PREVIEW FROM THE STORY:

Holding hand-written signs that read, “Housing is a human right,” and “End homelessness now,” about 50 advocates for the homeless marched to Governor Dan McKee’s office Monday, demanding the state declare a state of emergency over the inadequate number of shelter beds available this winter. Advocates and outreach workers say they are expecting more people will be forced to live outside this winter than at any other point in decades.
“I’ve been tracking this data since 1990. We’ve never had this many people outside as winter is approaching,” said Eric Hirsch, a Providence College sociology professor and co-chair of the state’s Homeless Management Information System Steering Committee.

Approximately 1,260 people — including children — were waiting for shelter in Rhode Island, according to data by the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness as of Sept. 24. That’s an increase of 70 people compared to the week prior. Of those, 405 people reported that they were living outside or in their cars between Sept. 11 and Sept. 24. Some say that’s only skimming the surface of the problem.
“Those are only the people who reported being outside or that we can find,” said Ehren Hunt, a housing specialist at Tri-County Community Action Agency, on a recent call regarding the data. “There are plenty of people living in the middle of the woods. Then there are those who are living in their cars with children and are hiding because they’re afraid of DCYF getting involved.”
The Rhode Island Department of Housing announced on Friday it was distributing $3.5 million to six local organizations to create 231 shelter beds in addition to the 64 beds that were funded this summer. But housing specialists say that’s not enough.

One of the main issues, Hirsch said, is that nonprofits and providers have been unable to identify sites — both rapidly deployable and in existing buildings — for shelter beds. For example, Pallet Shelters is a Washington-based company produces tiny prefabricated homes that can be erected in half an hour. In Rhode Island, House of Hope CDC has a proposed a group of those tiny homes called ECHO (Emergency COVID Housing Opportunities) Village. But after two years, they haven’t been able to find a location for the village. “We need the governor’s help to override the ‘Not in My Backyard’ sentiments that we find in the towns and cities,” said Hirsch.
Kristina Brown, a program officer at the United Way of Rhode Island, said homelessness can be an “invisible issue” to those who live outside certain neighborhoods in Providence, Woonsocket, and other cities where many social services are concentrated. “There’s a lot of ways people can detach from these issues,” said Brown, who explained this detachment could be fueling “NIMBY-ism.” “But the people who are suffering are not just from Providence. They are your neighbors.”
Brown said the unhoused population represents “every town and city” in Rhode Island.

It does not appear that McKee will declare homelessness an emergency, but while it’s a relatively new strategy to combat the issue, other cities on the West Coast have declared states of emergency over the last two decades.

READ MORE IN THE LINK. TY!

Well it's a self solving problem....

u/rhodyjourno I appreciate the work you do, but this sub and r/providence literally drummed out another Redditor for consistently posting news articles.

If you are able to read the story, it talks about how people also simply can't find apartments because of the lack of a housing stock in Rhode Island. Here's a snippet from the story:

There are 49,032 extremely low-income households in Rhode Island and a shortage of 24,050 affordable and available rental homes — which is an 11 percent increase in shortages compared to 2021, according to The Gap. “I think that number is fairly conservative,” noted Cortney Nicolato, the CEO of United Way of Rhode Island, on a call Monday.
So people who do have housing vouchers, which help pay the rent, are at risk of losing them. If they can’t find an apartment by the six-month deadline, the vouchers will be taken away. Some people wait years to get on a housing voucher list.
“If you have a safe space to live in another state, we’ll send you there,” said Hunt. “I just sent a mom and her daughter to Oregon because they had family out there. It was a one-way ticket. They can’t come back. There’s nothing here for them.”

Is it not helping that I am pasting previews of the story in the comments? This is important information, and I think it's critical for a broad audience to know and not just those with a subscription to the Boston Globe.

The people who aren't here I presume you are talking about solely posted right wing hit piece and crime articles and got downvoted into oblivion. Not really the same thing

Pretty different situations here, I don't think its comparable tbh.

There is literally a conversation on r/providence now about limiting news posts. It is very much similar.

I've seen it.

multiple daily reposts with highly slanted political commentary by a shitposter for a blog are not the same thing as less frequent posts by an actual journalist from a regional newspaper.

I couldn't care less about news articles here, but I would say that the situation is very different, because the person posting them isn't dying on an alt-right hill in the comments immediately after.

Im already seeing tents up off of trails i walk with my dog

Housing stock is way down, prices for shit that IS available is way up, and low income and disabled people are finding the little resources available to them completely dry up since Covid. When I lived on Smith Hill through the first part of this year, it felt like there was just an increasing amount of homeless in the neighborhood every week to the point it was becoming problematic for the businesses. I moved to another area of Providence over the summer and having to be careful about where I walk to get to appointments and such because the amount of harassment by the ever growing amount of homeless in the area.

Hell, over the last few months especially, you're seeing more and more tents just popping up all over the place, especially off trails and such.

Going into winter, it's going to get much worse and people more desperate. I'm a disabled trans woman and lucked out in finding a place I could rent an affordable room until next June but absolutely terrified about where I'm going to find housing next year with the state of the Section 8 waiting list and less places taking the vouchers and groups that used to help people like me are just tapped out on their resources.

>literally drummed out another Redditor

I never got a drum. Please have them send me my literal drum.

Pay wall

I brought up the homelessness problem in RI on the same thread about welcoming migrants to our state. Got downvoted.

How can the average person help?

Scary tbh. Being homeless scares the shit out of me.

Give out socks, hot hands and cash

These people are gonna freeze to death all winter and never make it on the news because who gives a fuck about another bumsicle

There was a problem with a troll that ended up being banned from Reddit. Not even remotely comparable situations.

FWIW I also appreciate the extended excerpt, especially for an important topic like this.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221003234645/https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/10/03/metro/homelessness-ri-could-reach-an-all-time-high-this-winter-advocates-say/

web archive link so you don't have to participate in the traffic/click farming.

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You’re right she is the reporter. She wrote the article. The article is behind a paywall.

So is this advertising?

It’d be different if Joe or Jane Redditor came in and said “hey look at this cool article, here’s what I think”

Instead a reporter posts links to stories they wrote behind a paywall without framing or starting a discussion. Clearly advertising.

The subreddit has had this discussion already (which isn't to say it shouldn't be discussed, just saying it happened at length previously).

I was up in arms about it at first. I think the frequency of articles was much higher than it is these days, and the user was not labeled as being a Boston Globe reporter, which were my two biggest issues.

As things stand now, the mods are cool with it, and the reporter is clearly labeled as such. It is advertising, I agree, but the articles are both relevant and well written. I also appreciate that excerpts are provided, which are usually enough info for me.

This is not remotely comparable to the troll that got banned from Reddit, in my opinion.

Good luck out there, sis. Be careful.

Meaning?

I think using the term bumsicle takes a lot of steam out of your argument.

There were lots of people on Friday in Burnside Park. When I got off the bus on Monday, they were all cleared out. I wonder where they went to.

Haven't heard either gubernatorial candidate be asked about this or the fact that only luxury housing is built. "Market rate" is all I see or hear for apartments going up

You mean, so you can avoid supporting quality journalism?

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The government is to be blame, no more stimulus checks and yet the covid continues in the other hand allowing hundreds of homeless people sharing housing is a recipe for covid 19 and his variants. 🤑

I think we may just be realizing it more as well there have always been homeless people off the bike path in south county for example. I do a little bit of outreach stuff just hanging out food and water to them it does seem that more of the homeless are originally from RI than in the past

There's no argument to this

Homeless people freeze to death in the winter.

Biden said covid is over not my words his words

It’s a bad trend in blue states. Ca ri ct and Hawaii and IL lead in homeless rates

Meaning they will freeze to death over the winter

They can’t find a place for the ECHO because you’re basically guaranteeing an increase in crime, drug use, and decrease in property values.

Why would anyone in their right mind vote for that? You can’t expect people to vote against their own interests for the greater good.

I’m not saying the NIMBY’s are right but did anyone really expect a different situation?

Seems like a valid point.

Also give a call to McKees office. And donate to the groups listed in the article. Make enough noise so the elected officials have to pay attention.

Why do you think it guarantees that? When people have housing, their lives can stabilize. They can seek help and not need to turn to crime to survive. That is why Housing First is a model that works. Also caring about property values is how we got here in the first place, by caring about profit over people, then affordable housing has not been created built or rent control has not been passed.

Yeah...I figured.

The stimulus check didnt even cover 1 months rent at the time. What in the hell do you mean no more stimulus checks as if that was a factor in any way.

Its more you can say what happens without being dehumanizing. These are people at real risk of a painful death, maybe try to pretend theyre human beings and not "bums"

If it was "cant" vs "wont" that would be a valid argument to make. We just paid how many millions of dollars for a soccer stadium?

We CAN take care of every person and problem in this country. The are enough resources to do all of these things. What is lacking is political will

Poverty is directly correlated with crime (understandably so, people will break the law to survive, this is why correcting for income level makes racial crime disparities disappear)

Homelessness is also directly correlated with drug use. Not saying they deserve to be homeless or anything, just that there is a known association between the two populations. (40-60% of the homeless struggle with alcohol or other drugs)

I’m just saying this is going to be a very hard sell. People hardly ever go out of their way to help each other even when there is no cost to them, never mind if you tell them that their neighborhood will literally become less safe but it’s for the greater good.

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What people seem to be unwilling to accept is that you cannot reform your way out of these problems. The system is working as intended. You're going to have to vigorously embrace the second amendment and make a lot of rich people very mad if you want to improve this country to any meaningful extent

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Why build houses? There are more empty houses than homeless people and guns would certainly help expropriate them from the parasites that are hoarding them.

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Please read Marx and Lenin.

And Rosa for that matter, because she settled the reform vs revolution question over a century ago

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The amount of massive homes that stand empty 90% of the time in this state is staggering. The problem definitely has nothing to do with a lack of resources.

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The John brown club takes donations of cash and other things and distributes it to folks once a week. They go out to KP and burnside and try to give people hot hands, food, and information on services.

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That's some lazy trolling right there.

Captain to Captain....you right.

But I'm not wrong. Either leave your car doors unlocked or donate to homeless shelters if you actually care.

I spent months in Kennedy Plaza Park with Occupy. We got RI to open a homeless shelter. Then they voted it closed as soon as closing it was on a ballot.

I don't have much faith in the bluest state. Yall are still red at heart.

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I appreciate you <3

I'd like to believe this is just a poor attempt at a troll post but these days I don't have much hope