A Black Lives Matter protest more accessible to those in the disabled community is being organized for next Friday in Portsmouth.
Around 1,000 people currently housed in motels and hotels across the state amid the ongoing housing crunch are desperate to find affordable housing now that the funding covering their rooms is ending.
“They’re breaking down,” said Jessica Margeson, tenants’ rights advocate with the Granite State Organizing Project, of people housed at the Comfort Inn. “They have no place to go.”
Two women, housed for months in area hotels at the government’s expense, are desperately looking for places to live now that the NH Emergency Rental Assistance funding is ending.
Nicole Eastman, 35, living at the Comfort Inn with three of her four teenage daughters for the past seven months, is having no luck finding an apartment. Neither is Roxanne Hunt, 58, who for 17 months has made her home at the Fairfield Inn in Hooksett.
Over the past two years, Sarah McPhee and Kirsten Durzy have heard scores of stories about Granite Stater’s lives during the pandemic. There was the new mom who delivered her child at the height of the pandemic; a woman diagnosed with breast cancer who had to muster a socially distanced support system; and the healthcare worker who spoke about his pain after caring for COVID victims.
Over the past two years, Sarah McPhee and Kirsten Durzy have heard scores of stories about Granite Stater’s lives during the pandemic. There was the new mom who delivered her child at the height of the pandemic; a woman diagnosed with breast cancer who had to muster a socially distanced support system; and the healthcare worker who spoke about his pain after caring for COVID victims.
COVID-19, itself, was bad enough. But this season we’re also dealing with a tough flu variant and RSV. What should you know? And what can you do to keep yourself and your family safe? Host Melanie Plenda speaks with Dr. Aalok Khole, an infectious disease specialist at Cheshire Medical Center in Keene.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) surveys households each year to understand the prevalence of food insecurity across the nation. The USDA defines food insecurity as when households are, at least at some times in a year, unable to acquire adequate food for one or more adults or children in a household because of insufficient money or other resources. At the state level, these USDA data are aggregated into three-year periods to have sufficient data for more reliable estimates. The newest data, covering the years 2019-2021, were released in September 2022.
By the time Nicholas Bickford sought help for addiction in Manchester two years ago, he said he had suffered about 12 overdoses over decades of addiction. He had been through several rehab programs and in and out of probation and parole.
“I finally had had enough,” he said. “I took every suggestion. And it just started clicking,” he said. Like so many, his addiction began with painkillers and led to illicit drugs, including heroin.
Welcome to our 100th episode! The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda is joined by Anna Brown, the director of Research and Analysis for Citizens Count and host of the podcast "$100 Plus Mileage," and Rick Green, statehouse reporter for the Keene Sentinel, to talk about the end of the legislative session.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit more than two years ago, gym owners wondered what the future was going to look like.
Get Fit NH owner Meagan Baron was in an especially difficult position as she realized soon into the pandemic that her business, in its current state, would have an especially tough time bouncing back.
According to studies cited by Lauren McKown at Report for America, which provides funding for reporters to tackle pressing issues and missing areas of local coverage: Just 17 percent of what’s in a local newspaper is local news – the rest is wire and national reports. Roughly 36,000 reporters were let go during COVID-19, and hardest hit were outlets in rural communities and communities of color.
Alisa Druzba works in rural health, but over the past few years she noticed another issue permeating her work. “Transportation comes up in every conversation,” said Druzba, director of the New Hampshire Office of Rural Health & Primary Care, part of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
Even before the pandemic, schools struggled with eruptions of violence. As the pandemic wanes, those eruptions seem even more frequent. What’s going on in schools and what can be done to help? School psychologist and consultant Dr. Nate Jones joins The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda to discuss the issues.
"If I were to write a futuristic dystopian novel, it would begin with a deadly pandemic as a backdrop. The schools in my dystopian novel would be infested with violence and apathy," said Freeman, an English teacher at Nashua High School North. "Hundreds of teacherless students a day would be herded like cattle into viral holding pens to wait out the day, because there was no one available to come in and teach them."
Like the rest of the nation, New Hampshire is facing a home care crisis. Most adults want to age at home, but experts say the current approach to providing care outside an institution is unsustainable. Granite State News Collaborative Journalist Kelly Burch, Cornerstone VNA President and CEO Julie Reynolds, and Nurse and Caregiver Jamie Villers discuss the problem and what some people are doing to address it with The State We’re In host Melanie Plenda.
According to data from the state’s official COVID response dashboard, New Hampshire averaged 242 new cases per day for the week ending Tuesday, down 44 percent from a week earlier. The seven-day average for the share of antigen and PCR tests coming back positive was 7.6 percent, down from 12.8 two weeks ago. According to NH Hospital Association data as of Wednesday, a total of 211 people were hospitalized with COVID, including 95 with active infections and 116 who are COVID-recovering, which means that they are no longer infectious but still need inpatient care for COVID-related illness. The number of total hospitalizations is down from 327 two weeks ago.
New COVID cases and hospitalizations in New Hampshire dropped again over the past week, as the winter surge continues to recede.
The state averaged 425 new cases per day in the week ending Tuesday, compared to 745 a week earlier — a 43 percent drop — according to data from the N.H. Department of Health and Human Services.
"In recent weeks, the number of new cases and hospitalizations has surged across our state and we continue to operate at or near capacity as a result," says Dr. Tom Wold, Chief Medical Officer at Portsmouth Regional Hospital.
The surge is hurting hospitals at two levels, doctors say, both increasing the burdens on their staff and reducing the number of staff available to meet the community's needs.
According to data from the state’s official COVID response dashboard, New Hampshire averaged 1,495 new cases per day for the week ending Tuesday, up 41 percent from 1,057 a week earlier. The seven-day average for the share of antigen and PCR tests coming back positive was 20.6 percent, up from 15.2 percent a week ago. A total of 503 people were hospitalized for the diseases as of Wednesday, including 359 people with active infections and 144 people who are no longer infectious but still need critical care. (This last type is now being referred to in state data reports as "COVID-recovering.")
