Last week, the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness conducted its annual Point-In-Time count, measuring how many people are experiencing homelessness across the state on a given night. Last year’s count showed a 35% increase over the previous year. Jennifer Barrera, chief strategy officer for the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness, was among the people conducting this year’s Point-In-Time count. The results of this year’s count will be released later this year, but Barrera spoke with morning host Luis Hernandez about what she saw, what’s behind the recent rise in homelessness, and possible solutions.
Interview highlights
On what she saw during the Jan. 21 Point-In-Time count
Jennifer Barrera: This past Tuesday night was actually one of the coldest point in time counts that we’ve ever conducted here in Rhode Island. I’ve been doing the point in time count since 2016. The feel-like temperature was in the single digits. I was in Newport County. That evening was really challenging for us. We were dressed appropriately. We had weather appropriate clothing, and we were able to get into our cars in between some of the sites that we were serving.
We found a couple of people that were in their vehicles. We found a couple of people that were sleeping outside. One person wasn’t asleep yet, but was sitting on a park bench and just sort of bundled up with a lot of layers and blankets and had their belongings packed around them to protect them from the wind.
Conducting the point in time count reminds you, as someone working in the homeless response system, how critical the work that we do is how critical the weather is for people. It is so dangerous for people to be outside.
On why homelessness is more prevalent in Rhode Island:
Barrera: There’s a distinct lack of affordable housing in the state of Rhode Island. We have for years ranked 50th in terms of developing new and building new affordable housing in the nation. Additionally, market rents in Rhode Island are higher on average than in other parts of the country, so it’s very challenging for people who are making moderate income to maintain their household, their rental, in this market. We also are seeing stagnant wages and those are contributing to people not being able to keep up with the increasing rent.
There’s been a lot of conversation about the numbers that the advocates are providing. I want to assure you these numbers are not numbers that advocates have made up or concocted, and we need to move past that conversation and get to the business of preventing and ending homelessness.
On whether Rhode Island has enough shelter space:
Barrera: We have emergency weather warming centers, and then we also have emergency shelters. We do not have sufficient quantities of both, I would say, for both the warming centers and the emergency shelters. There are people who have had previous experiences staying in either one that prefer to stay in their car because the facilities that are open for warming tend to be a big cafeteria or gymnasium with cots or mats on the floor and it’s challenging to sleep in a room with a couple dozen other people. We have not created the right combination of shelters and programs for people so that they do wish to go inside and stay safe.
On long-term solutions for homelessness in Rhode Island:
Barrera: Every single city and town, every single state elected official, needs to be eyeballing how to develop housing. There’s not going to be a perfectly empty green space where we can build a multifamily unit or a big project with multiple apartments. We have to be creative. We have empty buildings that we need to rent. We’ve got buildings that are one or two stories that we need to build up. We’ve got such compressed zoning. We need to be looking at all sorts of creative ways to get housing online immediately.
