Steering committee outlines targets and data push in Concord's plan to end homelessness

Roseanne Haggerty, chair of Concord’s steering committee for the city's Plan to End Homelessness, presented the committee's five-part strategy and implementation progress to the City Council.

Haggerty said the committee set a measurable near-term goal to reduce homelessness by 80 people and to add roughly 100 permanent housing opportunities to meet that target. She said the July baseline used last year estimated roughly 320 individuals experiencing homelessness; more recent data the committee reviewed showed an increase to 418 individuals countywide, and the committee is working to reconcile reporting and improve the accuracy of the counts.

“First, our goal is to reduce overall homelessness by, 80 individuals, and, as as you'll hear as I go into the presentation a bit, that was based on the data we had at the time,” Haggerty told the council. She said the committee is pursuing a mix of activities: expanding housing opportunities, ending veteran homelessness, coordinating a shared response model across government and nonprofits, formalizing cold-weather response procedures and improving data quality.

Haggerty said intensive coordination and a paid project manager are central to the approach. She said philanthropy and public funding applications have been submitted and that Granite United Way has agreed to serve as the employer of record for the proposed project manager if funds are secured. "The key to progress we see across the country in those places that are winning on this issue is having a coordinated data driven team to know what's going on, what's working, to course correct in real time," she said.

Councilors asked about specific populations and data definitions. Haggerty told Councilor Mathenay that people living in vehicles are counted by the state as unhoused, while "couch surfing" is often invisible to federal HUD-mandated counts. She said Concord's school liaison maintains separate counts for students experiencing housing instability; Councilor Frederic noted monthly school-district reports that show roughly 100 students recorded as homeless in the Concord School District.

Councilors also asked whether people discharged from state hospitals or prisons are entering the local homeless population. Haggerty said she did not have specific current data and noted an older study she had seen; a committee participant interjected that study results suggested county jail releases were a more frequent pathway than state prison discharges.

Haggerty highlighted a success: an early focus on veteran homelessness reduced the count of veterans experiencing homelessness in the local data to six, demonstrating the impact of focused casework. She said the committee wants better, monthly dashboards and name-level data for timely tracking and to determine what's working.

Haggerty said the committee's outreach and engagement involved the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation and members of the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness; she noted winter emergency warming operations developed by the Friendly Kitchen and local partners and said the committee wants an automated cold-weather activation plan.

No formal council votes were taken on policy at the meeting; Haggerty said the steering committee will return with updates and emphasized the need for funding to hire the project manager who will coordinate cross-sector activities.