New Hampshire Public Radio Highlights Warmington’s Solutions to Tackle Housing Crisis

MANCHESTER, NH — In Case You Missed It, a new report from New Hampshire Public Radio highlights Cinde Warmington’s plans to make housing more affordable for Granite Staters and tackle New Hampshire’s housing crisis. Under Kelly Ayotte’s failed leadership, housing prices have climbed to another record high of $580,000, and New Hampshire remains one of the most expensive states in the country for renters.

As governor, Cinde Warmington will fight to make sure that every single Granite Stater is able to put a roof over their head — stopping private equity companies from buying up homes and jacking up rent, investing in proven affordable housing solutions, and appointing a housing czar who is responsible for knowing how many housing units are available, how many are needed to meet demand, and develop the plan to close the gap.

Kelly Ayotte — who cashed in and made millions on the board of private equity giant Blackstone after leaving the U.S. Senate — has pushed housing further out of reach for working Granite Staters. She slashed funding for affordable housing solutions, signed a no-fault evictions law, and hasn’t joined other states in challenging Donald Trump’s reckless tariffs that are driving up construction costs.

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Some housing leaders say Ayotte is falling short in one specific area: putting state dollars towards affordable housing construction. Developers make a lot more money building expensive homes because over all high construction costs.
If a home sells at a higher price, developers can make more of their money back on the project. To make affordable units more attractive to developers, the state has something called the Affordable Housing Fund. The fund covers some building costs for developers, incentivizing them to develop these units and rent them out for less than market rate.
The Affordable Housing Fund currently gets $5 million a year from tax revenue, but many housing experts say that isn’t enough to make a dent in the supply issue. The previous budget that Ayotte signed didn’t assign any additional money towards the fund.
For context, in the 2023 budget, Gov. Chris Sununu allocated $25 million extra dollars to the fund. That, however, was all federal COVID relief money and didn’t have to come from state tax revenues.
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Ayotte also didn’t dedicate any state funding to the Housing Champions program in her budget. This is another incentive program, but for towns and cities that are actively looking to address the housing crisis. For instance, if towns were revising their zoning rules to make it easier to build housing, they could get money to pay for other projects.
The fund was created by Sununu, using federal COVID relief cash again, but Ayotte and Republican lawmakers didn’t fund it in the last state budget. However, she told WMUR-TV that she wants to revisit it in the next budget.
Obviously, we can’t get a look at what Warmington would do during a budget cycle or legislative session based on her record, as we can with Ayotte. However, Warmington previously served on the Executive Council, the part of the state executive branch that approves billions of dollars in funding.
In 2022, Warmington was one of several councilors who voted for federal funding from the American Rescue Plan during the pandemic to go towards affordable housing in the state. Sununu, who was governor at the time, proposed that $100 million go towards rental housing projects, but councilors argued it could end up funding luxury apartments.
One housing advocate told NHPR that Warmington worked behind the scenes to make sure the money went towards affordable units, and councilors from both parties voted in favor of it.
If elected governor, Warmington says she’ll prioritize putting state money towards the Affordable Housing Fund and the Housing Champions program.
Warmington also said she’d push to undo a law signed by Ayotte last year that allows landlords to evict tenants at the end of their lease. Before that, tenants couldn’t be evicted without cause — such as not paying rent — even if their lease had ended.
Warmington says she’s also focusing on private equity firms buying property in the state and then jacking up rents — an issue concerning people around the country. Warmington says she’ll work to ban private equity firms from buying homes in New Hampshire and raising rents too high.
Manufactured home communities are particularly vulnerable to this trend. Residents there pay rent on the land beneath their home, and many say their out of state landlords are dramatically increasing rents. She wants to strengthen manufactured home owners' rights to band together and buy their community land before it’s sold to investors.