Rhode Island House GOP Leader Michael Chippendale says Gov. Dan McKee’s administration is stonewalling the release of public records explaining why the Echo Village pallet shelter in Providence wound up costing close to $5 million.
Chippendale used an image of a Winnebago on social media last month to make a point — how pallet shelters that go for about $17,000 each wound up costing around $100,000 to house 46 homeless people at Echo Village.
The Foster Republican said he’s met resistance from the state Department of Housing since filing a public records request on Feb. 13 and has yet to get an explanation on the cost breakdown for the project and why it increased over time.
“I urge Gov. Dan McKee and [Housing] Secretary Deborah Goddard to abandon this culture of secrecy and work with me, not against me, to bring transparency to this process,” Chippendale said during a news conference Wednesday in the House GOP office at the Statehouse. “The people of Rhode Island deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent.”
However, after the news conference, Chippendale said he was mistaken when he asserted he had not received any invoices as part of his public records request.
After reviewing an earlier response from the Housing Department, he said via email, “we discovered that the largest file in the package had not decompressed originally from its ZIP format. Upon decompressing here at the Statehouse, the largest file – approximately 69MB, decompressed and a series of invoices was discovered. While I asserted that no invoices were received other than the RI Energy invoice, I was clearly mistaken.”
The House GOP leader said his remaining assertions from the news conference remained relevant.
Chippendale praised two Democrats, House Speaker Joe Shekarchi and Attorney General Peter Neronha, for actions that he said represented standing up for transparency, and he said his criticism of McKee was not partisan.
“This is not a fight between Republicans and Democrats,” Chippendale said. “This is about the people versus an administration that refuses to be accountable to the very people that put them in office.”
The concept for Echo Village was unveiled in 2023, but the 46-bed pallet shelter did not open until last month, as the initial estimated $3.3 million cost climbed to about $4.6 million.
Via email, Emily Marshall, spokeswoman for the state Department of Housing, said the department recognizes the need for transparency and accountability.
She said the Housing Department’s initial plan to charge Chippendale $495 for the records he sought stemmed from “a consistent approach regarding APRAs [Access to Public Records requests] to ensure fairness of all requests for public records.”
Marshall said Chippendale rescinded his initial request Feb. 27 and made his new one in his capacity as a legislator. Some documents — but not emails about Echo Village — were then shared with him.
Marshall said the nonprofit House of Hope, which is operating Echo Village, is in possession of one aspect of the records sought by Chippendale — documents related to financial benefactors and sponsors. Chippendale said it is concerning if records related to public projects are not in the possession of state government, since that could result in less transparency and accountability.
Marshall added, “We are still reviewing the 1,320 emails to determine which can be released based on confidentiality. As we shared with the leader’s legal counsel, we anticipate that this process [will] take 33 dedicated hours from Housing’s legal staff.”
Chippendale characterized McKee’s administration as the most opaque in his experience as a legislator.
He said the governor and he have not spoken since their relationship soured during a conversation in 2021 or 2022 about a road project in his western Rhode Island district.
This story has been updated to note how GOP Leader Chippendale was mistaken in one of his initial assertions.
