Gov. Kelly Ayotte has signed into law a bill that will allow towns and cities to require proof of residency before helping people of low income with necessities such as housing, food, heat and prescriptions.

House Bill 348, whose prime sponsor was Jennifer Rhodes, R-Winchester, will change a longstanding statute stating that residency is not required to receive local welfare assistance.

Supporters say the bill may allow for a more equitable system for sharing growing welfare expenses among municipalities and assert that its provisions will ensure that assistance continues to flow to those in need.

Opponents said the existing law was fine and that there is no need to put up additional barriers to aid for people in difficult situations.

Republican-backed HB 348, as introduced, would have allowed municipalities to establish a 90-day residency requirement as a prerequisite for receiving aid. A lease, car registration, or utility bill was cited as a way of proving residency.

But that length-of-stay requirement was removed in the final version, which also expanded the ways a person could demonstrate residency. It also specifies that the residency requirement does not apply to people who left their original town because of domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault or human trafficking.

It also mandates up to six days of assistance for people temporarily in a municipality who need help addressing a basic-needs emergency.

Also under the bill, a municipality can recover some welfare expenses from another town or city where the applicant resides.

Rhodes said in an interview on Tuesday that local assistance programs work best when people apply for help where they are living.

“Towns know what’s best for their own community members,” she said. “What somebody requires for assistance when they live in Keene would be completely different from somebody that lives in Winchester or Troy.”

Keene City Councilor Randy Filiault said that since Keene provides all the homeless shelter beds in Cheshire County, it inevitably bears a greater share of welfare costs than other municipalities.

Anything that would facilitate more cost-sharing among municipalities would be helpful, he said.

Dawn McKinney, policy director for N.H. Legal Assistance, said she fears people in need will “fall through the cracks” under new residency requirements.

“I do think requiring proof of residency will lead to some people being unable to get emergency assistance because, even though they are residents, they won’t have the wherewithal to prove it,” she said.

Todd Marsh is the welfare director in Rochester, N.H., and the president of the N.H. Local Welfare Administrators Association.

He said his goal will be for the state to continue to offer adequate emergency assistance to those most in need.

“Along with our association’s Board of Directors, I will be focused on training cities and towns throughout the state on best practices and on how to apply the new law with consistent, humane, accountable, and flexible decision-making,” he said in an email.

HB 348 has an effective date of July 21.

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