve had the current ADU statue since 2017,” she said. “We really don’t have data to the extent that it mattered or even helped. It’s always unfortunate to extend a policy change without knowing how the first version worked.” 

Byrnes also pointed to the state’s longstanding debate about short-term rental units, such as B&Bs, which have made housing much more scarce and expensive in tourism communities such as Conway and Laconia. HB577’s allowance of detached units could make the short-term rental issue a “more acute problem,” she said.

“With a separate structure, it’s even easier to treat it as a short-term rental because it’s detached,” Byrnes said. “If you have money and a house in a nice touristy area, you could afford to build a detached STR and profit off it.”

Byrnes also said many of the zoning overhaul bills are poorly written and messy, which will cost taxpayers in the form of legal fights and debates if they pass. 

She focused on HB410, “relative to adding conditions to zoning boards of adjustment imposing restrictions on the building and development of residential properties,” as deeply problematic. 

“It prohibits municipalities from passing zoning ordinance that restrict residential building unless the legislative body produces empirical evidence under a strict scrutiny standard that the regulation is needed,” Byrnes said. “Are we saying they (the voters) have to produce evidence? Where? At the town meeting? What qualifies as empirical? Why are we using a strict constitutional standard?”

She said another bill, HB92, that defines what a planning board is, differs from current state law. 

“Even if you wanted to pass the zoning mandate, why would you create a second definition of a planning board?” Byrnes said. “They sound like such small things, but they will throw the building and planning process into chaos.”

As for what municipalities can do to alleviate the state’s housing shortage, Byrnes pointed to existing programs that, if funded properly, could provide some relief without limiting local regulation. 

“What’s particularly interesting is that the Legislature has made it clear that they want to solve the housing situation, yet what we're seeing in the state budget is that they aren’t funding any of the programs created in the last few years to create partnerships in local governments,” Byrnes said. “No new funding in InvestNH or Housing Champions.”

InvestNH was funded in 2022 with $100 million from the American Rescue Plan Act “to accelerate the approval and construction of affordable workforce housing in New Hampshire.” Housing Champions is a voluntary funding and grant program created in 2023 that’s intended to help municipalities that take steps to create more housing.

Regardless of what the Legislature decides, it won’t change the costs of development anytime soon. 

According to the analytics firm Altus Group, construction costs in the U.S. have risen 25 to 40 percent since 2020. That’s not just materials and labor, either, according to Moe Archambault, a Laconia-based real estate broker who also works on housing developments. So-called “soft costs,” such as obtaining permits and hiring lawyers, have also substantially increased, he said. 

“Your first-time homebuyer or entry-level housing is almost impossible to produce at today’s elevated cost for building materials and labor to construct, plus the added value of cost and land and getting it developed,” Archambault said. “Town approvals can also take two to three years for a raw piece of land.” 

And now, the Trump administration’s tariffs on a wide range of building materials could make costs rise even higher.

Relatively high interest rates on home loans are also freezing out many first-time buyers, but Archambault said those rates are well within the norm, and the ultra-low interest rates below 5 percent in the 2010s are unlikely to return. 

“I’ve had some buyers that will say, ‘I’m gonna wait for the rates to back down to 3%,’” Archambault said. “I know a 100-year-old man, and you can ask him how many times he saw 3% rates, and he’ll tell you, ‘Only once.’”

Repealing the N.H. Vaccine Association would hurt taxpayers and businesses, critics say

Support has emerged on both sides of the aisle for the organization, which buys vaccines at a discount at no cost to the state.

By Kelly Burch, Granite State News Collaborative

The N.H. House of Representatives has voted to do away with the N.H. Vaccine Association, a nonprofit that buys vaccines at a roughly 30% discount at no cost to the state. 

But people who oppose the bill — including doctors, public health experts, and some Republican lawmakers — say that repealing the N.H. Vaccine association would result in higher costs to the state (and thus, taxpayers), inflict a financial burden on doctors’ offices, increase insurance premiums, and ultimately result in fewer vaccinated children in the state. 

“This program has worked extremely well for a long time and hasn’t cost the state any money,” said Rep. David Nagel, R-Gilmanton, who is also a physician. “What’s problematic about this bill [is] from the very beginning, virtually no stakeholders supported it. That should be a red flag for everybody.”

The bill — HB 524 — passed the House on a vote of 189-181 on March 6. This week, it was considered by the House Ways and Means Committee, which evaluates all bills that affect state spending. The committee retained the bill, meaning it will be reconsidered later in the legislative session. 

Rep. Mary Murphy, R-Francestown, initially voted for the bill, but later testified against it during the committee meeting, after conducting hours of research that she said shows the bill would result in higher insurance premiums and thus greater cost to the state. 

“We don’t want to support any bills that are going to add to the tax burden of the public,” she said. “That’s where I’m coming from and why I decided to try and sustain this organization.”

What is the N.H. Vaccine Association?

The N.H. Vaccine Association is a nonprofit that buys vaccines in bulk at a 30% discount from what doctors’ offices would otherwise pay, according to Dr. Julie Kim, president of the New  Hampshire chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“It has nothing to do with policy or requirements to get a vaccine,” she said. “All it is, is a buying discount.”

The nonprofit was established in 2002 by state law (RSA 126-Q) and had bipartisan support at the time, said Patrick Miller, executive director of the N.H. Vaccine Association. The cost of running the association — including the price of vaccines and a 0.84% administrative cost — is paid entirely by assessments levied on health insurers who operate in the state. 

These funds — roughly $24 million last year — are then given to the state and combined with federal funding that covers vaccines for children who are uninsured or on Medicaid. Using those two funding sources, the state then buys vaccines at a 30% discount and makes them available to all doctors’ offices in the state, Miller said. 

The state has no cost in operating the program. 

“We’re not requiring vaccines, we’re not impacting vaccines policy, and we’re not taking state dollars,” Miller said. 

The impact of repeal

Repealing the vaccine association would impact the economy, taxes and public health, experts say. 

“Vaccines are crucially important to maintaining the health of our population and, honestly, the economic prosperity of our communities,” said Dr. Sally Kraft, population health officer for Dartmouth Health System.

The most immediate impact of a repeal is that vaccines would no longer be available at a discounted rate to providers, and thus patients. (The state would still be able to buy at a discount for children on Medicaid or who are uninsured, Miller said.) 

“There’s no question that the cost of vaccines will go up,” Kraft said. 

That would likely result in higher insurance premiums, which affects individuals who have commercial insurance and businesses that pay for insurance for their employees. The N.H. Insurance Department has estimated there will be an increased cost of $7.19 million annually to the private insurance market if the vaccine association is repealed.

The state would incur greater costs to provide insurance to its employees because of rising premiums, which could impact taxes, experts say. 

"We’ll all be spending more money,” Kraft said. 

In addition, providers would need to buy vaccines on their own, which might mean that some clinics — particularly small clinics in rural areas — have fewer vaccines available, experts say. That’s one of the reasons Murphy, who represents towns of Deering and Francestown, testified against the bill. 

“I’m concerned about the effect it would have on the doctors,” she said. 

Rather than keeping vaccines on hand in their clinics, doctors might order vaccines as needed, meaning that patients may need to return for a second appointment to get a vaccine, creating a barrier to timely vaccination, experts say. In addition, offices would need to shoulder the administrative and financial burden of ordering and billing insurers for vaccines. 

“It took a long time to build up such an efficient framework that runs pretty smoothly and takes a lot of the administrative burden off of providers,” said Tory Jennison, a registered nurse who is executive director of the N.H. Public Health Association.

People in favor of keeping the N.H. Vaccine Association say that payers, providers, patients and taxpayers all benefit. 

“This is a win, win, win, win,” said Nagel. “There are four wins in this and no losses.”

What’s the reason for the bill?

Rep. Michael Granger, R-Milton Mills,, and Rep. Mike Belcher, R-Wakefield, two of the bill’s seven Republican sponsors, did not return requests for comment about the impetus behind the bill. 

In a March 7 press release, Rep. Jim Kofalt, R-Wilton, senior adviser to House Speaker Sherman Packard, said, “Contrary to the fearmongering we have heard from the bill’s opponents, it will have zero effect on the cost and availability of vaccines. What it will do is make government more accountable to New Hampshire taxpayers, who are currently footing the bill for a costly program run by a quasi-governmental organization.” 

Experts who spoke with the Granite State News Collaborative said that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the N.H. Vaccine Association. 

“There's a misconception that this is costing the state money, and it’s not,” Miller said. 

Some lawmakers have raised concerns about transparency, but Miller said the vaccine association has addressed those in recent testimony and has always been entirely transparent. 

“The website has every document that we’ve ever created,” he said. 

Nagel, one of the Republican lawmakers who voted against the bill, said any concerns he had about transparency were addressed in a different bill, which he supported. 

“The people who have opposed [the vaccine association] have never given a good argument to what the problem is,” he said. 

Nagel was recently removed from his post on the House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee in part, he says, because of his stance on vaccines and other health-related issues. He said he needs to prioritize his knowledge as a physician over party lines.

“People taking on legislation … that have virtually no expertise in this area, that aren’t willing to listen to the people who have the expertise – that’s a problem,” he said. “As a physician, I’m really struck with how often the Legislature wants to tell me how to do my job. And what’s really concerning to me, increasingly, is they’re not willing to listen to me explain to them … what the unintended consequences [of legislation] will be.”

Health care workers, including Kim, Nagel, Kraft and Jennison, said those unintended consequences of removing the vaccine association could include higher health care costs and more Granite Staters with preventable disease. The full economic consequences could be seen a decade or more down the road, as hospital systems in the state face increased costs of caring for unvaccinated individuals, Jennison said. 

That’s why there’s such strong bipartisan support for the N.H. Vaccine Association among people who understand its function, they say. 

“This vaccine association highlights the best parts of New Hampshire,” Kraft said. “It’s innovative. It puts that Yankee ingenuity into effect, and it’s incredibly effective.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

Judicial branch takes big step toward addressing system’s response to mental illness

Three-year process of mapping potential changes nears an end, but work still remains

By Aimee Rothman, Granite State News Collaborative

Across the Granite State, jails and prisons have become overcrowded and overstaffed, in part due to the rising rate of incarceration, intensified by recidivism that the state has experienced over the last several decades. 

Since 2020, New Hampshire’s jail population has grown 23%, while the state prison population has grown 7%. But, measured since the 1970s and 1980s, the jail population has grown 448% and the prison population in New Hampshire has grown 432%. 

To address that growth in the jail and prison populations — and since a substantial number of those incarcerated are living with a mental illness or substance abuse issues — the N.H. Judicial Branch is looking at how to improve both its and the community’s response to people with mental illness. (A 2008 National Alliance on Mental Illness-NH report found that 40% of incarcerated males and 70% of incarcerated females were living with a mental illness.)

For the past three years, a mental health team formed by the judicial system has been holding workshops county by county using the System Intercept Model, or SIM, to track each interaction or intersection between people experiencing mental illness or substance abuse and the judicial system. The goal is to use the data to bring about community-based changes in the system.

The idea of community-based change in the treatment of people struggling with behavioral and mental health problems is not a new one. 

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed his final piece of legislation, the Community Mental Health Act, a monumental law that spearheaded a change in the country’s response to behavioral and mental health issues. With it, the United States made a shift toward community-based care rather than the institutionalization of people struggling with mental health and behavioral health issues. 

Elaine Michaud of the Manchester Health Department helps facilitate a SIM workshop at Elliot Hospital on Jan. 17, 2024. (Courtesy N.H. Judicial Branch)

The new legislation was paired with the establishment of community mental health centers across the nation.

Today, over 2,500 of these centers exist in the United States, including 10 in New Hampshire. Even so, the country and the state still report a high rate of institutionalization of people struggling with these issues. But they are not institutionalized at state-sanctioned asylums anymore; instead, they are often placed in jail and prison cells. 

The National Alliance of Mental Illness reports that nearly two in five people who are placed in jail have reported a history of mental illness. Nationally, NAMI reports that 37% of incarcerated people in federal prisons report a history of mental illness, and the number is about 44% in local jails. 

As more and more incarcerated people are struggling with mental health and behavioral health issues, NAMI has found that jails and prisons have effectively become “de facto mental health facilities.”

That understanding has become widespread. A 2022 poll for the American Psychiatric Association found that only 20% of people being held in U.S. prisons and jails were getting the mental health care they need. Rebecca W. Brendel, president of the psychiatric association, said at the time that “Americans are recognizing the longstanding reality that our jails and prisons have become the largest mental health provider in the country and that people in the criminal justice system need treatment and support.”

Addressing institutionalization

While it has been over 60 years since Kennedy signed the Community Health Act, there is still work to be done, according to Susan Stearns, executive director of NAMI-NH.  “The vision for community-based services was not realized and the investment in community-based care was not continued,” she said.

“The act was intended to bring people out of institutions,” she said, with the goal of “providing those community-based services locally so they could live a full life within their community without needing to be institutionalized.” But, she said, the number of people with mental health issues being placed in jails or prisons is “very similar to the number of folks being institutionalized back then.”

The Sequential Intercept Model is made up of six intercepts where people with mental health or substance abuse issues may come into contact with the judicial system. (Courtesy N.H. Judicial Branch)

“We do indeed know that we have a significant number of people who are in our corrections facilities who have mental health and substance disorders,” Stearns said. And, after their release, “it can be very challenging to access treatment services, let alone in a very quick turnaround,” within their communities. 

So, too often, “their symptoms or their treatment would lapse, whether it be mental health treatment or substance abuse treatment, and they would once again become involved in the justice system,” Stearns said.

In 2022, N.H. Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon J. MacDonald and Dianne Martin, director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, assembled a multidisciplinary mental health team focused on tracking the intersection of mental health and the judicial system. 

That team established three goals: to hold a statewide mental health summit, to survey judicial branch employees about the treatment of people with mental health or substance abuse issues that may come into the judicial system, and to conduct SIM mapping workshops of each of the state’s 10 counties. 

That SIM mapping, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “details how individuals with mental and substance use disorders come into contact with and move through the criminal justice system.” It also “helps communities identify resources and gaps in services at each intercept and develop local strategic action plans.”

The idea, the agency said, is to bring together leaders, agencies and systems “to work together to identify strategies to divert people with mental and substance use disorders away from the justice system into treatment.”

The SIM model notes six points, or intercepts, at which people with mental health or substance abuse issues may come into contact with the judicial system:

• Community services, such as crisis helplines.

• Law enforcement.

• Initial detention and/or initial court hearings.

• Jail and/or courts, including specialty courts such as mental health courts.

• Reentry after release from jail.

• Community corrections, such as parole or probation. E

While the 1963 Community Health Act aimed to deinstitutionalize people with behavioral and mental health issues, says Susan Stearns, executive director of NAMI-NH, the number of people with mental health issues who are being placed in jails or prisons is “very similar to the number of folks being institutionalized back then.” (Courtesy photo)

Essentially, the model follows each step of the judicial system, looking at how changes could be made at each step to better serve people with mental health or substance abuse issues.

By studying each intercept, the state can identify “gaps” in the judicial system, where there is room to add new resources and improve existing ones. By improving interactions at each intersection, the state hopes to reduce the number of people incarcerated. 

SIM workshops

The state held its first SIM workshop in Merrimack County in April 2023, with a forum led by Chief Justice MacDonald and Martin.

At the gathering, Martin spoke to the importance of the initiative, highlighting the need for mental health awareness and resources. 

“Every one of us is touched in some way by mental illness — in a friend, a family member, a colleague, or ourselves,” she said. “Those working in the court system are touched by individuals experiencing mental illness, people in crisis, and people experiencing trauma, who come into our courts every day. We all recognize we need to do better for them. But we cannot do it alone. This change requires education, training, access to treatment and, most importantly, collaboration across the state.”

Since then, SIM workshops have been held in all 10 of the state’s counties, said Rachael Azotea-Bolstridge, mental health and wellness coordinator of the judicial branch. After each workshop, Azotea-Bolstridge publishes a report highlighting the findings. The results for two counties — Sullivan and Rockingham counties — have not yet been published, but Azotea-Bolstridge expects that to happen by April.

The reports, such as the one from Belknap County, highlight gaps and potential areas of growth in the community, and include a list of resources available in the community. For instance, the Belknap County report noted that the county has no mental health court, which was identified as a “gap.” The county also identified a need for transitional housing for people being released from jail, and additional resources for them.

At each workshop, participants highlighted  “achievable goals which could happen in the near future” and formed breakout groups that focused on ways to achieve that goal, Azotea-Bolstridge said. The most common goal recognized among all of the breakout groups was addressing a shortage of behavioral workers.

The workshops launched a continuing process, as each breakout group worked toward achieving its goals. Azotea-Bolstridge holds a three-month check-in session with the entire group so each focus group can report on its progress and the whole group can collaborate on other ideas. 

Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald chairs the N.H. Judicial Branch’s mental health team. (Courtesy photo)

Azotea-Bolstridge continues to host the check-ins, which she sees as an “opportunity for people to refocus and report out. She plans to keep them going “until they are no longer needed.” 

So far, only one county, Cheshire County, has concluded its check-in sessions.

Bringing the groups back together

Azotea-Bolstridge plans to host a virtual session in April, at which each county can share details of its work, trade ideas with other counties, and keep each other on track with their overall goals. 

A big question from a lot of people attending the workshops has been:”How are other towns doing it?” she said. 

If the April session goes well, “we’ll probably do it for the other large commonly shared issues,” Azotea-Bolstridge said.

As preliminary data from the workshops comes in, however, one thing is clear: The greater community must be involved to bring about changes in the judicial system. 

“I think the biggest impact [of the SIM workshops] is going to be legislative change, whether that’s on the state level or more of the community level,” Azotea-Bolstridge said.

In the end, the breakout groups are working to create solutions tailored to each county. “Every community comes up with different ways to resolve problems in their community,” Azotea-Bolstridge said. 

Looking to the future of the judicial system in New Hampshire, Stearns said the road ahead is still long. “We have laid some really good foundations with the SIM mapping,” she said, “but where do we take that work?”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

(column) Tech Billionaire vs. The Hungry: Why Elon Musk’s Aid Cuts Matter to NH and Beyond

By Shamecca Brown, Columnist, Granite State News Collaborative

I was stunned. My 15-year-old daughter, a 10th grader, came home from school and said, “Ma, the kids in my high school are not feelin’ Elon Musk.” 

That’s not something you hear every day. Teenagers usually talk about music, sports or social media trends, not billionaires and foreign aid. But here in New Hampshire, even young people are paying attention to the controversy surrounding Elon’s latest move: slashing U.S. foreign aid programs, leaving millions of people, especially in Africa, without food and medical assistance.

And that wasn’t the only thing on her mind. My daughter is an ally for the LGBTQ+ community in her school, and she was livid when she found out Elon has basically disowned his transgender daughter, Vivian, who is 20. “How do you turn your back on your own kid?” she asked me. “And now he’s cutting off food to people who need it? That’s wild.”

People in New Hampshire might not think this affects them, but the truth is, it does. We live in a state where community matters, where we take care of our neighbors. If one of us were struggling, we’d show up. So why is it okay for the richest man in the world to decide that millions of people, mostly Black and brown, don’t deserve the same kind of help?

It makes me sad, and honestly, it worries me at the same time. Money, power, respect–what is this really about? Is this what we’ve come to? Cutting people off when they’re in desperate need? This isn’t business; it’s corruption, plain and simple.

Now let’s talk about the real-world consequences of Elon's decision. Because while Elon can sit comfortably in his mansions, those who rely on U.S. foreign aid can’t escape the impact of his cuts. 

Closer to home, the recent DOGE cuts are affecting my work supporting domestic violence victims. My organization relies heavily on federal grants. These funding reductions directly impact our capacity to provide quality services that benefit our communities of Manchester. Without this funding, it’s becoming harder for us, and other organizations, to provide essential services like housing assistance, food security and support for families in crisis. 

Millions of lives are at risk because of these actions. For countries in Africa, where hunger and disease are already rampant, USAID has been a lifeline. Programs that provide food, medicine and educational support are now being slashed. In countries like Liberia, Congo and Somalia, these cuts are more than just an inconvenience, they are a death sentence for countless people who have no other means of survival, according to reporting from The New York Times. 

In New Hampshire, people might not die, but they could go hungry. It’s hard for me to even imagine a life without food. I’ve never had to wake up wondering where my next meal would come from. But I see it every day with my clients, people and families struggling to survive. 

We are all working to counter the challenges that Elon Musk’s cuts are creating. It's hitting our community hard, leaving vulnerable families with fewer resources, putting more pressure on local nonprofits, and making it even tougher for people to get the help they need. 

What if Elon Musk really does have that much power? What happens when someone like him can make decisions that affect millions of lives, and there’s no one to stop him? If he can pull the plug on food for entire countries, what’s next for us? How long before decisions like these start impacting us?

I refuse to live in a world where the rich get richer, and the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves. 

I want to talk to my New Hampshire people, not just as someone working in this field, but as a person who sees the struggle every day. I see the families who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. I see parents trying to hold it together while worrying about rent, childcare and basic needs. I see the organizations, just like mine, stretched to the limit, trying to do more with less. And now, with these cuts, things are only getting harder.

This isn’t just a problem for a few, it’s a problem for all of us. When services disappear, when safety nets break, when funding is stripped away, it creates a ripple effect. Families suffer, children go without and communities weaken. 

If we don’t step up, who will? I’m asking: what can we do together? How can we make sure our neighbors aren’t left behind? We can speak up, demand better from our leaders, and push for funding that keeps people afloat. We can support the nonprofits doing this work by donating, volunteering or simply spreading awareness. 

We can show up for each other, because at the end of the day, that’s what community is about.This affects all of us. And together, we can do something about it.

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, visitcollaborativenh.org.

As measles resurfaces, how concerned should New Hampshire be?

The World Health Organization once declared measles eradicated in the United States, but lately the disease has made a resurgence. The latest outbreak is in West Texas and New Mexico — so far, there are over 300 reported cases and two deaths, though experts fear many other cases haven’t been reported. What’s going on? Should we be worried in New Hampshire? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” Melanie Plenda discusses talks with Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez, hospital epidemiologist at Dartmouth Health’s Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Doctor, why are we seeing a resurgence in measles cases?

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, we had started seeing, nationally, a decrease in our vaccination rates, and mainly childhood vaccinations. During the pandemic, that worsened and the rates nationally started decreasing below the 95% threshold where we like to see vaccination rates to be in order to create herd immunity so the community is protected. What we're seeing with measles — which is among one of the vaccine-preventable diseases — is that it mainly is being driven by those declining rates of vaccination.

Melanie Plenda:

What does measles look like? What are the symptoms, and when should you seek medical help?

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

Measles starts with a high, high fever. The struggle is that this particular virus mimics, or is similar to, other childhood illnesses — a fever and rash. Parents experience that a lot. But, it will start with a very high fever, usually up to 105 Fahrenheit, and then four to five days after, you can break into a rash. Usually it starts in the face, and then it spreads through the whole body. People get a cough, runny nose and the eyes become a little bit red.

Call your pediatrician when they're having that high fever because there are severe complications. There are health implications, especially for children, when they get measles.

Melanie Plenda:

Why is what’s happening in Texas and New Mexico concerning? 

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

The outbreak is not controlled yet. We have pockets right in the United States where the rates of vaccination may be lower than the national levels. In West Texas, the particular community where the outbreak started, vaccination rates for children were in the low 80s. The outbreak that's happening in New Mexico is a consequence of the West Texas outbreak. There was a pocket of a community there that was also vulnerable, because their vaccination rates were low. 

Melanie Plenda:

What’s the likelihood of this outbreak or others spreading? 

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

We know that within New Hampshire and Vermont, there are areas where vaccination rates overall are lower than what we want them to be to protect the community. Every state, I think, has been struggling with this. I think in New Hampshire, we are likely to see cases in the future. Hopefully, those come in a cluster, and we can contain them quickly and it doesn’t spread, but we are definitely vulnerable for identifying or getting outbreaks here as well.

Melanie Plenda:

What would happen if the measles spread to New Hampshire? Is the state prepared?

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

In 2024, there was a measles case identified in the summer, and that was actually pretty well contained, with the collaboration between Dartmouth Health and the Department Health and Human Services in New Hampshire. I think every state, including New Hampshire, is prepared to contain an outbreak. 

I would say that once we identify those cases, the key thing for the community to know is if you're sick and you think you may have measles is to wear a mask. That helps contain the spread. It produces source control, so we don't infect others while we're sick, and figuring out if we actually have measles.

Vaccination is the other key — making sure that we're up to date on that too, and if we don’t know to ask questions to your doctors. “Am I really protected? Should I be getting another dose of a vaccine?” So I think those conversations need to happen amongst us to protect our community and those most vulnerable — people that will not be able to get vaccinated.

Melanie Plenda:

Tell us about New Hampshire’s vaccination rates for measles. Is it high enough? 

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

Unfortunately, it’s not. Based on data from the 2023-24 school year . across all vaccines that are recommended for children going into kindergarten we're around 89% — so we're 5% below of what we would ideally want. That's across the state of New Hampshire. There's probably areas where that may vary, where maybe some vaccination rates are higher and some are lower, and that may vary also based on vaccine.

Melanie Plenda:

How safe is the vaccine? Should any certain area of the population be more concerned or be taking more steps for safety?

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

The vaccine was introduced in 1963 — the vaccine that we actually give now was revamped in 1972. Individuals who were born before 1957 were in a state where they were either probably had measles and are thought to be immune because of natural illness because there were multiple measles outbreaks constantly. Usually, if you're born before that date, you should be good — you should be protected.

When you're born between 1963 and 1967, there was a measles vaccine, but that vaccine was later found to not be as effective as the one that we give now.because it was a killed virus vaccine, not like the live attenuated vaccine of today, which is a little bit more effective in producing immunity.  So individuals born between 1963 and 1967 are recommended to get at least one dose of the current vaccine.

After that, if you’ve got your two doses of your childhood vaccination of MMR, you should be protected. There are obviously different conversations that can happen based on your individual risk — medical conditions or things that change over time, and I would encourage those patients to talk to their doctor about. But overall, we can confidently say that if you got your two doses, you're protected for life.

Melanie Plenda:

Does the vaccination prevent you from getting the virus?

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

Yes, absolutely. One  dose is 93% effective, and a second dose is 97%. What that means is that your individual risk of contracting measles is reduced by 97% if you get exposed to measles.

Melanie Plenda:

What about the cost of the measles vaccine? 

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

In the United States, each state has a vaccination program. In New Hampshire, we have a vaccination program basically called New Hampshire Vaccine Group. What that group does is purchase, basically, vaccines that are recommended for children, and they provide the vaccine to all children at no cost, regardless of whether they have insurance or not, whether they are able to pay or not. So for children, it is completely free, right off the bat, in basically all of the states in the United States. For adults, it is covered, but usually through insurance.

Melanie Plenda:

Are there other outbreaks or causes of concern that you are watching right now? 

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

Right now, measles has been taking up a lot of the past couple of weeks, because it's been ongoing, and we're worried that it's still probably a lot of work to be done. There's also been a lot of talk around avian flu and the concerns around how much or how little that may affect human transmission. So far, a lot of the cases across the country have been related to occupation — individuals who work with poultry or cattle and get exposed to a sick animal.

But we have had avian influenza in our flocks for many years. It's not like it's new, but I think we're seeing that it's mutating in a way that it's affecting maybe more of the animals than it used to. 

Another thing that comes and goes every five years is norovirus — a virus that causes gastrointestinal problems, like vomiting and diarrhea. It actually starts around spring to pick up, and it seems like it's going to be something that we need to watch for.

Melanie Plenda:

What’s your advice for those who are concerned about this or other outbreaks?

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez:

It’s basically just asking questions – keeping ourselves informed and having good resources for reliable information. We want to make sure that people are well informed, but with evidence and not necessarily things that may not have not been proven and alarm people unnecessarily. Having conversations personally with your healthcare provider should be a trusted source, then just talking about concerns and sort of fielding those questions to the appropriate experts.

Melanie Plenda:

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez, hospital epidemiologist at Dartmouth Health’s Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, thank you for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

The language of music, the power of dance

By Shamecca Brown, Columnist, Granite State News Collaborative

My grandmother used to call me a crybaby, but she always added, “Put some music on, and she’ll dance.” And she was right. 

Growing up in Queens, New York, music and dance were everywhere in my world. I’d see people battling on the streets, dancing in the parks, or performing for money in train stations. I was drawn to movement like a magnet. I danced every chance I got, and talent shows became my stage throughout school.

But life has a way of shifting your stage. Fast forward, and here I am, living in Concord, a world apart from the vibrant streets of Queens. I was 28 years old when I moved here with my 12 year old daughter and 5 year old son in 2005. I wanted to get out of New York for a bit, but the transition wasn’t easy. New Hampshire lacked the diversity I grew up with. 

And yet, I’ve found that dance–the same community building tool from my childhood–works just as well in Concord as it does in Queens.

I got a job as a paraprofessional at the local middle school, and one day I noticed something that didn’t sit well with me. The students sat at lunch in groups divided by race, culture and cliques. It reminded me of a silent dance, but not the kind I was used to. This one lacked rhythm, connection and harmony.

I couldn’t let that continue. I wrote a proposal to the principal to create a hip-hop dance program. My vision was simple but powerful: use dance as a bridge to help students learn about each other’s cultures, gain confidence and express themselves. To my excitement, the principal granted my request, and Vibes of Style was born in 2007. 

The kids used to joke, “You get famous in the basement!” And they weren’t wrong: I taught dance out of my basement, not some fancy studio. But I always told them, “It’s not the studio that teaches you, it’s the teacher and the passion.” That’s what matters most.

Over the years, my unfinished basement became a melting pot of cultures and stories. The floor was concrete and there was no ceiling, just beams with light fixtures. There was no heat, but the kids warmed it up well once they started dancing. 

After a few fundraisers, I covered the floors with rubber gym tiles, mounted mirrors all around the walls, and covered the beams with blues sheets of fabric. I added party lights and pictures of dancers cut out from magazines as a collage. 

I had African kids, Nepali kids, white kids, kids with disabilities, kids with behavioral disorders, every kind of kid you could imagine. It didn’t matter where they came from or what they looked like. All that mattered was that we spoke the same language, and that language was dance.

I’ve always said, “Dance has no color.” And I live by that. There’s nothing like watching a child walk in unsure of themselves, not knowing the music or the moves, then leaving transformed, confident and connected. Dance has a way of breaking down barriers and building bridges.

The parents of my students trusted me and I was finally feeling like I belonged. I made it a point to show the students my world, my real life, teaching them about things happening in the world around them. I’m not afraid to put out dances that truly mean something, dances rooted in Black history or powerful messages inspired by meaningful words. Dance is more than entertainment; it’s a platform to tell stories and spark change. 

I remember each and every child that ever danced with me, even if it was just to try it out, more than 500 of them between 2007 and 2019. I created a space where every kid felt seen, heard and celebrated. Because at the end of the day, dance isn’t just movement, it’s life, culture and expression. 

My dancers and I performed for assisted living homes, businesses, birthday parties and weddings. We weren’t just performing; we were representing. From local parades to features on NH radio stations, we showed that dance had no boundaries. We mixed folk dances, Black history routines, hip hop, ballet and even majorette styles. It wasn’t just about steps, it was about storytelling, connection and celebrating who we are.

Together, we built a language of confidence, courage and self-expression. We moved together, learning life lessons, building respect, and finding joy in the rhythm of life.

And the best part? Seeing these kids light up when they realized what they were capable of. Dance teaches us that the impossible is possible, and that’s a lesson in itself.

I’ll keep dancing, teaching and changing lives, one step at a time.

Shamecca Brown,  is a New Hampshire-based columnist who is family-oriented and passionate about serving underserved communities.

Shamecca Brown, a proud New Yorker, 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.

In a nation built by Immigrants, why is it so hard to be one?

Immigration was a hot-button issue in the last national election, and since President Donald Trump took office, it’s become even more prominent. Headlines regularly discuss raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, rounding up undocumented immigrants. Tens of thousands have been arrested in the last few weeks and await deportation. Meanwhile, sanctuary cities have come under attack and face the threat of the federal government withholding promised funding. What does this all mean for New Hampshire residents? Here to discuss that is Eva Castillo, director of the N.H. Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees, or Welcoming New Hampshire. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Eva, please tell us about your work with immigrants and refugees. How long has it been going on, and how did you get involved? 

Eva Castillo: 

I got involved in the late 70s, when I first moved to the U.S. as a student, and then I realized the different treatment that we got from just regular people. I wasn't even planning on immigrating here, but this is all I've ever done since the ‘70s, and I became a resident in the ‘80s.

I worked at the now defunct Latin American Center in the ‘80s, and I noticed that concentrating on services is not going to make any difference, like putting a Band-Aid on a gangrene-infected wound. So I started doing advocacy and policy, and in 2007 I was hired by the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. They created this program, the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees, because there were nobody — and still, to this day, there's nobody — whose only job is to advocate for immigrants. We have social justice organizations, and they can pick and choose immigration as one of their issues, but I only do immigration.

Melanie Plenda:

What is the work you do at the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees? 

Eva Castillo:

Right now, we're working on legislation, but we build community and we build positive relationships that make things easier for immigrants and refugees to integrate into society. We do leadership training with community organizing, tons of advocacy and just building relationships.

Melanie Plenda:

When we talk about immigrants, we often use terms like “documented” and “undocumented.’ For our audience, can you explain what those terms mean? 

Eva Castillo:

Documented immigrants are people that are here legally. They can be students, they can be tourists, they can be people with work visas. They can be naturalized citizens or legal permanent residents. Undocumented people are those people that just came through the borders without inspection, or a very common occurrence is the people that came here on some type of visa and overstayed. It’s very common for students, for example, to overstay their visas, and also for tourists.

Melanie Plenda:

During the last presidential election, immigration was a hot topic. How did that impact the local community? 

Eva Castillo:

Well, it really became frustrating because both parties use immigration as a punching bag to divert attention from the stuff that really matters to the regular public, even here locally.

I don't see why our local candidates have to run on anti-immigrant platforms. I have been asking people, “Is immigration such a problem for you?” And everybody says they care about housing and about jobs or they want a place that provides drug rehab. Immigration is not on their radar, so we are diverting the attention from the things that really matter to your average New Hampshire person and spending money that should go to more positive things.

The fact that they refer to us as criminals and drug dealers — that doesn’t do a service to anybody, because most of the people that are here are just regular, good people that are here just trying to give their families a better chance, and they're contributing as members of our society. 

It is a fact that undocumented immigrants commit way less crimes than anybody. When you hear every time that an immigrant commits a crime or does something wrong, then it gets blown up in the newspapers, in the media. But I never heard anybody saying a French Canadian or an Irishman did this, and that gives a bad impression to the rest of the residents of the state, and that puts targets on our backs because we're all judged by the very few people that are, that are doing the wrong thing.

Melanie Plenda:

What are some of the concerns out there, when the rhetoric heats up like this?

Eva Castillo:

That someday they are going to get violence with us. In fact, I was just left a nasty message on my phone the other day by an anonymous caller. At least I have the guts and the integrity to put my name behind my words. Some just call me names and tell me, “I hope you get deported, I hope you die.” This is not the first time, and it won't be the last time, but it is just a matter of time before somebody really takes it upon themselves to hurt one of us, because we do not walk around with our passport tattooed on our forehead. 

So, if you sound like me, or if you look like the stereotype of the immigrant — which is, by the way, not a white person — then you're in danger. I have calls from parents of U.S. citizens that are brown teenagers, and they say, how can my kid prove that he's a citizen? How do I protect my child? It is so painful, and at the same time it is upsetting that a mother has to worry about proving and doing something to prove that their kids have the right to live in this country when they've been born here.

Melanie Plenda:

I know it’s hard to generalize, but since President Trump took office, what’s been going on in the local immigrant and refugee community? How are they feeling? How do they feel treated?

Eva Castillo:

Again, we have seen an uptick in just nastiness towards us, and people are afraid. They are not going to the places that they used to go to. They try not to go out shopping too much. Some parents don't even want to send their children to school. The small businesses are being affected also, because their clients, their customers, don't show up.

I was talking to one of my friends who has a bodega. She said that at the end of the day, I have to throw half the food away because nobody no one comes. Another friend of mine has a barber shop, and she says that she is going to have to close her barber shop that she had for 20 years because people don't come. 

So we're affecting people that are here legally, that are U.S. citizens. We're affecting everybody. It's not only the people that live in fear. And then the kids — they don't deserve to live in fear. They don't deserve to have this stress on them. It's affecting their mental health and their well being too.

Melanie Plenda:

You mentioned the fear, what are people doing to cope?

Eva Castillo:

I go around, and I teach people their rights. I talk to them and tell them not to fear and to trust that somehow things are going to get better someday. But even myself, I spent many nights just going to bed crying because there's not much I can do. I feel totally powerless.

These are people that I have known for 20 years or more, that I know are good people. I'm not around protecting criminals. This is my community too, so I don't want criminals regardless of where they come from. I don't want them living in my community. Every time they pick somebody that's a good person that I know that is just trying to do the right thing, and there's just no way for them to make it right in the way this dysfunctional system works, it really hurts me. So I cannot imagine if I am like this, how hard it is for those people that are families of mixed status. We have tons of mixed-status families living under one roof, so everybody's affected.

Melanie Plenda:

What is the alliance doing about all this? 

Eva Castillo:

Well, I just give my support to people when they call me. Every weekend I go someplace, or every night I go someplace to give a “Know Your Rights” program. We have groups of people trying to provide support to the families that are left behind. There's another group of people that’s trying to find ICE activity, to verify that it is there instead of just spreading false news. That just increases the paranoia and the fear. We have groups of people just trying to talk to legislators locally to see if we can at least mitigate some of the harm or get people to understand that this is not the way. We really need to pass some type of reform that cleans up the old system and starts from scratch to make things easier. And we need to do something about the millions of people that are already here.

Melanie Plenda:

What other ideas do you have for solving this issue?

Eva Castillo:

We need our congresspeople to really grow some spine and do the right thing and stop using us — and I'm talking about both parties. Stop playing ping pong with the lives of immigrants, with the lives of people, and just revamp and pass some type of law that really solves this issue once and for all.

I have spent at least 25 years, if not more, begging our legislators on both sides. Please do something. We need to restate the fact that we're not talking about numbers here. We're talking about people, and we have really defaced immigrants. We have really dehumanized them to the point that people don't even have any compassion, or they don't feel anything because it's all about numbers. We're talking about families — mothers, children, fathers, elderly. Let's put humanity back in immigration.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you so much for sharing these insights. Eva Castillo, director of the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees, thank you for joining us today.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

N.H. House favors statewide school spending cap, though voters reject caps locally

The bill, passed Thursday, would limit how much any district can increase spending, based on the current budget. Critics say it would lock in inequities

By Kelly Burch, Granite State News Collaborative

The N.H. House of Representatives voted Thursday (March 13) to pass a bill that would impose statewide school spending caps, though voters in at least eight districts across the state have rejected spending caps at the local level. 

“At its heart, this is a state mandate that would take away the ability of a local community to control how they wanted to make their own spending decision on their school districts,” said Zack Sheehan, executive director of the N.H. School Funding Fairness Project, a grassroots organization focused on equity in school funding and taxes. 

The bill, HB 675, which passed with a 190-185 vote, would limit a school district’s ability to increase its budget. While the calculations are complex, they essentially amount to about a maximum increase of about 2.5 percent annually, Sheehan said. To override that limitation, districts would need two-thirds approval from voters. 

The bill now moves on to the House Finance Committee.

The legislation is “probably one of the biggest and most consequential bills I’ve seen in a long time,” said Christina Pretorius, policy director at Reaching Higher NH, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on education in the Granite State. In part, that’s because it seems to go against the will of voters, she said.

A new state law that took effect in October allows local residents to propose a budget cap for their school districts. Residents in at least nine districts — ConVal, Epping, Epsom, Hollis Brookline, Kearsarge, Salem, Weare and Haverhill — have done that. Eight districts have voted on the caps, and all rejected them, N.H. Public Radio reports. (Haverhill will vote March 15.)

After Kearsarge voters rejected a budget cap, House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Rockingham, told the New Hampshire Journal, “Perhaps, if [local voters] are unwilling to cap themselves, the state will step in and cap local taxes for them.” Osborne is one of two sponsors of HB 675. 

That sentiment is concerning to Pretorius. “They can’t pass these arbitrary caps at the local level, so they’re mandating it at the state level,” she said.

The concern about property tax increases is widespread and tied to school funding, since local taxes cover about 70 percent of the school budgets in New Hampshire districts. Yet voters have repeatedly rejected spending caps, while calling on the state government to better fund education, Pretorius said. 

“They’ve been saying, we don’t want your budget caps; what we want is the state to support public education, and that’s what’s going to lower our property taxes,” she said.

The spending limit in HB 675 "freezes in time all the current inequities” between school districts, Sheehan said. While some districts may currently have enough funding, districts that have a smaller budget would be unable to substantially increase those budgets, he said. 

“What if Newport, a struggling school district, got a chunk of money from a foundation or business that wanted to invest?” Sheehan said. “They literally would not be able to accept that if it went over this cap.”

If a district had a sudden increase in special education expenses, he added, it might need to cut programs such as sports, arts, and Advanced Placement classes to stay within the spending cap.

Megan Tuttle, president of NEA-New Hampshire, the state’s largest teachers union, said that the statewide cap would be “an offense to the will of voters and completely disregards the majority of Granite Staters who support their local public schools and believe every student deserves access to a quality education, regardless of their ZIP code.”

Educators share concerns about rising property taxes, Tuttle said, but they’re calling on the state to fully fund education, rather than putting the burden on local communities or setting spending limits. 

“Make no mistake about it: Instead of fixing our state’s broken public education funding system, HB 675 will lock in the existing disparities around our state and make it very difficult for districts that are already underfunded to make up ground,” she said.

Also on Thursday, both the House and Senate passed bills that would make Educational Freedom Accounts, commonly known as school vouchers, available to all eligible Granite Staters, regardless of income. The vouchers provide an average of $4,600 per student for families to use toward private school tuition or homeschool expenses. Universal eligibility would cost the state about $102 million during the 2025-26 school year, according to Reaching Higher NH.

“Instead of addressing the root issue of rising property taxes — an inequitable public school funding system — the [House and Senate] voted to expand the school voucher program to the wealthiest families in the state,” Pretorius said. 

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

How to participate and take action in your local government

Last week we delved into what town meetings are about, alongside their role in local journalism. This week we continue to explore the intricacies of annual town meetings and town meeting elections. How can you get involved? Where can you get information? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan helps us find out how the average person can participate and take decisive action in their local community. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

Melanie Plenda:

First, let's take a step back. For our audience who may be unfamiliar with them, how did town meetings begin? How have they changed and evolved?

David Scanlan:

Well, town meeting is rooted from our colonial past, and when the settlers came over to this continent and they started to congregate and form townships and communities, there had to be a way for the people in those communities to make decisions about how they were going to handle the affairs of the community. That's basically how town meetings got started. It became a formal process because there had to be some ground rules on how meetings would take place. 

Melanie Plenda:

Do some New Hampshire towns still have a traditional annual town meeting?

David Scanlan:

Yes, many still have this, mostly the smaller towns, but even some of the larger ones still have a traditional town meeting, and the format is basically the same as it was 300 years ago. I've attended many of those deliberative types of meetings, and they're fascinating. It's great entertainment, if nothing else. But effectively it brings the community together, allows them to discuss important issues to the community and come to a resolution on them. 

Melanie Plenda:

What is the secretary of state’s role in town meetings across New Hampshire? 

David Scanlan:

Well, town meetings are just that. They're there for the local communities and political subdivisions in New Hampshire. The secretary of state really does not have a role in that process, other than there are state statutes that apply to elections generally.

The participants in any election are maintained on the statewide voter registration database. Then there are laws on the books related to electioneering and campaigning and things similar that we're kind of responsible for. The important thing is we act as a resource to the towns on the best way to conduct their elections. What the different roles are of election officials — the moderator, the clerk, supervisors of the checklist — and we're there primarily for support.

Melanie Plenda:

What do residents need to vote? Can they still register?

David Scanlan:

The town meeting is actually in two parts. There is the voting part for officers. The town election is an election. To vote and participate in that election, a person must be on the voter checklist, and towns also have election day registration, so somebody in town who wants to participate that is not registered can do that on the day of the town election.

The requirements have become a little more strict for registration. A voter has to prove four things: identity, age, citizenship and domicile. And when a voter registers, they have to bring documentation that proves each of those qualifications. There's a list on the secretary of state website if voters want to see that. 

The other part of town meeting, then, is the deliberative part, and that is where the voters outside of the election process come together physically in a group. They will take up the articles that are placed on the town warrant. So prior to the deliberative session, there's an opportunity for the selectmen — the governing body of the town — to present the articles that they want to have discussed, like the town budget and other important things. Then there's an opportunity for petition warrant articles, which can be any topic that the members of the community want to discuss. And then that is publicized in advance of the meeting. Only those articles on the warrant can be discussed and acted on at the meeting, and the moderators are responsible for taking those up, one by one — having a debate, making any amendments, voting them up or down, and then moving on to the next article.

Melanie Plenda:

How can a citizen looking to get involved with their local community access information about the annual town meeting and the town election? 

David Scanlan:

In close proximity to the meeting itself, obtain a copy of the town warrant, which is published in a form that is called the annual report. There's a lot of really useful information in there — a lot of it maybe not so useful, but really, really interesting facts about the town. It will have the budget published, so you can see where the town plans to spend money over the next year. All of the articles that are going to be taken up at town meeting will be on the warrant, and many of them publish statistics of how many births there were, how many deaths.There might be ceremonial recognitions for people who have made major contributions to the town. It’s a pretty fascinating document. 

Towns have great participation from the citizens of the town, and it is easy to participate by getting elected to the planning board, the conservation commission, the budget committee, or the cemetery agent. There are many, many elected positions in town government that may interest people, and it is very interesting to serve on those. I've served in many committees at the local level myself, and it's a very, very rewarding experience. It gives you a better understanding of how the town handles its affairs, and you get to meet the other great people that live in your community. 

Melanie Plenda:

Can you tell us a little bit more about what deliberative sessions are and how they relate to town meeting elections, and if someone is able to attend the deliberative session can they still vote?

David Scanlan:

Well, every town meeting has some form of a deliberative component.

In a traditional town meeting, the people that want to participate and vote on the issues show up at the town hall or school gymnasium — wherever the meeting is going to be held. And then it is an opportunity for the voters in that town to express their positions, feelings and concerns about any one of the topics that are going to come up in the form of an article at that meeting. In a traditional town meeting, after the discussion is over and any amendments are made, there is a final vote that's up or down and it becomes the position of the town if they’re passed. If they don’t pass, people can try again the following year. 

In a Senate Bill 2 town, or an official ballot voting town, there is a deliberative session where voters come together again in a single location, and they discuss the issues. They maybe offer amendments, but then when the discussion is finished there is not a final vote taken at that point in time. Instead, the article in its final form is actually placed on the official ballot, on the paper ballot that will be distributed on the day of the election, when the officers of the town are elected. And then the people will get to vote in the voting booth on each one of the articles that was presented. That gives an opportunity for more people to actually participate in the actual final vote of the town because people can show up at the polling place at their convenience during the polling hours and vote on those issues, as opposed to having to set aside two or three hours on a Tuesday night or a Saturday afternoon to attend the town meeting. 

There is no opportunity, really, for remote participation in the deliberative part of town meetings. Part of that is because those articles can be amended, and you really can't vote by absentee, or whatever, on items that might change before the final vote is taken. So at the moment, people have to be physically present at the deliberative session to participate. Now, with the increase in technology, there are probably opportunities that exist now for people to view the actual deliberative session in real time, but there are no opportunities presently that exist that allow people to actually vote remotely on the articles that are being presented.

Melanie Plenda:

What about you? Does your town have an annual town meeting or town meeting election and will you be participating? 

David Scanlan:

My town has a traditional town meeting, both for town and school district affairs, and I do participate in those. They're fascinating to me. It's a study on human nature. It's great to see people that maybe are timid and shy that feel so strongly about an issue that they build the courage to get up and speak — and that's important, and it's important that people feel that they can express their views without intimidation and pressure. And it's the moderator’s job to make sure that the discussion during a deliberative session is controlled to the point that there's no heckling and clapping, and things like that

There can be a lot of drama, and there can be a lot of humor too. I've seen some moderators in the past that have a quick wit and can get the place laughing, and a lot of times that diminishes the tension that sometimes builds on really critical issues that might have strong opposing sides.

Melanie Plenda:

On that note, any final thoughts you want to share with people about town meetings?

David Scanlan:

It is a great process, and I think that those of us that live in New England and in the original 13 colonies are fortunate to have this process that has developed and withstood the test of centuries. It's an amazing process. The further west that you go, the less and less the voters in those places have the same opportunities that we have to have these really great conversations about how the town affairs should be run.

Melanie Plenda:

Thank you New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communication at Franklin Pierce University. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

IINE fields concerns on immigration, detention, mass deportation and humanitarian aid

By Romal Shinwary, Manchester InkLink, Granite State News Collaborative

MANCHESTER, NH – In the wake of sweeping immigration policies enacted under President Donald Trump’s second administration, Henry Harris, Managing Director of the International Institute of New England (IINE) in Manchester, is working to educate and support local immigrant communities. Harris recently met with Afghan refugees at Brookside Church to provide guidance on their rights and the ongoing changes affecting immigration policy.

The meeting with members of the Afghan community was just one of several meetings IINE has been conducting with groups from clients from other countries around the region served by the organization.

“The biggest change we’ve seen is the complete shutdown of the reception and placement program,” Harris explained. “This program helps resettle refugees, and with its suspension, we’re no longer seeing new arrivals.” The policy shift has left families separated, with many who were in transit to the U.S. having their plans abruptly canceled.

Despite the halt in new refugee arrivals, IINE continues to assist those already in the U.S. by offering legal guidance, social services, and employment assistance. A significant focus is ensuring that immigrants understand their rights, particularly in encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Harris emphasized that all IINE clients are in the country legally, yet misunderstandings and racial profiling remain concerns.

Henry Harris, Managing Director of International Institute of New England (IINE) Manchester office, presents information to a men’s group of Afghani refugees at Brookside Church, one of several meetings held around the region with groups from various countries who have questions and concerns about U.S. immigration policy changes. Photo/Romal Shinwary

To mitigate risks, IINE distributes “Know Your Rights” cards in multiple languages, including Pashto and Dari, explaining legal protections under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Harris stressed that individuals should carry identification and key documents at all times to avoid complications. “We’re making sure our clients know that ICE agents need a warrant signed by a judge to enter their homes,” he said. “Many times, they use administrative paperwork that lacks legal authority, and we don’t want people unknowingly consenting to searches.”

The effect of these policy changes extends beyond individuals to the broader community. IINE had infrastructure in place to welcome new refugees, including housing arrangements, that is now in limbo. Families who were expecting loved ones to join them in early 2025 have been left waiting indefinitely.

While no major incidents involving IINE clients and ICE have been reported, Harris remains vigilant. “We want to ensure that mistakes aren’t made and that our clients are protected,” he said. “The most important thing is for people to stay informed, engaged, and connected to advocacy efforts.”

As immigration policy continues to evolve, IINE remains committed to supporting New Hampshire’s refugee and immigrant communities, providing them with the tools they need to navigate an increasingly uncertain landscape, Harris said.

Carol Robidoux of Ink Link News contributed to this report.

Below: Full interview with Henry Harris, IINE Manchester

https://youtu.be/s712eCvGS48

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

Column: As a Black woman, I depend on Target, but I’m still joining the boycott

By Shamecca Brown, Columnist, Granite State News Collaborative

My daughter and I love Target, maybe more than most. As Black women in New Hampshire, Target is one of the few stores in New Hampshire where we can actually find products that cater to us.

But this month, we’re finding ourselves caught between the convenience of our favorite shop, and the values that are most important to us. March 5 marks the start of a 40-day boycott of Target in response to its rollback of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. The boycott is spearheaded by Dr. Jamal Bryant, a prominent civil rights leader and head of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia, who called for a boycott during Lent to protest the company’s rollback of DEI initiatives.  

As a Black woman, and mother, I can’t help but ask why is this happening? And what does it really mean for us? I’ll be real, Target has always been one of the few places where I felt good shopping at as a Black woman living in New Hampshire. I could never find products for people of color and brands that I’m familiar with, like Dax Coconut hair grease or gel for my edges. Before a Target opened near me, I had to go back and forth to New York or have my family bring these products when they would visit. Target understood what melanin means and that’s a plus. It has been my go-to when other stores just don’t carry what my family needs.

Target is a place where my family feels seen. At least, we did. During Black History Month, it was heartwarming to walk through the aisles and see t-shirts with empowering messages, children’s clothes with little Black and brown faces, and books that uplift our stories. Representation matters right? When our kids see themselves in products, it tells them, “You belong.” So, when Target decided to backtrack on its DEI commitments, I had to stop and think, what is this world coming to? 

Now, back in April of 2021, Target made a public “ commitment “ to invest $2 billion into Black-owned businesses, expanding opportunities for underrepresented entrepreneurs. This initiative aimed to add products from over 500 Black-owned businesses across its assortment and engage more Black owned companies to enhance its retail operations and shopping experience. 

It was a step in the right direction, recognizing the power of Black consumers and the importance of equity. But now, following political pressure and the rollback of DEI programs nationwide, Target is reversing course. They’re cutting funding to Black-owned brands, stepping away from partnerships with Black designers, and essentially walking backwards. This is about more than dollars: it’s about visibility, respect  and a corporate acknowledgment that we exist and matter.

For Black communities, this feels like a slap in the face. Our economic power is undeniable. We spend billions annually, and we shop at Target just as much as anyone else. When a company takes our money but then decides our representation isn’t worth maintaining, it’s hard not to feel betrayed.

And for allies, I think everyone should support the boycott. Allies stood with us when corporations were posting black squares and making promises in 2020. I’m just hoping nothing has changed and we can stick together. Let me say this: if companies are allowed to erase progress just because the political climate shifts, what does that say about the future of inclusivity in this country?

Raising children who are learning to navigate multiple identities is already challenging in a society that often tries to put people into boxes. When companies stop celebrating diversity, when spaces start feeling less welcoming, those children notice. If my daughter sees fewer Black and brown faces in the books and clothes at Target, what message does that send? That her existence is only valued when it’s profitable?

I can’t lie, it's tough. I love Target. It’s convenient, it’s familiar, and in a state like New Hampshire, where access to diverse products can be limited, it feels necessary. But then I ask myself, what are we willing to accept? How many times will corporations profit off Black culture and communities, only to abandon us when it’s no longer good business.

Boycotts have been a powerful tool in Black history. I remember learning in school about the Montgomery Bus Boycott from 1955-1956. After Rosa Parks’ arrest, Black residents in Montgomery refused to ride city buses for over a year. That made a huge impact. The economic pressure forced the city to desegregate public transportation, proving the power of collective action. During the South African Apartheid Boycott in the 1980s and 1990s, people worldwide boycotted businesses supporting South Africa’s racist apartheid system. The financial strain helped push the country toward democracy. It showed how economic pressure can drive a major change. 

History gives me hope. We might have a chance. Both boycotts worked because they weren’t just symbolic, they hit where it hurts: the economy.

I’m just wondering in the world we live in today at this moment if the boycott is even a good idea. I wonder if Target counts on the fact that people in New Hampshire and across the country don’t feel like we have options. 

If we boycott, that means supporting Black-owned businesses where we can, holding corporations accountable, and using our voices to demand better. If we choose not to boycott, then we should at least be asking questions, like why does a company that was so vocal about DEI suddenly feel the need to pull back? And who benefits from that decision? 

I can’t be silent. I don’t have a lot of answers but I can stay informed and speak out. My answer on boycotting if you all are wondering: It’s a YES, because if I don’t stand up, companies will keep treating diversity like a trend instead of a commitment.

 Shamecca Brown,  is a New Hampshire-based columnist who is family-oriented and passionate about serving underserved communities.

 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.