Amid budget shortfalls and rising homelessness, Housing Secretary Goddard meets with advocates

Facing budget shortfalls and the potential loss of 1500 beds for the unhoused, Housing Secretary Goddard said, "I don't know what kind of gymnastics we can do to keep nearly that many beds."

Rhode Island’s Secretary of Housing, Deborah Goddard, and the Housing Department’s Chief of Program Development, Benjamin Haynie, met with members of the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project (RIHAP) on Wednesday at Mathewson Street Church in Providence. This rare opportunity for people experiencing homelessness in Rhode Island to bring their concerns directly to the Secretary and hear her talk about the ever-increasing problems of homelessness and housing in the state allowed them to share their concerns with the Secretary and hear her talk about the ever-increasing problems of homelessness and housing in the state.

Four tables were set up in a square in Mathewson’s dining area during lunch. The low roar of multiple discussions was ever in the background as those seated around the tables - advocates, people with direct experience, students, and religious leaders - posed questions to Secretary Goddard.

The following is a very rough transcript, edited for clarity:

Eric Hirsch, RIHAP’s Executive Director: Too many people are outside. We need a plan to deal with that, and I don’t feel we have one. We will go into the fall and winter in the same situation as last fall and winter. We had someone die in a propane explosion recently. This is exactly what we were saying would happen: people would have to use propane heaters to stay warm, which wouldn’t be safe. It is infuriating that the fire marshals required what they required at Echo Village and ignored the hazard of people using propane heaters in tents. I know this is not your responsibility, but this is the kind of frustration we have.

This is what happens when people live outside in a place where they shouldn’t. No one should live outside. We need a more comprehensive plan to fix this than we have had up until now.

We want to start with a theme that we’ve covered quite a bit: establishing a homelessness committee that would advise the Interagency Council on Homelessness, as required by law.

Kevin Simon, Director of Outreach and Communications at Mathewson Street Church: We feel it’s important that more voices are at the table, and we want to know why the Advisory Committee to the Interagency Council on Homelessness has not been convened.

Secretary of Housing Deborah Goddard: You know why, because we’ve said it several times. We resurrected the Interagency Council on Homelessness after years of not meeting. As some of you know, we have proposals to revise what the advisory council looks like. Legislation is being filed today with the governor’s Office of Management and Budget.¹ You’ve heard me say - and I know we don’t all agree - but I feel firmly that the longer we keep housing and homelessness as separate, isolated conversations, the more we do a disservice to addressing the pressing needs of homelessness. Homelessness must be addressed by housing.

We recommend the Advisory Council have representatives from homeless providers, those with lived experience, advocates, developers, for-profit, nonprofit, and the landlord/tenant organization. It has no government officials and advises the Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Interagency Council on Housing Production. I feel very firmly that we’ve got to build a bridge between these two silos that don’t speak to each other the way they should, that don’t understand each other the way they should, and that don’t problem solve because of that isolation. We must change how we hear and listen to voices.

Eric Hirsch: The Housing Resources Commission has 20 members focused on housing development. How will the homeless representatives not be buried under these people who’ve been in this for years and years without dealing with homelessness much at all? How can you ensure you have the voices we need in this combined committee?

Deborah Goddard: We keep saying that we’re evolving the housing resource commission. I like to say we are getting rid of it and starting something new. So its membership doesn’t bother me much. Right now, about 20 members, many representing state agencies, need to go. This is purely a public advocacy voice to the state agencies, and we have delineated representation on that with an eye towards that kind of balance.

Bernie Beaudreau, Housing Advocate: The Interagency Council generally focuses on homelessness and housing. Production is not a short-term response. How will the council deal with the immediate issues? This is an urgent crisis, and the council is meant to address it.

Deborah Goddard: We’re trying to map out all the resources in the state departments. We don’t know what the resources are, so we can’t be coherent, we can’t be coordinated, we can’t be maximized. We’re getting reports - very detailed budgets -about what these departments have, how they are spending it, and how they are addressing the issue. Our job is to scan that and see where we’re duplicating, see where we’re not leveraging, see where pockets are that are operating in isolation and not connected to the larger coordinated system - and on the negative side, it’s going to allow us to understand when something fails, and what services are cut.

Kinverly Dicupe, Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE): So you won’t activate the advisory council?

Deborah Goddard: No, we’re suggesting a substitute.

Eric Hirsch: Even the substitute should be focused on homelessness, and people coming in from a housing production standpoint should be focused on homelessness, too.

Deborah Goddard: From my perspective, this is a spectrum. They’re not separate. That’s why I want the conversation to happen hand-in-hand.

Eric Hirsch: I don’t think we disagree with your emphasis on the importance of producing housing to solve this problem. The lack of units is our main problem, and it’s why we have a failed system to deal with homelessness. So I agree with that.

Person Experiencing Homelessness 1: Many of us are experiencing harassment and being evicted from encampments without notice.

Benjamin Hayni, Housing Department’s Chief of Program Development: If the City of Providence wants to issue a notice to vacate and it’s state land, we told them we need at least 30 days for our providers to start working with people and find solutions elsewhere before they issue that notice. If it’s not state land, that’s a different story. We’re responsible for the state stuff - if it’s on private land or something, that’s a different story and a question for the City of Providence. As far as I know, they gave us the most recent 30-day notice on Promenade Street. There shouldn’t be police harassing folks there. I will follow up with the city and ensure that’s not happening.

Person Experiencing Homelessness 2: How about the fact that the police came in on Monday and swept me and two other people out from behind East Side Market on the bike path? We had been there for over a month without any problems, and they came on Monday and told us we had to go and take whatever we got.

Eric Hirsch: They didn’t give you any notice at all.

Person Experiencing Homelessness 2: Nothing. No notice at all. They’re coming out of the woodwork and kicking us out everywhere we go. We kept the peace, doing everything that they asked us to do.

Benjamin Hayni: I can certainly raise that with the city.

Eric Hirsch: The city gives us all these assurances of what they’re doing, and then that’s not what they’re doing. They can get away with telling people to leave immediately. They tell us they’re giving people 30 days, but they’re saying one thing, and something else is happening.

Megan Smith, Advocate: The BS reason they’ve given is that a different group of people living there got a notice two years ago, and now they come in and say, “You don’t get the courtesy of a notice [because we already evicted different people from here two years ago.]” That’s BS. People need to be, at a bare minimum, re-noticed.

Person Experiencing Homelessness 2: I’m homeless in a tent with my cat. I wasn’t in my tent at the time. Thank God the two other people in that area with me could salvage my cat and his belongings - but I lost so much...

Eric Hirsch: We’re sorry that happened to you. That shouldn’t have happened.

Person Experiencing Homelessness 2: They did not warn us they were coming. No notice. They didn’t give us 30 days. They came with a hazmat crew and the police and told us to leave immediately.

Eric Hirsch [to Goddard and Hayni]: Can you raise that issue with them that they have to re-notice people after a certain amount of time?

Benjamin Hayni: Absolutely. I agree. That doesn’t make any sense.

Person Experiencing Homelessness 3: People are being banned from shelters for minor or no violations, and the grievances we file are reviewed by the person who banned us. There is no appeal or true grievance policy.

Benjamin Hayni: A few things here. One, we have been notified and are aware of folks who have been banned from different places, and it’s unclear why the person is no longer allowed. We have told providers we need to see documentation in the system of why this happened, and we also want to see the plan to reconcile the situation. It can’t be a permanent ban, short of an act of violence or something like that. Otherwise, there needs to be a reconciliation plan. What does the person looking for the spot need to do, and what is the expectation?

We have drafted a clear grievance policy. It is part of the governance structure going to the legislature today. As soon as that gets approved, we can start it.

Bernie Beaudreau: I understand that there are 1500 shelter beds right now. Are you going to try to maintain that level?

Deborah Goddard: This is a very timely conversation. We will be putting out our funding round by the end of this month, so we’re not where we were last year—but, as you well know, we don’t have nearly the same amount of money. I don’t know what kind of gymnastics we can do to keep nearly that many beds.

Bernie Beaudreau: There could be a thousand fewer beds given the current funding reduction in the state budget, unless about $15 or $20 million is put back in the budget. What will we do if we have a thousand more people on the street?

Deborah Goddard: I don’t have a perfect answer for that. One thing we are looking at is our cost per bed. Some places are very expensive. How do we reduce that? We’ve got to think about economies of scale. I don’t want to give up on diversion - problem solving - because we can reduce the number of people who are homeless and prevent people from becoming homeless. That’s the juggling act Ben and I have right now.

Benjamin Hayni: Yeah, it is a juggling act. We have six or seven different strategies based on what we will have for funding, which is still up in the air. It is a very delicate balance. We want to maintain as many shelter beds as we can. We do not want to lose a thousand beds - that’s unacceptable.

Mary Pendergast, Sisters of Mercy: It’s not possible.

Benjamin Hayni: We understand.

Bernie Beaudreau: How can we get that $20 million into the budget to keep the same number of shelter beds?

Benjamin Hayni: An extra $20 million, I don’t see. The governor has proposed some budget amendments that would, if passed this year for our next funding cycle, add about $4.3 million extra this year, and then next year it would be about $7 or $8 million. You must tell your elected officials and representative, “This dedicated homelessness funding stream needs to happen.”

Bernie Beaudreau: We’ll still be $15 million short if they pass.

Deborah Goddard: Let’s not overlook that the real estate industry is fighting the small increase in conveyance tax [we’re talking about], and the tourism industry, and several municipalities, are fighting the whole house short-term rental cap.

Benjamin Hayni: We’re also considering the uncertainty in the federal government. We don’t know what will happen, so we have contingency plans for all these scenarios. I’ll be honest: Even in the best-case scenario, there are still many cuts, and we need to figure out how to do things differently.

Phyllis, Experiencing Homelessness: On Sunday last week, I was permanently thrown out of Emmanuel House. I was standing on the sidewalk, and they said they owned that, that it was private property. When I questioned the manager about it, he suddenly said, “You’re belligerent, and now you’re never coming back.”

If people are going to be thrown out, they should be given a written reason. Something has to be done because not all shelters are the same. It is outrageous that one shelter gets to do things the others don’t. It is inhumane.

They treat us like children, and you have to stand there and take it because where else can you go? Our vulnerability is what makes us stuck in that position. If we could give every person kicked out of a shelter a survey to see what it was like there, what happened, and what was wrong, and then follow through on those surveys... The shelters will kick you out for the stupidest reasons, not tell you why, and then your bed is gone. It’s unfair, and there are no repercussions.

I’m on the phone with CES [Coordinated Entry System] for six hours on Sunday, and standing at Crossroads because the shelters didn’t update their availability. That is outrageous. They should be fined if they’re sitting on their butts and not going into the computer and telling CES there are beds available. There’s nothing we can do. That’s why you are experiencing a lot of burnout among the CES staff. That’s why it is inefficient and it doesn’t make any sense. We’re the only state in the United States that utilizes this mandatory HUD system for shelter beds. Shelter beds should have nothing to do with CES.

Deborah Goddard: We know there are problems with CES. We have a pilot program focused on regional access points. We will set aside funding to make a statewide regional access point system in place of CES. We’ve got three set up right now.

Benjamin Hayni: There are a lot of moving pieces. Each of these things affects other things. It’s clunky and slow to move a system, but we must. It will get faster and more efficient as we tighten things up. As we do that, the effective and working things will stay intact. The things that are ineffective and working—giving people the runaround, arbitrarily throwing people out, or not listening—will fall away because they’re not doing what they need to do.

Homeless Advocate: This is an important issue to address because it’s not about funding, it’s about accountability. They already have the money to run the shelters. It doesn’t cost anything for someone to treat another human being like a human being, and not say “Because I said so,” and “You’re out of here.” When kicked out of a shelter, you start over because the whole system is so complicated. Just trying to find what is available for people is overwhelming, and if you are dealing with other issues besides homelessness, [it’s so much worse]. I heard this week about two people who got housing, and it’s almost like a miracle. How did that happen? The not-so user-friendly process of applying for and finding low-income housing is one issue, but the other is that agencies that have funding are not treating people the way they should.

Deborah Goddard: Absolutely. It’s a problem. We created a universal portal in Massachusetts. It took several years, but that should not keep us from starting that project. In Massachusetts, everything is listed in one place: where the unit is, unit types, rent, whether it has a rental voucher—all of it.

Kinverly Dicupe: Is it possible to have inspections in these shelters every one or two years? There’s a myth out there that people don’t want to stay in shelters - people don’t want to stay in shelters because there are bed bugs in there. Conditions in those places are terrible, so many people would rather stay in a tent outside than in a shelter. Is it possible for us to inspect these shelters on a one- or two-year basis?

Benjamin Hayni: In the past year, we added some language around habitability and basic standards to the contract. I think we can go a little further. That’s an interesting idea, and I think we can explore that.

Deborah Goddard: I think we should bring that to the Interagency Council because the Department of Housing will not start doing health code inspections. Other departments in the state, like the Department of Health, are better suited.

Person Experiencing Homelessness 5: Would you support public option housing developments?

Deborah Goddard: We’re exploring the public option. I don’t know what you mean when you say that because everyone who says it means something different.

Eric Hirsch: The state is the housing developer rather than the nonprofit. Representatives of the nonprofits have told me directly that 375 permanent supportive housing units and 500 deeply subsidized units without services are too many to build between now and 2030. And I know why they’re saying that: they’re very expensive. We feel the state needs to step in as a developer, particularly for very low-income and permanent supportive housing development.

Deborah Goddard: First, I am concerned about us becoming developers. We don’t have that expertise and can’t take on the liability. But we have public housing, and I don’t want to give them short shrift. I have heard the same thing about our building goals, but we have to do it, whether it’s a public developer, a nonprofit, a housing authority, or a for-profit that will set aside some units. There are plenty of avenues.

Kinverly Dicupe: We’re trying to avoid the for-profit situation.

Deborah Goddard: Why?

Kinverly Dicupe: The for-profit market is why we have a housing crisis.

We’re looking for low-income housing, as opposed to what we’ve been doing, where you build a building with maybe 50 apartments, and 10 of them are subsidized. We need that whole building to be low-income.

Deborah Goddard: I do not argue that we need to do more for the lower-income, very low-income groups, and around mixed-income development. The constraint for a lot of developers is the rental sales. You cannot do this without a rental subsidy. Again, we have to keep an eye on Washington because the White House is not in the business of cutting rental vouchers right now. We’ve got to keep our eye on that. We can build all the housing we want, but the rents won’t be low enough if we can’t subsidize any vouchers.

Taylor Ellis, Advocate: I have one question, and then I’ll make another point. You currently have $10 million in the budget for the public option. Do you plan to use that for extremely low-income and permanent supportive housing for people living in shelters and outside?

Deborah Goddard: We have $10 million for public housing development. Some people think that means public housing, some people think that means public ownership. Some people believe that means public investment.

Taylor Ellis: What do you think it means?

Deborah Goddard: To me, a public housing development is public housing. I come from that world. But I’m open to figuring out how to use it best. But I’ll tell you, plenty of folks don’t think that term means only very low-income.

We have other resources, too. Our commitment in the state plan is to produce housing for extremely low-income households and permanent supportive housing. Whether it comes from that pot of money or somewhere else, we have a commitment to make that housing happen.

Taylor Ellis: People publish reports every month on what we need. It’s extraordinary. It’s getting worse. And the trickle-down effect of building middle-income housing doesn’t serve the needs of the people in this room and those living outside for decades.

You were at the opening of Echo Village with many state leaders. They called it a pilot program, but it’s been used nationwide in hundreds of places. So it’s not a pilot program except in Rhode Island. It is a dignified way for many people to experience homelessness. Congregate shelter doesn’t work for many people for many reasons, such as the trauma they’ve experienced in those places. Do you commit to continuing those dignified shelters, or are you saying that cost-benefit means congregate shelters are the only kind you will fund going forward?

Deborah Goddard: We are going to focus on congregate. This is the harsh reality of the funding and cost. We have to pay attention to economies of scale. That doesn’t mean the shelters shouldn’t be inspected; they should be inhabitable, and people should be able to breathe, but our purpose is to build them.

Person Experiencing Homelessness 6: What would you suggest we tell people who are being evicted at two o’clock in the morning when they call us? Can we list places where they can safely put a tent? What do we tell them when they’re being thrown out and CES hasn’t caught up, and now we’re on two or three days, and they still don’t know where to go?

Benjamin Hayni: We’re trying to stand up to these regional access points. We think this will be a good thing. Anybody can drop into these places and get connected with different resources, particularly towards housing. We’ll pilot three of these: a big one in Woonsocket, one here in Providence, and one in Westerly. We hope to expand the idea to other communities in the next funding cycle.

In the meantime, I don’t know what to tell you to do at two in the morning, short of technically having a policy at our shelters that if you show up there after hours, after coordinated entry is closed. They have a bed, so they should let you stay there until the next morning, when you can access something else.

Person Experiencing Homelessness 6: Is there a way you can publicize that? Because the shelters don’t allow it.

Benjamin Hayni: We can remind them. It’s a Continuum of Care (COC) policy, but we can share that and remind providers that this exists.

Besides that, we hear what you’re saying. I’ve heard these issues for a long time. We need to fix these things. We need to eliminate as many barriers as possible. That’s my job. That’s how I see my role at the Department of Housing. As I’m looking at our homeless response system, I’m seeing barriers to accessing housing services all over the place, and my job is to eliminate these barriers.

Taylor Ellis: Are these regional centers where people could set up tents outside and be safe from police harassment?

Benjamin Hayni: Probably not. They will be inside existing brick-and-mortar offices. Hopefully, different agencies can set aside an area in a building they own, and we can use those spaces. We can’t build brand-new brick-and-mortar offices. If we’re going to build anything, it’s going to be housing.

Deborah Goddard: We want these to be places where people can talk face to face with someone, have access to assistance, or sleep in whatever shelter beds are available.

Rachel Bisop: I’m a nurse. Make no mistake, money is getting spent when folks are not housed. The state pays for it in other ways. When folks don’t want to go to the shelters because they’re so horrible, they end up on the street, and then they show up in the emergency departments, and the state Medicaid pays a million dollars for that person—a million dollars. There is money there. If we don’t spend it on housing, we pay for it in medical bills.

1. From a press release: Governor McKee Introduces Budget Amendment to Streamline the State’s Housing Governance Structure

Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee introduced a budget amendment on Wednesday to implement the key recommendations from the Rhode Island Department of Housing in its Housing Organizational Plan Report, submitted to the General Assembly on December 31, 2024. These proposed legislative changes are designed to streamline the state’s housing governance structure, optimize resources, and enhance agency coordination..

“By introducing this budget amendment, in collaboration with the Department of Housing, we are taking a critical step toward creating a more efficient and unified housing governance structure,” said Governor McKee. “These changes will ensure that state resources are aligned and that agencies are working together more efficiently to address the urgent housing needs of our State. This is about providing real, lasting solutions for Rhode Islanders, and I am committed to making them a reality.”

The budget amendment includes provisions to centralize policy and strategic planning within the Department of Housing, improve funding mechanisms, and establish direct leadership connections with key entities, including RIHousing, the Interagency Council on Homelessness, and a newly created Interagency Council on Housing Production and Preservation. These changes are intended to align efforts, ensure accountability, and facilitate more efficient responses to the housing needs of Rhode Island’s communities.

“The state’s housing challenges require a unified and coordinated approach,” said Secretary of Housing Deborah Goddard. “By implementing these structural changes, we can ensure that the state’s resources are being used effectively and that we are making measurable progress in addressing the housing needs of Rhode Islanders.”

The proposed legislative changes will establish a more integrated framework for housing policy and execution, driving collaboration between the Department of Housing and other agencies. This framework is expected to produce significant, long-term benefits for housing, homelessness, and community development efforts across the state.

For further information and to read the full report, visit Housing Governance Report 2024 | Department of Housing.