6/6/25: Housing Matters Newsletter – Senate Passes Budget That Fails to Boost Affordable Housing Funds

Yesterday, the State Senate voted to pass the state budget on a 14-10 vote. As housing remains the top concern of Granite Staters, we believe the state budget adopted by the New Hampshire Senate this week falls short in addressing our state’s housing shortage. As passed by the New Hampshire Senate, House Bill 2:

• Fails to include Senate Bill 81 as passed unanimously by the Senate, which would have increased the annual allocation from the Real Estate Transfer Tax from $5 million to $10 million and made a one-time $25 million appropriation to the Affordable Housing Fund.
• Fails to include Senate Bill 113 as passed unanimously by the Senate, which would have increased the annual homeless shelter funding to $12 million per year and an additional $3 million in housing stabilization and rental assistance.
• Fails to include Senate Bill 158 as passed unanimously by the Senate, which would have doubled the annual Community Development Finance Authority Tax Credit from $5 million to $10 million.
• Fails to include Senate Bill 279 as passed unanimously by the Senate, which would have allocated $5 million to the successful Housing Champions Grants Program.

While we did not expect all of this funding to make it into the budget, we are disappointed that none of the increases were included.

This budget represents more than a $40 million step back in general fund investment from the FY 24-25 state budget. In the FY 24-25 budget, the State Legislature and Governor approved $35 million to the Affordable Housing Fund, $10 million to the InvestNH program, and $5.25 million to the Housing Champions Program – in addition to the $100 million in federal ARAP and SRSF funds in recent years.

Combined, these investments have led to almost 6,000 new housing units, the demolition of costly dilapidated structures, and technical assistance to over 100 communities seeking to update regulatory ordinances. Furthermore, this budget eliminates the funding for the Regional Planning Commissions and defunds one of the three board member positions with the Housing Appeals Board.

While the Housing Champions Program was defunded entirely, this budget did include $5 million per year in statutorily required funds to the Affordable Housing Fund, $5 million per year in statutorily required CDFA tax credits, maintains existing funding for the homeless shelter contracts, and includes permitting reform within state agencies.

The House and Senate will next beging negotiations on a compromise budget. The compromise budget must be agreed on by June 19 and will receive a full vote on June 26.

As always, if you have questions about the legislation we mention in the newsletter or housing-related proposals that aren’t included, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

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Best,
Nick Taylor

Executive Director
Housing Action NH
nick@housingactionnh.org

The House and Senate deadlines to act on legislation have passed. There are no traditional committee meetings next week. However, Committees of Conference, which occur when the House and the Senate pass different iterations of the same bill and need to negotiate the differences, may begin next week.

Next week, the House and Senate will both meet on June 12th to take up concurrence or non-concurrence votes on legislation.

The Senate met yesterday to vote on the budget (see above) and other legislation. The Senate voted to pass:

• House Bills 1 and 2, as discussed above, the state budget bills passed 14-10.
• House Bill 60, which would allow tenants to be removed at the end of lease without cause passed with a floor amendment. The floor amendment improves upon the bill as originally introduced, but Housing Action NH still believes the bill is unnecessary. HB 60 will go to a Committee of Conference.

The House met yesterday to take action on all remaining senate bills.

• Senate Bill 163, which would have limited municipalities ability to place a moratorium on new building permits, was tabled.