I first got to know my neighbor and NH State Representative, Joe Schapiro (D-Keene), from our work together on Project Home, helping asylum seekers become part of our community. Building humanity into our immigration system is a cause that Joe and I both care deeply about.

Now Joe has a bill before committee that would enable the children of asylum seekers to be eligible for health insurance coverage. It would also provide coverage to asylum seekers who are pregnant.  

HR 282, co-sponsored by Reps Amanda Toll (D-Keene), Jonah Wheeler (D-Peterborough), and others, "directs the department of health and human services to submit state plan amendments under Medicaid and CHIP to provide coverage to children and pregnant women lawfully residing in the United States."

Things you can do:

• Attend the hearing: Wednesday, February 1 at 1:00 p.m. in Legislative Office Building, Room 210-211

• Sign in remotely on the day of the hearing to Support this bill: Online Testimony Submission

• Email the Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee: HHSEA@leg.state.nh.us

A babbling and irate Florida man was the headline speaker at the New Hampshire Republican State Committee's annual meeting on Saturday. 

The speaker, a well-known associate of Vladimir Putin and serial committer of tax fraud, who is also bears responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, was fawningly received by New Hampshire Republicans.

The crowd cheered raucously when the speaker referenced his previous attempt to violently overthrow the United States government, and applauded his efforts to undermine confidence in democratic elections. Later, they all waved flags and pretended to be good patriots.

NH Governor Chris Sununu was not present at the event. Though Sununu has previously expressed great affinity for the tiny-handed speaker, at the time of the speech he is believed to have been hiding under a rock.

In 1919, Congress chartered a veterans organization called The American Legion, whose purpose was to be of service to veterans, current servicemembers and communities. The Legion gradually developed through a group of World War I veterans and has since become an influential nonprofit group in America. Across the country there are 55 posts, one for each state along with the District of Columbia, France, Mexico, Philippines and Puerto Rico.  

Throughout the years, the Legion successfully achieved hundreds of benefits for veterans, created programs for children and brought about significant social change.

In March 2019, the “Buddy Check” program was begun as a comradeship campaign, encouraging posts to reach out to local veterans, to find out what the Legion could do for them. The posts have put together Buddy Check teams to contact their local veterans and families by email, phone, texting and/or visits. It was an instant success, becoming possibly life-saving during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. 

Sen. Maggie Hassan has sponsored a bill which would direct the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) to annually set aside one week as “Buddy Check Week” to educate veterans on how to guide wellness checks and arrange outreach events. The bill would connect veterans to other veterans to make sure they get the support they need. The VA would work with Armed Forces members, mental health experts and nonprofits who serve veterans. The bill would also ascertain the Veterans Crisis Line has a firm plan and enough staffing in the event of potential increases in calls which may occur during a “Buddy Check Week.”

Sen. Hassan stated, “Veterans all across New Hampshire have shared with me their personal struggles with mental health, and their stories have made it exceedingly clear that we must do more to address this issue. Instituting a Buddy Check Week is an evidence-based approach that will make a real difference in combatting veteran suicide, and I am pleased that we will soon pass this into law.”

Several veteran organization leaders voiced their positive thoughts on the new proposed bill:
Manchester VA Medical Center: Dr. Alicia Semiatin, chief of mental health, felt the program would help veterans get the care they need.

National Alliance for Mental Illness (NH): Amy Cook, suicide prevention coordinator, noted this organization directed 650 hours of military culture and suicide prevention training to health care providers and private employers in the previous year.

Disabled American Veterans Dept. of NH: according to Commander Rick Borrazas, veterans who are struggling are more likely to be open to help from another veteran, especially one whose military experiences are similar.

Veterans of Foreign Wars: according to senior vice commander Denis Querrard, there are many soldiers returning after the Afghanistan withdrawal who are experiencing transition difficulty. 

Sen. Hassan would like to see Congress introduce more incentives for veterans to join the mental health profession after their service in the military ends.

The toll free suicide crisis hotline can be reached anywhere by dialing 988, at the prompt, hit 1, which will direct services for a veteran who is in immediate need of help.

Senators Hassan’s Bipartisan Bill to Support Veterans’ Mental Health Set to be Included in Government Funding Bill (senate.gov)

This is a big win that came out of our city's Ad-Hoc Committee on Housing Stability. If all goes to plan, people being released from protective custody at the Cheshire County jail will no longer just be dropped off at the bus stop on Gilbo Avenue in downtown Keene and left to fend for themselves. They will instead have options to get connected to transportation and social services they need to avoid having to be unhoused.

From the Sentinel Article by Hunter Oberst:

Doug Iosue, the jail’s superintendent, told The Sentinel that many of these individuals are taken into protective custody because they’re intoxicated or incapacitated, but haven’t necessarily committed a crime. By law, he explained, the jail cannot hold them for more than 24 hours...

Right now, staff at the jail tries to find a responsible, sober driver to come pick up people who are being released, but often this is not possible, so they are taken to downtown Keene and left to fend for themselves.

Rather than releasing them outside the jail on Route 101, which he said is dangerous, they’re brought to Gilbo Avenue, putting them closer to city services.... This policy applies to anyone from Cheshire County, which census statistics show is more than 700 square miles, regardless of where they’re from.

Cheshire County is a big place. Imagine someone arrested in Ringe trying to find their way back home from Keene if no one will give them a ride. We don't have the kind of public transportation network that can support that.

According to the article, jail staff dropped off 133 people at Gilbo Avenue in 2022. 

The details are still being worked out, with further decisions being made in April, but it appears that transportation is a key part of the fix: 

[City Manager Elizabeth] Dragon said Keene helps those who are unhoused seek assistance, either by helping them find shelter or through connecting them with the community where they’re from.... She added that an idea briefly mentioned in discussions is having a contracted transportation service that could bring someone leaving the jail within a certain radius of where they want to go or where they were originally picked up.

As an eight-year-old, I knew all about co-pays, pre-existing conditions, and cobra. We moved from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire in the early 90s. My dad’s new company wouldn’t cover dependents with preexisting conditions for the first two years, so my family had one insurance plan, and I had another.

I’ve watched healthcare and health insurance change a lot since then. Employers reduce the plan coverage or the percentage they cover, which is the equivalent of a pay cut. Insurance companies restructure the deductible, so that maintenance medications are not covered. A physical is covered but the “first-time visit” with each new doctor was not. Bloodwork at a visit is covered, but not if it doesn’t count when the lab is down the hall from the doctor. I left my job after ten years because I was going to debt.

Ironically, worrying about healthcare can exacerbate medical problems and weaken the immune system. Since the start of the pandemic, there have only been a few months when my medication supply was not interrupted. There were weeks I spent six hours on the phone tracking my medication. I had a seizure on the floor of CVS waiting for my prescription to be filled. EMTs arrived and I think brought me to the ambulance in a stretcher. They wanted to take me to the hospital, but I all I could think about was the cost and the ride home. I signed a form, saying I was leaving against medical advice, climbed out of the ambulance, and walked the half-mile in the dark to get home.

When we talk about healthcare, we’re usually talking about health insurance, which isn’t the same thing. To care about the health of people is the essence of a healthy society, because it empowers them to contribute to society. Making healthcare more accessible will allow people to get the care they need, when they need it. Employers will see workers more engaged, energized, and focused. Teachers will see the same in their students because that is the energy parents are modeling. Nurses will see fewer patients in the ER with health problems that could have been prevented.

Sign in remotely to Support: Online Testimony Submission

Email the Commerce Committee: HouseCommerceCommittee@leg.state.nh.us

Attend the hearing: Thursday, January 26th at 1:00 p.m. in Legislative Office Building, Room 302-304

Freshman lawmaker Rep. Jonah Wheeler(D-Peterborough and Sharon) has introduced HB 508, which would provide paid postage on absentee ballot return envelopes. As someone who can never find a stamp when I need one, this is a great idea for democracy and, as Jonah says, also ends a poll tax. 

Watch the video to see Jonah introduce his bill, and keep watching for testimony by the bill's co-sponsor, Rep. Jodi Newell of Keene. 

Here are highlights from bills up for hearing in house committees last week.

House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee

I have long been frustrated that HSAs and FSAs would cover the purchase of birth control, condoms, bandaids, gauze, ibuprofen, thermometers…I scoured the list thinking it must be a mistake. This was the one item I consistently needed. It was not until 2020, that these products were reclassified as medical, making them tax deductible. It seems logical that women in correctional facilities would also be provided with what is considered medically necessary, but they have not.

House Bill 421 would require feminine hygiene products to be provided to prisoners who menstruate in state and county correctional facilities.

NH State Rep. and reproductive health educator Renée Monteil submitted a written statement, in which she wrote:

There are serious health risks as people start to use whatever may be handy or start to fashion something to absorb the bleeding. Whether its dirty cloth or even toilet paper, such risks include, yet are not limited to, toxic shock syndrome, multiple infections, infertility and even hysterectomy...

Menstrual products are categorically a medical necessity and should never be considered a luxury item. Incarcerated individuals need to have a quantity that meets their needs as well as products that meet industry standards. This is not just an issue of dignity but also one of real medical concern.

Learn more

House Labor, Industrial and Rehabilitative Services Committee

Federal laws prohibit discrimination in the workplace; however, at-will employment makes it almost unenforceable. As therapeutic cannabis because more common, testing could become a way to fire or not hire people with medical conditions. I've been forced to discuss my medical condition at almost every job interview since high school. "Do you have a valid driver's license?" I'm told employers ask this, because they want to make sure I'm reliable. But that silly little question means that the decision to offer me a position is at least partially based on how well my explanation of epilepsy addressed the hiring manager's misconceptions and prejudices. Forcing someone to choose between medical care and providing for their family isn't a fair choice. I think we can do better.

House Bill 82 would prohibit an employer from refusing to hire, or terminating the employment of a qualified patient of the New Hampshire therapeutic cannabis program solely on the basis of a positive drug test,

In her testimony, NH State Rep. Jodi Newell said:

When I look at this issue in the way that cannabis is treated a little differently than other therapeutic pharmaceuticals and things like that. I can't help but think that it stems from a stigma around the use of cannabis…. There are a lot of people who cannabis use returns them to normal – to functioning.

House Education Committee

HB-464 and HB-367 would expand school voucher eligibility.

To date, nearly 90% of these public funds has been disbursed to students who were already being home schooled or attending a private school. 

Read what else Terri O'Rorke had to say about this last week.

I am getting tired of all the beer cans being tossed along the side of the road in my neighborhood. A couple weekends ago I went out along North Lincoln Street with a bucket and filled it up with beer cans in no time at all. Evidence suggests that most of these cans are from people are throwing them out their car window. 

On Facebook, the scofflaw has been dubbed the "Bud Light Bandit," although I think there is more that one culprit, at least one of who seems to prefer 25 oz cans of "Twisted Tea."

Some neighbors have been complaining about this problem to their City Councilor, which happens to be me. 

And so I have brought the issue to the City Council and it will be discussed at a meeting of the Municipal Services, Facilities, and Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday, January 25 at 6:00 PM City Hall. There will be opportunity for public comment, if you have ideas on how best this issue could be addressed.

On Thursday night the Keene City Council accepted the Report of Keene's Ad Hoc Committee on Housing Stability. Some of the backstory to this report can be found in Part 1 of this multi-part blog post. Here in Part 2, I'll start to look at some of what's in the report.

But first, I'd like to acknowledge and thank the members of the Ad Hoc Committee for there diligent work in looking deeply and compassionately at the issues surrounding homelessness and putting forth the recommendations listed in the report. As listed in the report, these members are:

• George Hansel, Mayor, City of Keene
• Bryan Lake, City Councilor, City of Keene
• Natalie Darcy, Human Services Manager, City of Keene
• Stephen Bragdon, Bragdon, Baron & Kossayda
• Craig Henderson, Southwest Community Services
• Doug Iosue, Cheshire County Department of Corrections
• Joshua Meehan, Keene Housing
• Stacie Pickford, Homeless Advocate
• Jennifer Seher, New Hampshire Care Collaborative

City Manager Elizabeth Dragon and Assistant City Manager Rebecca Landry were also vital to this work, and so were many members of the public, going back to the work of groups like Keene Mutual Aid and the Monadnock Interfaith Project who built a movement to demand action on homelessness in our city. Jodi Newell's work as an organizer was also critical to that effort.

The report works toward three broad, desired outcomes:

• Homeless Support and Transition to Permanent Housing
• Increase in Available Housing
• Regional Engagement in Collaborative Solutions

The phrase "Regional Engagement in Collaborative Solutions" sounds a bit like government-speak, but its actually important. There are a lot of agencies in the region, both public and private, that are out there doing important work, engaging with many of the same clientele but not necessarily in strong communication with each other or all pulling in the same direction. 

There is a lot of ground to be gained by helping these agencies work better together. For example, since this report has been released, already staff from the city and social service agencies has begun working with the county jail to ensure inmates are connected with services upon their release, so that they are less likely to be without a stable roof over their head as they are working to rebuild a life for themselves. 

Unfortunately, there is only so much that even highly coordinated social service agencies are able do when our broader society is faced with a structural problem like a housing shortage. That's why its so important to figure out how to build more places for people to live.

I was heartened to see broad recognition of the need to increase available housing stock in this report, including support for multifamily housing and Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). However, I was a little disappointed that the report limited its ideas to changes to land use code and private sector incentives, really didn't have much useful to say about supporting innovative ways to fund anything. 

The Monadnock Interfaith Project has been working hard to develop support for the idea of a housing trust fund, but that idea didn't make the report. Its fascinating to me that the system we have can furnish a one-time jackpot of federal tax money to large private developers that will "incentivize" them to build more affordable units, but "build more and better public housing on a sustainable basis" doesn't really seem to be part of the discussion.

One of the committee members, Jennifer Seher, did bring to the table some ideas about implementing something called the Collaborative Approach to Public Good Investments (CAPGI) model, which provides a multi-stakeholder approach to funding, but that didn't seem to get a whole lot of traction with city staff. I like where the idea is going, although it needs more development.

There is quite a bit more to this report that is still to be discussed..... including camping, safe parking areas, and bathrooms. Stay tuned for that in Part 3.

Doris “Granny D” Haddock nee Rollins, was born in Laconia, New Hampshire on January 24, 1910 and became nationally known for her political activism. She became quite vocal in her efforts to bring awareness for campaign finance reform, eventually taking that activism to the streets. 

On January 1, 1999, Granny D began her walk in Pasadena, California with the goal of walking across the country to raise support and awareness for campaign finance reform. She was 88 years old.

It took Granny D roughly fourteen months, walking about ten miles each day, to accomplish her goal, giving speeches along the way. She had walked more than 3,200 miles advocating for campaign finance reform all the way. On February 29, 2000, now 90 years old, Granny D arrived in Washington, D.C to cheers from a crowd of over 2,000 people. 

Nearly two months later, on April 21, 2000, she and 31 other people were arrested during a peaceful assembly at the Capitol. They were arrested while reading the Declaration of Independence and charged with demonstrating in the Capitol building.

Granny D pled guilty, claimed campaign finance reform as the reason for the demonstration and made the following statement to the judge; “Your Honor, the old woman who stands before you was arrested for reading the Declaration of Independence in America's Capitol Building. I did not raise my voice to do so and I blocked no hall. I was reading from the Declaration of Independence to make the point that we must declare our independence from the corrupting bonds of big money in our election campaigns. In my 90 years, this is the first time I have been arrested. I risk my good name --for I do indeed care what my neighbors think about me. But, Your Honor, some of us do not have much power, except to put our bodies in the way of an injustice--to picket, to walk, or to just stand in the way. It will not change the world overnight, but it is all we can do. Your Honor, to the business at hand: the old woman who stands before you was arrested for reading the Declaration of Independence in America's Capitol Building. I did not raise my voice to do so and I blocked no hall. But if it is a crime to read the Declaration of Independence in our great hall, then I am guilty.”

Granny D and the other demonstrators were sentenced to time served and a $10 administrative fee. 

Doris “Granny D” Haddock passed away on March 9, 2010 in Dublin, New Hampshire. She was 100 years old and is a New Hampshire treasure. 

On Tues., January 24, Granny D’s birthday, the “Voter Owned Election” bill, HB324 is scheduled for a hearing. This legislation will help to ensure every vote is counted and everyone has the opportunity to participate. 

You can let the committee know that you support this bill by CLICKING HERE: 

• fill in your name, town, state and e-mail
• select the date, Jan. 24
• select the House Election Law Committee
• Select the bills --HB 324
• indicate who you represent (self) and that you SUPPORT the bill!
• (optional-- you can include a written statement in support).
• [To be official, this must be done by 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 24th!]

 Voter-Owned Elections One-Pager HERE.

I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting Granny D at my daughter’s 2001 graduation from Franklin Pierce College (now University) where she was the main speaker. She was wearing her trademark hat!