Comité para el Plan de Concord para Poner Fin a la Falta de Vivienda – 22 sep 2026

Minutes, Concord Committee for Plan to End Homelessness

September 22, 2026

10:30 a.m. Chamber of Commerce

Committee members present: Byron Champlin (ex officio), Barrett Moulton, Beth Heyward, Bryanna Marceau, Chris Mumford, Danielle Barrick, Jim Schlosser, Jon Chorlian, Kara Coffey, Karen Emis-Williams, Karen Jantzen, Rosanne Haggerty (chairperson), Valerie Guy, Vik Hubbard (secretary, non-voting member), Molly Lunn Owen (virtual)

Guests present: Nikki Haas, Eve Toth, Cathy Battistelli, Tina Broyer, Sarah Richdale, Kayleigh Hults, Connor Spern (virtual) and others

The meeting was called to order at 10:33 a.m. by Chairperson Haggerty.

1. Approval of the June 23 minutes — - a. The minutes were approved with no objections or amendments.

2. Announcements — - a. Coffey: cold-weather shelter grants rolled out; applications are closed, but reach out with questions; - b. Jantzen: CCEH is bringing author Brian Goldstone to Concord; CCEH is partnering with the Chamber of Commerce for a luncheon, where Brian Goldstone is giving the keynote address, followed by a moderated panel discussion; - c. Heyward: BMCAP's housing stabilization team's office is moving to 117 Manchester Street unit 5A; - d. Haggerty:

   • i. Lisa Madden from Riverbend was a recipient of this year's Outstanding Women in Business awards by the NH Business Review;
   • ii. The City of Manchester announced earlier this month that it has effectively ended veteran homelessness;
   • e. Hubbard: a joint project is underway to create a centralized training program for frontline staff in New Hampshire; a service provider survey is live through Oct. 30 to get input for the training topics (see attachment 1);

3. Working group updates – presented by Haas - a. Social Determinants of the Unsheltered

   • i. Training opportunities: 1. Professional boundaries and ethics; the second session is tomorrow morning 2. Mandated reporting training next month 3. Eager to debrief after the trainings to learn what went well and what can be improved
   • ii. Hot-weather plan 1. Presented at the August meeting of the public safety board; planning to return to ask for the use of three different city buildings for when the weather is too hot to be outside; that would go before City Council for a vote
   • b. Housing
   • i. Master Plan process 1. Looking into how the committee can participate in the Master Plan process and support changes that could increase housing opportunities in the city
   • ii. Landlord list 1. Jon Chorlian is helping gather a list of landlords around Concord 2. Working with Granite United Way to get Key Connect off the ground in Concord
   • c. Data & Communications
   • i. Trying to establish a plan for a communications strategy for reporting out to City Council
   • d. Questions?
   • i. Guy: What's the likelihood of city property being used for hot-weather cooling stations? 1. Champlin: It depends on what the model looks like and what the cost is for the city 2. Haas: We're considering asking the city about the Green Street community center, West Street ward house, and Beaver Street clubhouse 3. Champlin: We must consider the ongoing/current use of a space and whether it would displace programs; West St and Beaver St are more likely than Green St 4. Haas: We're going back in front of the public safety board in October; the issue will likely be on the City Council agenda sometime in November 5. Petrin: Who would be staffing the cooling center(s)? 6. Haas: Volunteers
   • e. Master Plan process – presented by Schlosser
   • i. City presented its plan for community engagement this past Saturday; very well-attended; there is a schedule of engagement activities for the Master Plan process, to include topic-specific forums, one of which will be focused on housing.
   • ii. A subset of the housing working group is discussing and developing a list of possible talking points to present to the full committee at its December meeting.
   • iii. Chorlian: Questions the Housing Work Group has discussed/considered: Should this committee take a position and make a recommendation regarding the Master Plan process? Is that the committee's role? If so, how specific should said recommendation be?
   • iv. Champlin: This is an advisory committee, so it is within its purview to make recommendations to the city. Regarding the Master Plan process, any recommendations should be made to the planning board, not the City Council.
   • v. Marceau discusses the Chamber's participation in the process and notes areas of overlap with this committee. NH Listens is trying to target young people in the process as well, so if any agencies specifically work with young adults and/or students, please reach out.
   • vi. Haggerty: Is anyone gathering data on the impact of housing on businesses' ability to hire?
   • vii. Marceau: No, the Chamber does not do that directly.
   • viii. Haas: Maybe Stay Work Play NH? Plans to contact the executive director to find out.
   • ix. Champlin: Whatever this committee recommends should be specific. What do we mean by "affordable housing," which could be defined in different ways? Also remember: This process makes land use policy, not social policy.
   • x. Committee members engage in a lengthy discussion about the Master Plan process and housing availability.

4. Governance survey review — presented by Schlosser - a. Ten people completed the survey; a two-page summary was given to committee members along with the agenda (see attachment 2). Schlosser says the survey indicates there's opportunity for more transparency. This committee doesn't have the authority to self-govern, so how can it still be effective? Might be good to identify what aspects of this committee folks find frustrating. - b. Committee members engage in a lengthy discussion about how this committee might be more effective in accomplishing its stated goals and seeing a measurable reduction in homelessness. - c. Haggerty: I think we all want to see homelessness reduced. So what's the right governance structure to drive results? - d. Schlosser: Does this structure support our values? Does it give us what we want? If it's not serving our goals fully, how can we use this structure as best we can while also finding a complementary structure? - e. Committee members discuss the various barriers to ending homelessness, the challenges for service providers, comparisons to other communities and their solutions, the lack of funding, and the need for better coordination.

5. Committee members – presented by Haas - a. Public transportation lines are being cut, specifically the dinner hour bus from the Concord Heights to The Friendly Kitchen

   • i. Champlin: The city increased funding to CAT, so it's not a question of city funding
   • ii. Emis-Williams: It was a state-level funding cut that affected the bus lines, so it's a much larger issue

6. Closing remarks - a. Haas: Next meeting is December 8, 2026 - b. Meeting was adjourned at 12:03 p.m.

WHAT SHOULD TRAINING LOOK LIKE?

There is a project underway to build a no-cost universal training program for staff and volunteers in shelters, resource centers, outreach teams, food pantries, and other homeless service providers across New Hampshire.

To build this, we need input from:

• Staff and volunteers who work directly with folks who are unhoused or at risk of homelessness
• Managers who oversee those staff and/or volunteers
• Leaders and administrative staff of organizations that directly serve folks who are/may become unhoused

The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete. It will close at 5 p.m. Friday, October 30, 2026.

Scan this QR code with your phone's camera to open the survey or go to https://tinyurl.com/supportfrontlineworkers

We appreciate your input!

This is part of a joint project between East Coast Evolution Leadership and Verve Innovations. Questions? Email supportfrontlineworkers@gmail.com

PROSOCIAL WORLD

Concord Homelessness Steering Committee

System Assessment Summary

September 2026 · N = 10 · Pre-intervention baseline

This companion summary provides a plain-language overview of the committee's assessment results. The full interactive report contains the data, charts, and detailed section-by-section interpretations.

The big picture

The committee is a group with genuine interpersonal warmth and shared purpose. People care about each other, help without hesitation, and feel the work aligns with their values. Trust is high. Individual flexibility — the ability to stay present, stay open, and keep acting on what matters — is solid across the group.

At the same time, the structural conditions that allow cooperation to hold up under pressure are less developed. The mechanisms for making behavior visible, addressing unhelpful patterns, and resolving conflicts fairly all sit around the middle of the scale. Authority to self-govern — the committee's perceived capacity to shape its own operating conditions — is the lowest score in the entire assessment.

The result is a group where people are invested and care about each other, but the infrastructure for cooperative governance hasn't yet caught up with the relational goodwill. Satisfaction is noticeably lower than commitment and varies widely — some members find aspects of how the committee operates frustrating, while others do not.

What's working

Inclusive decision-making is the strongest governance practice — people feel they have voice. Collaboration with other groups is also strong. Values alignment, recognition, and influence over decisions all score well. Trust is high on the warmth dimensions: genuine concern, willingness to help, and reliability. Individual flexibility is consistently solid, with the ability to hold perspective on difficult experiences the strongest process.

Where the picture gets more complex

Authority to self-govern is on the disagreement side of the scale and well below everything else. If people don't feel the group can set and adjust its own rules, building the operational infrastructure underneath cooperation becomes harder.

The operational governance layer — transparency, responding to behavior, and conflict resolution — is less established than the aspirational layer. These three work as a connected chain: transparency makes behavior visible, which makes it possible to respond to, which reduces unresolved tension. When all three sit around neutral, that chain isn't yet functioning reliably.

Hidden agendas divide the group. Most members rated this in the low-to-middle range, but several perceive competing interests at work. In a group of ten, that split means some members experience a relational environment that others do not.

Competence — whether people feel effective in this context — is the lowest of the three basic psychological needs. This likely reflects structural conditions more than individual skill.

The wellbeing picture is uneven. Most members are sustained well and burnout risk is low. But at least two people report substantially higher exhaustion, and workload items show a wide spread. The system is not sustaining all of its members equally.

Threads for the conversation

These are not recommendations — they are threads the data surfaced that the committee may want to explore together.

Authority and agency. What does the committee actually have the power to change about how it operates? Where are the constraints external, and where might there be more room than people assume?

The operational chain. Transparency, responding to behavior, and conflict resolution form a connected cluster. What does "making behavior visible" look like in practice — not surveillance, but peer-to-peer awareness that makes it possible to notice when agreements are being kept?

The satisfaction gap. People are committed but not equally satisfied. What specific aspects of how the committee operates feel frustrating? Where is the distance between what we aspire to and how things actually run?

Hidden agendas. Some members perceive competing interests; others don't. Surfacing that difference openly is an opportunity to bring relational agreements closer to what the interpersonal warmth would support.

Uneven load. A few members carry a heavier load than the majority. Making workload distribution and role boundaries more visible to the whole group would help the system support everyone more evenly.

Full interactive report: https://prosocial-insights-cdp.netlify.app/.netlify/functions/sign-redirect-chsc?aggregate=1

Password: ConcordRocks

Contact: research@prosocial.world