Personal Housing Stories

When Chad got lucky in the lottery 3 years ago he did what comes naturally, used it to help his family and friends. But money only goes so far when health issues and rising prices make life challenging. 

Growing up in the Monadnock region, Chad worked in a variety of maintenance jobs as a young man. A series of regrettable choices led to incarceration, but his faith and friends have helped him turn his life around. 

Now, he works in food delivery and helps others as much as he can, but finding affordable housing while keeping up with car payments is a huge challenge. He lived out of his car and in a tent for a while. Currently, Chad is couch surfing with a relative and on a waitlist for subsidized housing.

Access to safe, stable housing is especially important, but hard to come by for people recently out of jail who are striving to make a new start. Landlords are understandably cautious about renting to someone with a record and require security deposits that for many are out of reach. Living in a college town, a lot of the reasonably priced apartments go to students. 

Chad’s nature is to look on the bright side and keep moving forward. He says, “God gave me a chance to do something with my life. Going to church and being with positive-minded people helps me stay positive.”

A business owner and single parent of two school age children, John found that when life seems stable, sudden circumstances can change things dramatically.

With characteristic optimism, John moved to New Hampshire and opened a barber shop just about the time of the covid pandemic. He persevered and made the shop a welcoming place for people of all ages with lots of local character and memorabilia. Children’s first time haircuts are free, seniors get discounts. John regularly gives haircuts for no charge at a local homeless shelter. “My work is taking care of people, cutting hair is a side job,” John says.

He and his children were living in an apartment when water flooded from the floor above making the apartment unlivable. A local public housing agency offered to prioritize the family on their waitlist, but thinking that others had a greater need and it wouldn’t take long to find another apartment, John passed on the offer. They ended up living in a hotel for 4 months costing well over $100/day.

Finally, they found a 575 square foot, two bedroom apartment for $1,975/month. Their savings were pinched after the hotel stay, but they were able to make up the first and last month’s security deposit work. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a fit, paper thin walls and noisy neighbors were not a good situation for the children.

Through a friend John was able to find an affordable single family home. It’s out of town, so now they have transportation costs, but they are making it work. John likes the small town feel of the Monadnock region and sees lots of job opportunities, but for families like his, housing is an ongoing struggle.

Robert volunteers, cooking for the interfaith community breakfast program and doing custodial maintenance for the You Are Not alone support group and for the Keene Serenity Center. Robert explains, “Others have helped me, now, I gotta give back.”

Robert’s elderly mother needed a full-time caregiver. So, after years of working as a groundskeeper and custodian, Robert stepped up to take care of his mom. When his mother passed away, the house and her belongings were sold off for her estate, and divided among family members. Robert worked two part-time jobs, bought a camper, and hoped to live in a peaceful, local town. 

Unfortunately, local zoning laws did not allow for camper living and old health issues made him unable to continue working. Robert found an apartment in town that he was able to afford until the rent was raised by 75%. He was given 3 weeks to sign a new lease or vacate. 

He had applied for subsidized housing prior to getting the raise of rent notice, but Robert had been on the housing waitlist for two years. He started to think about where he could live on the streets safely, noting where there were heat vents in secluded places. Just as he was about to be homeless, an apartment opened up on the housing waitlist, where he now lives happily. 

Robert expresses gratitude for the City of Keene and local service organizations who helped him along the way with temporary rental assistance and consultation. “They do the best they can, but they need more people who can be advocates as you go through the system,” he says.

“Stable housing helps you become a fuller person,” says Laurie. Now in a secure and safe housing situation, Laurie has the time to volunteer, working for her church, and assisting others in need, but that wasn’t always the case.

Over the years, Laurie has been a nurse and a teacher. Due to an early marriage that didn’t work out, she was a single mom for many of those years. She felt lucky when she and her young daughter were eligible for rent assistance based on income.
Even so, she hadn’t been in her job long enough to have insurance when her daughter became sick. Laurie had to choose between money for groceries or paying bills. She was grateful to her physician who supplied them with medical samples.

Being in a helping profession was deeply satisfying for Laurie, “I always had food snacks in my desk for the hungry students in class.” As Laurie got older, her spine and leg disabilities became more challenging. She waited more than 3 years for an apartment in a senior housing development.

Laurie now lives self-sufficiently in Marlborough’s Pierce Elderly House Apartments, enjoys being active in the community, and speaking out as a housing advocate. “Helping others makes me feel good,” she says.