​Wood & Clay, a local company that specializes in custom home construction and renovations in the Lakes Region, has purchased another $25,000 in New Hampshire business tax credits to support the redevelopment of the Gale School in Belmont. Just last year, they purchased $50,000. The project will transform the historic schoolhouse into a community facility that will include on the second floor a new program center for Lakes Region Community Services (LRCS).
 
Wood & Clay, based in Gilford, is owned by husband and wife team Kevin Beland and Shannon Robinson-Beland.
 
“We hope our additional pledge this year inspires other local businesses to contribute, especially with the project getting closer to its fundraising goal,” said Shannon Robinson-Beland. “It’s exciting that LRCS will be part of the next chapter for the Gale School – what a great way to put this historic building back to good use serving local families again.”
 
“The Gale School will be a great location for us,” said Rebecca Bryant, President & CEO of LRCS. “It will enable us to expand the reach of our programming, offering it to new families and to existing clients who will find the Gale School a more convenient location.”
 
Lakes Region Community Developers (LRCD) is the developer for the project. LRCD and LRCS are partnering to sell the tax credits to local businesses. They have $160,000 left to sell in order to move ahead with construction.
 
Businesses interested in purchasing tax credits for the Gale School project should contact Carmen Lorentz at LRCD by calling (603) 524-0747, ext 110.
 
The Gale School was built in 1894, and was used by the Belmont school district until the mid-1980s. The building has been mostly vacant since then, and years of neglect have taken their toll. The Gale School was named to the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places in 2018, and was selected as one of New Hampshire’s Seven to Save in 2017.
 
In July 2020, the building was successfully moved by the local Save Our Gale School Committee (SOGS) to a new location at 60 Concord Street in Belmont Village. LRCD agreed to partner with SOGS to redevelop the building.
 
The tax credits are administered by New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority (CDFA). Any business with operations in NH that contributes to a CDFA tax credit project receives a NH state tax credit worth 75% of their contribution. The credit can be used over a period of five years to reduce the business’ state tax liability (business profits, business enterprise or insurance premium taxes). The tax credit program allows NH businesses to redirect a significant portion of their state tax dollars to support local projects that they care about.
 
CDFA reviews many project applications each year and awards tax credits to those they determine are feasible and will make the biggest impact on economic development in the state. LRCD was awarded $750,000 in credits for the Gale School project, and has sold $590,000 to date.

UNH Cooperative Extension is a statewide organization that provides services, training, and education to NH residents with the goal of creating stronger, vibrant, and engaged communities. LRCD has forged a strong partnership with Extension to offer wellness programming for tenants at our properties.
 
Some of the most popular Extension programs with our tenants have been Cooking Matters, Walking with Ease, Grocery Store Tours, and Chronic Pain Management. In addition, this summer we partnered with Extension to create a 10-bed community garden at our Ames Brook Apartments in Ashland. With funding for building supplies and plants provided by Bank of NH, Extension staff advised tenants on the design of the garden and what to plant and also taught them how to cook healthy meals using the vegetables they’ve grown.
 
We are grateful for our partnership with UNH Cooperative Extension. Their programs enhance our efforts to improve the health and well-being of our tenants, which enables them to maintain housing stability, work with their neighbors to address community needs, and build their own pathways to economic security. A big thank you to all of the Extension staff and volunteers we have worked with over the years!

We are excited to announce that LRCD has received a third year of funding from Volunteer NH to continue building our capacity to recruit and support LRCD tenants to volunteer in their neighborhoods.
 
To date, LRCD has received a total of $70,000 in federal Volunteer Generation Fund (VGF) grants provided by AmeriCorps via Volunteer NH. VGF’s intention is to strengthen the ability of nonprofit organizations to recruit and retain volunteers to meet critical community needs. LRCD uses this funding to help pay for a second full-time resident services coordinator.
 
Before we received VGF funding, we had one full-time staff person to provide support services to over 330 households and try to recruit and support tenants to work on volunteer projects. It was just too much for one person.
 
VGF funding has doubled our capacity to support our tenants as volunteers, and the results have exceeded expectations! Over the last two years, we have recruited and supported over 200 tenant volunteers who have done over 1,000 hours of volunteer work in their neighborhoods! This includes building and maintaining community gardens, organizing fun activities for youth, and neighborhood beautification.
 
VGF funding has catalyzed our community building and engagement work, which seeks to create a stronger sense of community in our developments and empower our tenants to achieve their goals.

Sadly, LRCD is no longer pursuing our proposed 66-unit workforce housing development on Route 140 in Northfield, after being denied twice by the Zoning Board on our application for a special exception.
 
​The legal bar for a special exception is not terribly high, which is why we pursued the project to begin with. All the characteristics of the site make it an excellent location for workforce housing. It has adjacent water and sewer and immediate access to Route 140 between Tilton and Belmont. The site is very close to job opportunities in Tilton and Northfield, as well as to major commuting arteries – Interstate 93 and NH Route 106. There are no uses in the vicinity that pose a health or safety concern for residential development.  And, local businesses are desperate for workers that they can’t find because of the lack of available and affordable housing.
 
In the past, we’ve chosen not to publicize projects that failed to move forward. In an effort to educate our community about how difficult it is to develop workforce housing, we are changing that practice.
 
The Northfield project is a great illustration of the barrier that zoning ordinances and lack of support by local town officials in many towns in the Lakes Region present for affordable housing. Conducting due diligence and pre-development planning for a site is time consuming and expensive. In most cases, we don’t even look at sites where multi-family residential is not permitted by right. In this case, we took what we considered to be a reasonable risk because the location was perfect from our perspective. At the end of the day, LRCD will have to write off about $70,000 in expenses for surveying, engineering, traffic analysis, legal, and architectural fees, and good faith deposit fees.
 
It is our mission to develop affordable housing. Sometimes that means we will lose money because real estate development is expensive and risky. Although we are disappointed in this outcome, it doesn’t change anything for us. We remain in a strong financial position and we have a robust pipeline of future projects. With your continued support, we will keep working hard to create more housing opportunities for essential workers.

​We are proud to share that LRCD received an Award of Excellence from the Lakes Region Planning Commission (LRPC) for our work at Harvey Heights in Meredith. The award serves to recognize an organization for an exciting and innovative project that has been conceived and successfully implemented in a community over the last year. The completed project must also serve a public good. Special thanks to all involved! 
LRCD Executive Director, Carmen Lorentz received the award on behalf of LRCD from David Katz, Vice Chair of LRPC. 

To go with its beautiful renovations, the sign for Harvey Heights also received a facelift! Check out the before and after pics below. 

arthrogryposis has rendered her non-ambulatory and requires the support of a wheelchair to be mobile.
​After graduating high school in 2006, Donka knew that moving out of her family home was the next step to the life of independence she so desperately wanted. She immediately sought help in making this dream a reality. Donka and her family turned to their assigned resource coordinator at Lakes Region Community Services for support. 
There's so much more! Click HERE to read Donka's full story featured in the Laconia Daily Sun.

LRCD and Pemi Valley Habitat for Humanity (PVH) together are proud to announce their new collaborative relationship effective August 1, 2022.
Through this agreement, LRCD will endeavor to incorporate single family home lots into their site plans when planning a new rental housing development. The lots would then be subdivided and sold to PVH at a price that works with their home building model. The PVH single family build opportunities will then be shared with LRCD tenants who have a goal of homeownership.
“We are very excited about this new relationship with PVH,” states Carmen Lorentz, LRCD Executive Director. “By leveraging the strengths of each of our organizations, LRCD and PVH can create new home ownership opportunities for families of low and moderate income.”

"Anne" and her kids loved their car. It got them everywhere they needed to go for years and became part of the family.  But, with 300,000 miles on it (yeah you read that right), it was getting tired. Anne needed something reliable to keep her busy family moving to work, school, and soccer…so much soccer! 
The money she set aside wasn’t quite enough, so she searched for a “hand up,” and found Take the Wheel NH. Even with no credit, Take the Wheel welcomed her into the program.
Thanks to Take the Wheel, she learned more about managing finances, is now working on building credit, and has this fabulous new car.
Today, with their new Kia, they’re comfortably on the road 4 days a week and getting 50 miles to the gallon to boot! "Anne" says, “We’re making it because of the car and Take the Wheel NH.” Visit Take the Wheel NH to learn more.