On most Saturdays in Woonsocket, the Milagros Project runs a free store aimed at assisting people experiencing poverty and homelessness in the city. Volunteers hand out everything from clothing to fresh farm vegetables, and CEO Bonnie Piekarski says she does not require that anyone “prove their poverty” with paperwork.
Last Saturday, the hallways of the Milagros Project were lined with plastic bags overflowing with donated rotisserie chicken, potato salad and vegetables, and the room was abuzz with volunteers scrambling to finish filling them as the line of customers was growing outside. A local chef named Jeremiah prepared a beef roast with vegetables and the smell of rosemary was wafting around the room.
“Everything that he does is nutritious, and it’s definitely filling for some of our folks that this is their only meal for the day,” said Piekarski.
Piekarski says addressing the city’s growing homelessness crisis is a top issue for her in the mayoral election. According to data kept by the city, homelessness in Woonsocket increased by 35% in the last year.
Piekarski says she’s hopeful the two candidates – incumbent Christopher Beauchamp and city council president John Ward – will be more responsive to the crisis than the previous mayor, Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, who resigned last year over a land transfer scandal.
When she was in office, she infamously bulldozed a homeless encampment after giving just a half-hour heads up to its residents. Piekarski says Baldelli-Hunt also pursued development more aligned with attracting new residents to Woonsocket than helping the people who currently live there.
Baldelli-Hunt has defended her record, saying she offered adequate rehabilitation services to the homeless community.
But Piekarski said Beauchamp and Ward have both shown more willingness to work with advocates.
“I think that they’re trying the best that they can, and what’s unique about both individuals is that they’re willing to learn. They’re willing to sit down and have the conversation,” she said.
Neither Ward nor Beauchamp has put forward a detailed agenda for addressing the city’s homelessness crisis. Mayor Beauchamp, who was appointed to replace Baldelli-Hunt last year, said in a recent WPRI debate that the city already has enough affordable housing because it exceeds the state’s requirement that 10% of a city’s housing stock is affordable for those making less than 80% of the area’s median income. Woonsocket’s housing stock is nearly 16% affordable, according to city data.
Beauchamp also said in the debate he had the legal right to arrest people living in encampments.
“I’m not saying we will, until we find a solution where we can put the unhoused,” said Beauchamp. “To take them out of encampments and have no reliable situation for where they can go, I don’t think it’s humanly.”
Ward said he would like to add more affordable housing in Woonsocket. But he also said homeless people living in an encampment located in a park where the town’s fall festival was to take place should be “cleared out.”
“We need to make it clear to people that their home cannot be the public property,” said Ward.
Both candidates have tied homelessness to challenges plaguing the school system, post-industrial poverty, and a growing opioid crisis that requires more funding to fix.
Both candidates say fixing Woonsocket’s social issues is somewhat contingent on a stable cash flow in the city. Woonsocket consistently ranks as one of the lowest income cities in Rhode Island, and the city is facing debts tied to a pension fund it owes back pay to.
Ward says Woonsocket should pursue grant funding and selling land the city acquired under Baldelli-Hunt in order to gain more revenue. He said that “would contribute to the tax base as well as provide some solutions to homeless situations.”
Beauchamp agreed the city needs more revenue to address challenges such as homelessness. To find more money in the budget, he has said he would like to do some restructuring with city jobs, like eliminating some positions and hiring a finance director.
“One of my main goals, if I’m elected, is to revamp the finance department,” he said.
At The Milagros Project, some residents said they felt the visions being put forward by the two candidates fall short. Christyn is a 49-year-old resident who’s unhoused. Christyn didn’t want to give her full name for this story. She’s from Providence, but moved around a lot and eventually landed in Woonsocket, because her adult son lives in a group home for people with autism there.
Christyn said the city needs to look at better options to help people like her find permanent and affordable housing.
“They honestly need to do more. They got all these abandoned buildings – there’s housing, there’s a warming center, there’s more shelters.” she said.
Christyn would not reveal who she plans to vote for, but said she does plan to vote, and says a lot of the unhoused community will do the same.
She says she would like to see a cap on rents. A local task force says rents on two-bedroom apartments went up by more than 50% last year. But Christyn is not overly optimistic that the next mayor will make a big difference.
“Maybe. We’ll see. The proof in the pudding,” she said.
If things don’t change in Woonsocket soon, Christyn said she’ll need to leave her son behind and move to a city where she’ll have a better chance at finding a stable place to live.
Election 2024 coverage by The Public’s Radio is sponsored in part by Ascent Audiology & Hearing, Providence Picture Frame and Rustigian Rugs. Find more of our elections coverage at thepublicsradio.org/2024elections.
