LEBANON — Two housing projects — an 80-unit affordable apartment building downtown and a residential treatment program for pregnant and parenting women — have won financing approvals from New Hampshire Housing.
The agency’s board voted Thursday to approve up to $16.5 million in tax-exempt bond financing, $4.394 million in federal HOME funds and $1.5 million from the Housing Trust Fund for The Muse, a planned apartment building at 20 Spencer St., according to a news release from New Hampshire Housing.
The board also approved up to $3 million for Families Flourish Northeast, which plans to build a 12-unit treatment program on Mount Support Road where mothers in recovery from substance use disorder can live with their children.
“These approvals will help address housing needs in Lebanon by supporting both new affordable homes and recovery housing for families,” Rob Dapice, executive director and CEO of New Hampshire Housing, said in the release.
The Muse
The Spencer Street lot, a short walk from Colburn Park, has been vacant since the city moved its public works department out of a garage there about 14 years ago. Earlier attempts to redevelop it fell through, and in 2024 the City Council chose a proposal from Hollis-based developers Jake and Joe Tamposi to build 100% affordable housing on the site.
New Hampshire Housing did not select The Muse for bond financing in 2024, according to a letter from the project’s engineering firm to the Lebanon Planning Board. The agency did not offer the bond program in 2025.
“We’re going to have the 80 affordable apartments there, and they’re all restricted through the low-income housing tax credit program,” said Etienne LaFond, New Hampshire Housing’s director of communications and marketing.
Most of the apartments will be one- and two-bedroom units, with three studios and eight three-bedroom units.
Depending on the unit, households earning from about $24,000 to $84,000 a year could qualify, according to materials the developers filed with the city. Most units, 45 of the 80, are set aside for people earning about 60% of the area’s median income, LaFond said.
The median income for a family of four in Grafton County, which includes Lebanon, is $112,000 this year, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development compiled by New Hampshire Housing. That’s below the statewide median of $125,900 as of 2025, according to New Hampshire Housing. The national median is $107,900.
At that level, rent would be about $1,210 a month for a studio, $1,300 for a one-bedroom, $1,560 for a two-bedroom and $1,805 for a three-bedroom, LaFond said. Twenty apartments will come with vouchers through the Lebanon Housing Authority to help cover rent.
The project is expected to cost just under $32 million, Jake Tamposi told the Valley News in August. Under their agreement with the city, the developers will buy the land for $400,000 once their financing is final.
Families Flourish Northeast
Bethany Cottrell, executive director of Families Flourish Northeast, said the $3 million will go toward construction. The organization has now raised just over $9 million toward a total construction budget of $9.5 million, she said.
The money comes from opioid abatement settlement funds entrusted to New Hampshire Housing, Cottrell said. The award carries 30-year repayment terms, though she said it isn’t exactly a loan.
Construction hasn’t started yet.
“We are hoping to be able to announce our construction kickoff within the next couple of weeks,” Cottrell said. She said the goal is to hold a groundbreaking event by the end of the year and to open in 2027.
The facility, on land leased from Dartmouth Health, will house mothers and their children together, Cottrell said.
“There’ll be 12 … treatment beds for the women themselves, but the spaces will be living units for the family unit, the mom and the children,” she said.
The program won’t have a firm age limit for children.
“We know that some other programs have specific cutoffs in ages, which is what can often cause a barrier,” Cottrell said.
The program will serve women from New Hampshire and Vermont, focusing on rural areas where treatment is harder to reach, she said. Cottrell said she expects referrals from obstetricians, pediatricians, treatment providers, Dartmouth Health, TLC Family Resource Center, Moms in Recovery, the state Division for Children, Youth and Families, and local jails, as well as from women themselves.
Similar residential programs operate in Rochester and Nashua and in Burlington, Cottrell said, and Families Flourish has been working with them.
“We know that there is still such a significant gap,” she said.
In 2023, 13.4% of babies born at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center had prenatal substance exposure, more than twice the state rate, according to figures compiled by Families Flourish Northeast and reported in the Valley News.