Bruce Allaire recently got some good news.
His parents, who had been staying on the fourth floor of the Comfort Inn in Manchester for nearly a year, finally found an apartment: A subsidized one-bedroom in Hooksett, and just in time for a looming deadline.
They were living at the Comfort Inn courtesy of the New Hampshire Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which paid hotels around the state to open their doors to unhoused people with federal pandemic-assistance funds. The state provided additional funding in December. But now the program is ending, with an April 1 deadline for adults, and June 15 for families with children.
“My parents are safe and secure,” said Allaire, who helped file the necessary paperwork and made calls to housing services for them. But he’s not feeling relaxed.
“I don’t want to say I’m content, because that’s really not the right word,” he said.
That's because Allaire and his girlfriend, Coven Covey, are also living at the Comfort Inn, with their nearly two-year-old son. And they have to leave by June 15.
The New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, which oversees the program, says that of the approximately 700 households in the hotel program, 500 of them face the April 1 deadline. Officials say it’s not clear how many of them have found new housing.
Community Action Programs, like Southern New Hampshire Services in Hillsborough County, say they’re working to help people living in the hotels in that search. They even pay for the first month’s rent and security deposit.
But finding affordable housing is a difficult task. Right now, vacancy rates in New Hampshire are at 0.5%; A healthy market is closer to 5% vacancy. Meanwhile, the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment has increased by more than 45% in the past decade, and housing experts say the combination of these trends has exacerbated the state’s homelessness crisis.
Allaire says three generations of his family had been living together in a three-bedroom apartment in Manchester until last year, but they were evicted because the landlord decided to renovate. Since then, Allaire says he, Covey and their son bounced around three different hotels in two different cities, and couch-surfed at family and friend’s homes until they landed at the Comfort Inn.
“It's a really humbling experience to not know where you're going to sleep the next night, not knowing if your kid's going to have something to eat,” he said.
Allaire said that he and Covey had been working until someone totaled their car, which made it difficult to get to their jobs. He credits local support groups, such as Waypoint and Southern New Hampshire Services, for extending a lifeline for his family. He says they put him in touch with family support services and helped them get on waitlists for subsidized housing.
“I'm just incredibly grateful. I just can't say it enough,” he said.
He says he’s also grateful to be staying at the Comfort Inn, even though it can get a little crowded living in one room that has to essentially function as two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and a play space. Covey said they’ve tried to make it as comfortable as possible for their son by setting up a corner with toys and blankets.
“That corner is his spot,” Covey said, “so he feels like he has his own area, even though we’re in a confined space.”
She said their biggest priority is to make their son — who has spent much of his life living in hotels — feel comfortable and safe.
“The change is overwhelming,” she said. “[We] did enough on our part to make him feel no matter where we are, if he's with me and dad, that that's home.”
They’ve also found community at the Comfort Inn with the other hotel residents — some of whom they knew from before, including a few close friends and relatives. Allaire says they throw potluck dinners using hot plates in their rooms, take walks and organize community events in the parking lot — even a “trunk or treat” Halloween for the kids last fall.
“It was only here in the parking lot, but it was still nice to have everybody coming together,” Allaire said.
He and Covey dressed up their son as one of his favorite characters, Mickey Mouse.
“He kept looking at himself in the mirror like, ‘Wait a minute. This doesn't look right here.’ But he liked it,” Allaire said.
As the April 1 deadline approached, Allaire said most of their friends at the Comfort Inn haven’t found new places to stay. He said his parents are the lucky ones.
He and Covey are hoping they’ll get their lucky break too: that they’ll soon get off one of the housing waitlists, land new jobs and find an apartment that will feel like home.
For now, Covey has bought a sign that she’s hung on the door of their hotel room.
“It says, ‘Our family is like branches of a tree. We may grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one,’ ” she said.
