“It’s So Hard To Find Help Around Here” Bemoans Woman Who Has Opposed Every Housing Development For 20 Years

The outspoken opponent of all development in her town spent her entire visit to an understaffed coffee-shop complaining she was unable to find a reliable maintenance person to work on the house she bought for $86,378 in the 1980s.

HANOVER– For the past 20 years, Mary has been the bane of every housing developer in the Upper Valley. Her fierce opposition to any new housing development earned her a reputation as the local “no-growth” advocate and she was proud of it. Whenever a proposal for a new development came to her town, you could guarantee that Mary would be there at city hall, protesting loudly and passionately about why it shouldn’t be built.

But after being unable to find a dishwasher repair person [who would have moved into the subdivision development she opposed in 2014] or a cleaning person [who had reserved a unit in the apartment building she successfully blocked construction of in 2019], Mary’s latest concern is the lack of reliable workers in the region.

“Where did all the people go,” asked the retired mother of three, oblivious that hundreds of working class people have been displaced from the Upper Valley by its changing demographics and a critical housing shortage caused, in part, by her vocal participation in preventing housing supply from keeping pace with demand. “It’s like no one wants to work anymore.”

Faced with an increase in property taxes on her home that has appreciated 1,200% during her ownership, Mary suggested that the town needed to cut back on the school budget now that her children have graduated.

The budget, which did not include a cost of living increase sufficient for teachers to afford living in the town they teach in, could have been funded by an increase in the commercial tax base that Mary said was not in keeping with the character of a neighborhood she didn’t live in.