January 14, 2015 – RI Future

Four of the five newly elected general officers – Governor Gina Raimondo, Lt. Governor Dan McKee, Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea and General Treasurer Seth Magaziner – toured Harrington Hall, a homeless shelter in Cranston, on Tuesday to garner the support needed to end homelessness in Rhode Island.

There are over 1,000 people in Rhode Island experiencing homelessness, a crisis for any society, but a moral crisis for a country as rich as ours.

Rhode Island has been chosen to participate in Zero: 2016, a national campaign to end homelessness among veterans and the chronically homeless by the end on 2016. Union leaders Lynn Loveday, George Nee and J. Michael Downey have pledged to support Zero: 2016. Now they are looking to elected officials for their support.

Jim Ryczek, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, opened the press conference at Harrington Hall reading off some of the sobering results of last December’s homeless census, in which 500 volunteers asked 855 homeless men and women about their lives in order to construct a Vulnerability Index for all homeless Rhode Islanders.

In Rhode Island, homeless adults range in age from 19 to 85, with the median age being 45 years old. 68% identify as male, 32% as female. About a third are sleeping outside, not in shelters. This means on the street, sidewalk or doorway, in a car, in a park, on the beach, in cemeteries, or in abandoned buildings. 58% have been homeless for more than two years. 7% are veterans.

The homeless cost us in terms of social services. 64% use emergency rooms for medical care. 39% have had interactions with the police. 4 in 10 have been transported by ambulance and about a third have received in-patient hospitalization. Being homeless is unsafe. 29% have been attacked while homeless. About half have admitted to needing psychiatric treatment and visited the ER for mental health reasons. A third have learning disabilities, and a quarter have brain injuries.

Governor Raimondo said, “I love the goal of ending homelessness, and we know how to. Build affordable housing and get people homes… and by the way, building affordable housing puts people to work in the process…”

“Some other public policy issues are a lot harder and take a lot more time,” said Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, “affordable housing is a case of, there isn’t affordable housing, you build it, you build wrap-around supportive services around it and you save money in the end and save lives. What could be better than that?”

General Treasurer Seth Magaziner got to the heart of the issue when he refuted the fantasy of eliminating the social safety net. “No matter how many jobs we have, no matter how strong our economy is, there are always going to be people who need help. There are always going to be people, whether it’s a disability, mental or physical, or it’s just bad luck, who are going to need help and going to need support.”

George Nee put it simply when he said, “We know what to do. We know what works… it’s been demonstrated.”

Homelessness is a problem with a solution. Solving the problem is a moral choice we can make.

**Jean Johnson**, Ex. Dir. House of Hope Community Dev. Corp.

Poor people in Rhode Island pay almost twice as much a percentage of their incomes than do the wealthiest residents, according to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

This disparity, while unjust, isn’t abnormal. Rhode Island has the 23rd most unfair tax structure in America, according to the report. But only four states tax their poor worse than Rhode Island:

“This study underscores why Rhode Islanders who are struggling in our low-wage economy should be the number one priority for any tax relief efforts considered in the coming year” said Kate Brewster, executive director of the locally-based Economic Progress Institute.

EPI thinks the way to reverse this is to disastrous ranking is to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit, which she credited lawmakers with addressing last year as well.

“Making our state’s Earned Income Tax Credit fully refundable last year was a first step towards making our tax structure fairer,” said Brewster.” This year we hope to see the EITC increased to at least be on par with our neighboring states who allow working families to keep more of their paycheck,” Brewster said in a release.

EPI has a one-pager on the benefits of increasing the EITC here. “The EITC is a short-term investment that can make a significant and lasting difference in the lives of working families. It reduces the income tax paid by low-wage working families, allowing them to keep more of their paycheck. It has been proven that EITC beneficiaries work more, earn more, and are less likely to need to rely on welfare.”

Rhode Island has the third lowest Earned Income Tax Credit in New England and it is significantly lower than that of Massachusetts and Connecticut, as we reported in December:

Paula McFarland, executive director of the RI Community Action Association, says when poor people get a refund, they put it right back into the economy. “We know that when a refund comes, families spend it right away at local supermarkets, retailers, and other businesses.”

Day: January 14, 2015

RI taxes the poor 5th worst in the nation