According to the New Hampshire 2024 Residential Rental Cost Survey Report, only 13% of the two-bedroom rental units are affordable to the median-income renter household, for whom an affordable rent is $1,420. Their 2024 survey found rents have increased over the past 10 years. The 2024 statewide median monthly gross rent (including utilities) for two-bedroom units was $1,833, a 3.9% increase from last year ($1,764) and a 36% increase from five years ago ($1,347 in 2019). 

Once there was a woman who grew up in a small New Hampshire town – a town where the center is difficult to recognize. There, she lived with her mother and five siblings. Sometimes her family lived with her grandparents, a friend, or a cousin. Although she never knew it, she had been homeless for most of her life. When someone spends a lifetime living in poverty, life is a whirling dervish – their normal. 

She attended five schools before she became pregnant and moved in with her boyfriend. He was abusive, so she moved in with a friend who lived in her son's school district and could drive her to work. She moved out of her friend’s apartment, and even though she knew he had sexually assaulted other women, she had nowhere to go. 

When her boyfriend was convicted for sexually assaulting her friend, the veil of her own denial lifted. Finally, someone convinced her to move home and get help. Still, living at home with her 3-year-old child was not a healthy option. 

Fortunately for her, she had MATS to turn to, and they provided her with the resources to get her GED, a car, and enroll her son in a new school. There is no guarantee that she will remain where she lives now, but MATS helped her break the generational cycle of rural poverty.

Rural communities have high rates of poverty and low employment. The challenge of getting to a job if you don’t have a car or cannot afford gas, along with the lack of infrastructure to provide employment, public transportation or day care, is a huge part of the problem. Unaffordable housing, and a prevalence of low-wage service occupations, exacerbates the issue. 

In cities, homelessness is a visible, tangible issue, and it the community feels the effect. But rural homelessness is “hidden homelessness.” Some people choose to be isolated because they are escaping an abuser, parents, creditors or the police, and hiding is the safest option. Others spend summers at campgrounds or in tents. Some live in their cars until the cold becomes unbearable. 

Peterborough has an infrastructure to help people transition out of homelessness. This includes The River Center, Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter, town welfare and the schools. At the beginning of the school year, the ConVal School District reported 14 children as homeless. Some of them made it to MATS, but not all. 

We have a general idea of the volume of rural poverty in this state – not counting people who remain invisible to the system – living in the woods, couch surfing, doubling up. And we help a handful. But what is the solution? Requiring a higher minimum wage so people can afford housing near their jobs? Mandating caps on rent? Building enough affordable housing to accommodate people living from paycheck to paycheck? 

How do we escape the whirling dervish?  Where is the happily ever after?

Please join us on Dec. 21 at 4 p.m. for the candlelight vigil for National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day in front of the Peterborough Town House, hosted by Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter. To send a check or money order, or donate items for our shelter, please mail to Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter, P.O. Box 3053, Peterborough, NH 03458.

Or you may consider donating a reliable, running vehicle to The Hope Fund  This fund empowers people with reliable transportation. You can donate a reliable car or make a donation of funds. Or you can donate to the Stephen Fund for Kids. If you have household items or furniture to donate, please email admin@matsnh.org to make arrangements. Thank you.

Elizabeth Goodhue serves on the board of the Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter (MATS), which provides transitional housing, support and referral services to people who are experiencing homelessness, to educate the community on issues of homelessness and to advocate for solutions.