Shelter providers are raising alarm bells about a looming crisis in funding to combat homelessness as the number of unsheltered Rhode Islanders continues to grow.
An influx of federal COVID-19 relief dollars has helped the state more than double the number of shelter beds since 2020. But that funding has dried up, and providers worry the state lacks a concrete plan for how to fill the gap.
At a House Finance Committee hearing in March, state Housing Secretary Stefan Pryor said funding for shelter beds and related services could drop to pre-pandemic levels, even as the state has seen at least a 370% increase in unsheltered people since 2019.
Without additional funding for shelter beds and supportive services, advocates warn the crisis will only deepen.
“It’s a huge cliff,” said Ben Lessing, the executive director of Community Care Alliance, a nonprofit that provides shelter and other services to people in northern Rhode Island. “The situation is not abating. It continues to get worse.”
Federal funding scaling back
Rhode Island uses a mechanism called the Consolidated Homeless Fund to pay for shelter beds and adjacent services, like helping people experiencing homelessness find housing, hiring street outreach workers, and running coordinated entry, the system unhoused Rhode Islanders have to use to access shelter and housing. Less funding could have an impact on all of those services.
That fund draws on multiple sources of mostly federal funding, and since 2021, the available dollars have steadily increased. Some of the additional funding has come through grants the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development expanded during the pandemic. Other dollars have come through the state and local allocations of COVID relief monies, according to figures provided by the Department of Housing.
Last year, records show the Consolidated Homeless Fund reached an unprecedented level of $36.2 million after Rhode Island added millions in American Rescue Plan dollars to the available resources for people experiencing homelessness.
“The Consolidated Homeless Fund was substantially bulked up because it included state fiscal recovery dollars [from the federal government.] It was nearly $30 million,” Pryor said at the finance committee hearing last month. “We estimate this [fiscal] year that we will have $7.1 million.”
That number remains an estimate and could fluctuate over the next several months. In a statement, a spokesperson said the Department of Housing is looking at possible options for additional resources.
(Some federal funding for homelessness services also flows through what’s known as the Continuum of Care, which Rhode Island Housing oversees, and has not seen such significant fluctuations in funding.)
Shelter providers said they fear the decrease in funding could mean hundreds of the state’s nearly 1,400 shelter beds could be forced to close, pushing more people out onto the street or into encampments. That’s an especially daunting prospect as more and more Rhode Islanders become homeless.
“Previously, the problems we were facing weren’t financial, the problems were logistical,” said Nick Horton, co-executive director of Open Doors, a nonprofit that provides services to formerly incarcerated people and operates shelter beds in Rhode Island. “Now, we’re facing all those problems, plus the money drying up.”
Lawmakers negotiating at the Capitol
Advocates’ concern about future funding hinges on Gov. Dan McKee’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year.
Last fall, the Rhode Island Current reported that the Department of Housing requested McKee include $25 million to fund shelters and associated services, as well as an additional $15 million to help people find and maintain permanent housing in his budget proposal for FY 2025. As written, the budget currently under consideration at the statehouse appears not to have met those requested funding levels.
McKee’s office did not directly answer several specific questions about funding to address homelessness in the proposed budget. In a statement, a spokesperson for McKee wrote, “The Governor’s Office is currently working with Secretary Pryor and the Office of Management and Budget on possible options for additional resources to support the State’s efforts to address homelessness.”
“They have to put this in the budget,” said Eric Hirsch, a professor of sociology at Providence College and advocate for the homeless. “This is urgent.”
The previous two state budgets have earmarked $45 million in funding to expand shelter beds and other services, which was drawn from federal COVID relief money, according to an analysis from the House fiscal office. As of late February, more than $28 million of that funding has yet to be spent, but the Department of Housing says it has all been “obligated,” meaning the state has a planned use for the funds.
Of the unspent funds, the department said it plans to spend $6.95 million acquiring the former Charlesgate nursing home in Providence. Roughly $10 million has also been allocated towards new permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness.
At the hearing, Secretary Prior said the Department of Housing will finalize funding levels and sources for the Consolidated Homeless Fund over the summer.
A call for more state funding
In written testimony, shelter operators and service providers who help unhoused Rhode Islanders say the state needs to allocate an additional $30 million in funding just to maintain their current operations. More money, they said, would be needed to mitigate the growing homelessness crisis in the state.
“When we’re looking at trying to address this issue — what I refer to as ‘stop the bleeding’ — we are not investing enough dollars to do that at this point,” Margaux Morisseau, of the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness, told the state House Finance Committee at the hearing last month.
The General Assembly will spend the next few months holding more hearings and reviewing revenues and expenditures. In June, legislators will finalize and approve the budget for the next fiscal year, which goes into effect on July 1.
Traditionally, the state has relied on federal funding to cover the cost of shelter beds and associated services. Advocates say given the growing numbers of people living outside the state should step in.
“The problem is just getting worse,” Horton said. “Every month, the numbers tick up a little, so you can’t really level-fund it.”