Amy Coleman often fills out online surveys when they pop up on her computer. This one offered a possible $600 reward — so naturally, she answered the questions.
That survey led Coleman, a Newport Republican who runs a sanctuary for elderly cats, to a Concord conference center last month, where she spent three days with 55 other New Hampshire residents trying to agree on how to make housing more affordable.
The group produced six proposals, each approved by at least 70% of participants. A bipartisan panel of state legislators will now decide which ones to draft into bills for the 2027 legislative session, which begins in January.
The gathering was the first New Hampshire Forum, a project founded by actor and entrepreneur Andrew Shue and led here by two former legislators from opposite parties: Republican Kevin Smith, a former state representative and Londonderry town manager, and Democrat Donna Soucy, a former state Senate president. Organizers used a combination of a third-party survey and a blind lottery to make sure the forum’s participants reflected the state’s diverse political and demographic makeup.
“You had Trump voters in there, you had Harris voters in there, but at the end of the day, they saw each other as fellow Granite Staters and not Democrats and Republicans,” Smith said Friday.
Shue has launched forum initiatives in South Carolina and Nevada, as well as New Hampshire, partly because those states have early primaries. New Hampshire Forum’s website also credits the state with a “strong civic identity.”
Coleman, 52, told the survey that affordable housing was one of the state’s most pressing issues, as did many respondents. Coleman said Sullivan County, where she’s lived for 12 years, has high property taxes and a large low-income community. About 10% of county residents lived below the poverty line from 2020 to 2024, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
Justine Bartlett lives in Concord and cares for her father-in-law. At 42, she wishes she were a homeowner, but she and her husband still rent: Buying their own home feels “unaffordable” right now.
“It’s just getting worse,” she said.
Bartlett also lives next to Concord’s homeless encampment. Seeing people every day who cannot afford a safe place to sleep makes the affordable housing problem even more critical for Bartlett, who gave answers similar to Coleman’s on the NH Forum survey — even though she’s an independent with “very liberal” views, and Coleman votes Republican.
At the forum, Soucy and Smith encouraged participants to find consensus on issues that they all cared about rather than to focus on their partisan differences. Their own history of finding common ground earned Soucy and Smith their roles as the forum’s local leaders: The two politicians always had a “great working relationship,” according to Smith.
Both Bartlett and Coleman described a collaborative experience rather than one burdened by political division.
“There were definitely moments where there was some tension and some disagreement,” Bartlett said, “but overall, everyone really got along. Everyone put in 110%. Everyone that was there took it very, very seriously, and really listened to everyone. The environment felt really positive.”
“It really wasn’t about who was what,” Coleman said. “We were just people working on problems together and finding a solution.”
Before participants split into smaller groups, experts from various groups — like the Home Builders Association, the NH Realtors Association and the Municipal Association — briefed them on housing in the state. Soucy and Smith wanted voters at the forum to be as informed as possible before pitching policy to legislators, but they also wanted their participants to be regular people.
Attendees were then divided into six groups and tasked with creating a plan to address housing costs in New Hampshire. Coleman’s nine-person team proposed developing infrastructure, such as water supply, sewer systems and public transportation, in certain towns and cities across the state to lower the cost of living and make affordable housing complexes more feasible. On the final day, her group got the most votes, passing with 84% approval.
Bartlett’s group focused on improving education and housing-related accountability. They proposed that real estate agents, brokers, bankers — anyone who facilitates the housing market — be mandated to provide buyers and refinancers with information about affordable housing programs and grants. Since real estate agents already must participate in continuing education, Bartlett and her group suggested that some lessons focus on opportunities to make housing more affordable.
“There are a lot of programs and incentives out there that people don’t know about,” Bartlett said.
The other groups proposed plans focused on increasing the amount of housing available to New Hampshire residents and keeping existing options sustainable. Cohorts presented modified versions of their proposals each day of the conference, adjusting their policies until they gained the support of at least 70% of the room.
NH Forum’s 12 legislative advisors — six Democrats and six Republicans, all current state representatives and senators — include Democrat Tara Reardon, the state senator representing Concord.
“We approached folks who we thought were well-respected on both sides of the aisle,” Smith said.
More than launching policy initiatives, though, NH Forum’s organizers hoped to teach people how to unearth practical solutions by finding consensus with one another. There was no political agenda behind Shue’s idea, Smith said; he wanted the results to be organic, driven from the ground up by state residents who want to be part of the political process.
Nonpartisan groups and independent donors, along with Shue himself, funded NH Forum in its pilot year. The organization does not accept donations “tied to political parties, candidates, or special interest groups,” according to its website.
For Coleman, the forum showed her how regular people can have a say in policy, she said. Eager to spread the word, she posted about her experience at NH Forum on her cat sanctuary’s Facebook page.
“I think people just want things to change, but they don’t know how to change them,” Coleman told the Valley News. “I don’t think they understand how much their vote counts. But I think a lot of it, too, is … showing them what they could do.”
On the Facebook post, Coleman wrote that her elderly cats had missed her terribly. But for the sake of civic engagement, she wrote, the forum was worth it.