Special Board of Aldermen 10-27-2020 Page 12
| think that is and has been attracting folks to come in, particularly | think from my opinion and I'd love to
hear what you all think but | think that’s part of what is driving the older cohort, say the 55+ residents who
might be coming over the border and looking to live in Nashua. | also think Nashua’s existing housing
stock is very diverse. | drove the whole City, | went into almost every residential neighborhood and
development as | working at the very beginning and there are just tons of really fascinating housing options
that | don’t often see in a lot of other places.
You can find a gorgeous, older, single-family home, a new single-family home, a two family, a three family,
there are all those really unique rental complexes, both at the high end and at the low end. You can kind of
find everything in Nashua and | think that makes it really unique. And then on the employment side, the
employment base continues to grow and hopefully that will continue in the future for all of you. So that is
also sort of putting pressure on that housing market.
The gaps that we saw at the 30% of AMI and the 120% of AMI are not necessarily unique in housing
markets that are growing as well as ones that are experiencing fairly vapid price escalation. So | don’t think
that necessarily makes you unique, but | would say that is a challenge that many, many communities
across the country are grappling with, is how do we find — how do we find, create, partner to create —
whatever it might be, encourage, incentivize housing that sort of matches the income spectrum for the
residents who live here.
Alderman Klee
Thank you.
Alderman Lopez
| have a question as well.
President Wilshire
Alderman Lopez?
Alderman Lopez
In your study and in your evaluation did you happen to maybe touch upon information about the
employment capacity relative to workforce availability or resources offered in terms of supported services. |
noticed that you were talking about one of the populations moving in being elderly, or not moving in, but the
growing population being elderly which is great because it means people are living longer. But it also
means people likely need more supportive services in terms of in-home care or that kind of stuff. How do
you see our economy and our infrastructure as positioned to meet those needs?
Mr. Halvorsen
Great question, so | will tackle the employment side first. | didn’t have it on my slide so | was trying to trim
as best | could — but it is in the report | think if | am remembering, over the next 10 years, one of the fastest
growing employment sectors in Nashua | believe is in the healthcare and social services industry. So much
of what we see around New England and around the country where this is growth in that segment, given
that you do have the hospitals some of that is going to go that way. But we are seeing such big growth
given the aging population for these wrap around services and in-home care workers that you mentioned.
So | do think that is going to be and continue to be that growing segment of Nashua’s employment base or
one of them.
