This story was originally produced by The Keene Sentinel. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte has signed into law a bill that will allow towns and cities to require proof of residency before helping people of low income with necessities such as housing, food, heat and prescriptions.
House Bill 348, whose prime sponsor was Jennifer Rhodes, R-Winchester, will change a longstanding statute saying that residency is not a requirement for receiving local welfare assistance.
Supporters say the bill may allow for a more equitable system of sharing growing welfare expenses among municipalities, and assert that its provisions will ensure that assistance will continue to flow to those in need.
Opponents said the existing law was fine and that there is no need to put up additional barriers to aid for people in difficult situations.
Republican-backed HB 348, as introduced, would have allowed municipalities to establish a 90-day residency requirement as a prerequisite for receiving aid. A lease, car registration or utility bill were cited as ways of proving residency.
But that length of stay was removed in the final version, which also expanded the ways a person could show residency. It also specifies that the residency requirement does not apply to people who left their original town because of domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault or human trafficking.
It also mandates assistance of up to six days for people who are temporarily in a municipality and need help to address a basic-needs emergency.
Also under the bill, a municipality can recover some welfare expenses from another town or city where the applicant resides.
Rhodes said in an interview Tuesday that local assistance programs work best when people apply for help where they are living.
“Towns know what’s best for their own community members,” she said. “What somebody requires for assistance when they live in Keene would be completely different from somebody that lives in Winchester or Troy.”
Keene City Councilor Randy Filiault said that since Keene provides all of the homeless shelter beds in Cheshire County, it inevitably bears more costs of providing welfare assistance than other municipalities.
Anything that would facilitate more cost-sharing among municipalities would be helpful, he said.
Dawn McKinney, policy director for N.H. Legal Assistance, said she fears people in need will “fall through the cracks” under new residency requirements.
“I do think requiring proof of residency will lead to some people being unable to get emergency assistance because, even though they are residents, they won’t have the wherewithal to prove it,” she said.
Todd Marsh is Rochester’s welfare director and the president of the N.H. Local Welfare Administrators Association.
He said his goal will be for the state to continue to offer adequate emergency assistance to those most in need.
“Along with our association’s Board of Directors, I will be focused on training cities and towns throughout the state on best practices and on how to apply the new law with consistent, humane, accountable, and flexible decision-making,” he said in an email.
HB 348 has an effective date of July 21.