New Hampshire is steering $5.1 million toward new housing across the state, a fresh round of awards that backers say is one of the most concrete answers yet to a shortage that has pushed homeownership out of reach for thousands of working families. The money flows through InvestNH 2.0, the state program designed to nudge developers into building the kind of affordable and workforce units the Granite State has been short on for years.
Following approval by the Executive Council earlier this month, the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs will distribute the $5.1 million to support the development of 563 new housing units statewide, the vast majority of them workforce housing, according to reporting by NHPR and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript. The awards reach communities from the Seacoast to the North Country, with named projects in Jaffrey, Rochester, Dover, Portsmouth, Concord, Nashua, Wolfeboro, Whitefield, Winchester, Lisbon and Berlin.
For a state where the median single-family home price has climbed sharply and inventory remains thin, the announcement lands as both a practical infusion of cash and a signal that the housing crunch has moved to the center of state economic policy.
What InvestNH Is and How It Works
InvestNH was established by the Legislature in 2025 and is funded through the State Invest NH Fund. Rather than building units directly, the program provides zero-percent forgivable loans to housing developers who commit to constructing new affordable workforce housing. The structure is meant to close the gap between what it costs to build and what working renters can actually pay, a gap that has stalled many projects before a single foundation is poured.
The “2.0” label reflects an expanded second phase of a program that state leaders have leaned on to chip away at a stubborn supply problem. By lowering the cost of capital for developers, the state hopes to make projects financially viable that would otherwise stay on the drawing board.
“Now, more than ever, New Hampshire needs to expand its housing stock because it is critical to keep our workforce strong and healthy,” said BEA Commissioner Lucy Lange. “These InvestNH awards will support projects across the state that create affordable housing opportunities for working families, seniors, veterans, and individuals with disabilities while helping communities and employers meet growing demand.”
Gov. Kelly Ayotte framed the awards as part of a broader push to keep the state competitive. “To keep New Hampshire the best state in America for economic opportunity, we have to build more housing, and today, we’re taking action to do just that,” she said in a statement after the Executive Council approved the funds. “These investments approved today will help expand housing opportunities for families, workers, and communities across our state.”
A Closer Look at the Named Projects
The awards translate into specific, shovel-ready developments in several communities.
In Jaffrey, a $540,000 award will support the construction of 30 permanently affordable rental units near downtown, on the site of the now-demolished St. Patrick’s School. The property is owned by MJ and MJ Realty Ventures, which plans 14 duplex-style homes, each holding two units, alongside a 30-unit apartment building. The duplexes are expected to sell at market rate, while the apartments are intended to qualify as workforce housing under state law. That downtown location matters: placing new units near existing services and walkable amenities is exactly the pattern planners say the state needs more of.
In Rochester, the Residences at Riverside Park project is set to receive $750,000 to redevelop a former municipal public works property into an 80-unit rental community. Of those, 77 units will be affordable, serving households earning between 30% and 60% of area median income. Turning a former public works yard into housing is a textbook example of putting underused municipal land back to productive community use.
In Dover, a $250,000 award will fund Our Place NH Supportive Housing, which converts a former daycare facility into nine affordable supportive housing units for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The project is smaller in unit count but fills a particularly hard-to-serve niche, pairing housing with the support some residents need to live independently.
Why This Matters for Granite Staters
The scale of New Hampshire’s affordability problem gives these awards their weight. According to the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, the median sale price of a single-family home in the state has increased by more than 78% since 2019 and nearly 291% since 1999. Wage growth has not come close to keeping pace. By the institute’s math, a household now needs roughly $158,000 in income to afford a typical home without becoming cost-burdened, a threshold well above what most Granite State families earn.
The regional numbers sharpen the point. The median home price in Hillsborough County reached $555,000 in 2025, while in Cheshire County it was $395,000. Those figures help explain why workforce housing, defined by statute as rental housing affordable to a three-person household earning up to 60% of area median income, has become such a focus for state and local officials.
Supply remains the deeper issue. New Hampshire Housing, the state’s housing finance authority, estimates the state needed to add almost 60,000 new units between 2020 and 2030, and nearly another 30,000 by 2040, just to meet demand. Against that backdrop, 563 units is a meaningful step rather than a solution, which is precisely how state officials are describing it.
“An economy cannot grow if its workforce has nowhere to live,” Lange said. “By expanding affordable housing through InvestNH 2.0, we are addressing one of the most critical infrastructure challenges facing our employers today.”
That framing connects housing to the labor market in a way that resonates with employers who have struggled to recruit and retain workers priced out of nearby communities. When a hospital, manufacturer or school district cannot fill openings because applicants cannot find a place to live within commuting distance, the housing shortage becomes an economic development problem.
How InvestNH Fits the Bigger Picture
The new awards arrive alongside other state efforts to address cost and supply. New Hampshire has wrestled in recent sessions with zoning reform, tenant protections and the broader question of how much the state should override local control to get units built. Readers following the issue can see the market backdrop in our coverage of how the New Hampshire housing market has shown signs of cooling in 2026 even as prices remain elevated, and in our report on the record median home price near $576,000 in May 2026.
The affordability squeeze has also become a workforce retention story, particularly for younger residents. Our reporting on young workers, migration and affordability and on the broader affordability pressures facing young workers across housing, childcare and college lays out why keeping early-career Granite Staters in the state has become a policy priority. Efforts to reuse difficult sites, such as the EPA Brownfields program supporting redevelopment, reflect the same instinct behind the InvestNH projects: find underused land and turn it into homes.
For residents of the named communities, the practical takeaway is straightforward. Construction timelines, lottery and application processes, and income eligibility will be set by the individual developers and local housing agencies, so prospective tenants in Jaffrey, Rochester and Dover should watch for announcements from those project sponsors in the months ahead. For everyone else, the awards offer a glimpse of how the state intends to keep attacking a problem that touches nearly every corner of New Hampshire life, from the job market to the classroom to the cost of staying in the place you grew up.
For related coverage, see our reporting on New Hampshire Buys Seven Acres of Concord Pine Barrens to Protect the Karner ….
For related coverage, see our reporting on A 600-Square-Foot Off-Grid Home on a Tiny New Hampshire Island Lists for $338K.
