October 29, 2015 – RI Future

October 29, 2015October 29, 2015

ACLU sues state over level 3 sex offender residency law

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The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island (ACLU) today filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court to challenge the constitutionality of a recently enacted law that makes it a crime for certain sex offenders to reside within 1,000 feet of a school. As part of the suit, the ACLU has requested a restraining order to halt the law’s “inconsistent” and “arbitrary” implementation before any more individuals are uprooted or made homeless.

The new statute, passed overwhelmingly in the Rhode Island House of Representatives under the leadership of Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, is unconstitutional on three grounds, says Attorney John MacDonald, who filed the suit with Attorney Lynette Labringer today.

The statute is unconstitutionally vague, says MacDonald, with no definition of what constitutes a school in the law. Further, there are no guidelines offered as to how to measure the 1000 feet required under the mandate. Different law enforcement agencies use different systems operating under different parameters. A resident might be told he is safe by one agency, only to be ordered to move by another.

The law is unconstitutional because it violates due process. Level 3 sex offenders are banished from their property and their liberty under this statute, says MacDonald, and they have no recourse to a hearing unless they want to be arrested and charged in violation of the law.

The third constitutional violation occurs because under this statute, people who have already paid for their crimes are being further punished in having to move under threat of arrest.

The statute does not increase public safety, says MacDonald, and the homeless advocates in attendance at the press conference all agreed with this assessment. It is better to know where level 3 sex offenders are living, “but we have uprooted them and sent them to Harrington Hall, the only place that can house them.”

Jim Ryczek, who heads up the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless (RICH), is in full support of the lawsuit. “We are proud to have helped keep communities safe,” said Ryczek, adding that the three factors that keep people from re-offending are stable housing, employment and treatment. The law, if it is allowed to stand, threatens all three of these factors.

Not only is there no evidence that this law might help Rhode Islanders, this law “may have an opposite effect” says Ryczek.

Sol Rodriguez, executive director of OpenDoors, read her statement, saying, “People affected are being forced out of their apartments; some are homeowners, have families, are sick, disabled, and some live in nursing homes. Some are family caretakers. They have served the sentence imposed for their crimes and are known to law enforcement due to sex offender registry laws. This law will further destabilize this population.”

Jean M. Johnson is executive director of House of Hope CDC which manages Harrington Hall. Presently, this is the only facility that can house homeless, level 3 sex offenders in the state. During Wednesday night’s rain storm, “160 gentlemen inhabited Harrington Hall,” she said, “we are a 120 bed facility. We have always had level 1, 2 and 3 offenders stay with us. We are the shelter of last resort, we don’t turn anyone away.”

On Monday night, when the law is to be in full effect, 30 level 3 sex offenders could show up at Harrington Hall, in Speaker Mattiello’s district.

The new law, says Johnson, is “unjust and unfair.”

Beyond the issues of constitutionality and public safety, says Steve Brown, executive director of the RI ACLU, the law makes no sense. Many level 3 sex offenders were convicted for crimes against adults, and against adults they knew personally. These men are presently allowed to travel near and be around schools, but under the law are not allowed to keep in an apartment near a school, when the schools are empty.

As far as simply finding an apartment elsewhere, this is not really an option, said Jim Ryczek. Many landlords will not rent to a level 3 sex offender. Finding an affordable location that satisfies the 1000 feet limit in the amount of time available is all but impossible.

In Providence, 30 men have been told that they will have to move. A reporter at the press conference said that Speaker Mattiello was “getting pressure” to address the situation at Harrington Hall, but Jean Johnson said that no one from the Speaker’s office has reached out to her.

More information is available here.

October 29, 2015November 30, 2015

Joyce Penfield always finds new ways to fight for racial, social justice

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Reverend Joyce Penfield, of the St. Peter’s and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Providence, has been fighting for racial and social justice her entire life. “It’s been my calling since I was 13,” she said.

Her father was a leader of the local Lutheran church in Phylo, Illinois – “I lived in a cornfield, honestly,” she said, by way of describing Phylo’s rural character – and the congregation decided it didn’t want to rent out a church property for fear of potentially attracting a black tenant. “But you raised me to love everyone,” Penfield remembers arguing with her father at the time.

“I believed what they taught me about Jesus,” Penfield told me, “that you are supposed to love everyone – especially those who have been left behind.”

She graduated high school in 1964 and became active in the Civil Rights Movement. She became a minister and considered studying at the Chicago Theological Seminary, where Jesse Jackson was educated. She joined the Peace Corp and did several stints, over the years, in Nigeria. She married a Nigerian man and became active with the NAACP when their biracial children experienced discrimination from the police in New Jersey.

When she moved to Rhode Island in 2001 she became the Episcopal minister at the ACI, and immediately realized a need for post-prison rehabilitative programs. The recidivism rate at the time, she said, was about 65 percent.

“If you have a product that is successful only 35 percent of the time, that’s not very good,” Penfield said. “But nobody cares about prisoners because they create jobs. I began to see the real problem. There wasn’t any place for them to go and there wasn’t any help for them. There are so many roadblocks people encounter when they first get out of jail. They might have lost friends, they probably lost their job.”

So in 2004, she created The Blessing Way, a halfway house for homeless former inmates trying to stay sober.

“We’re a bridge to integrating back into the community,” Penfield said. “We’re almost like a shelter, but a little bit better. We help people fly on their own.”

Penfield and Raphael Ribera, an employee of the Blessing Way, inside one of the apartments.

Physically, the Blessing Way is a three-story apartment building on the property of the St. Peter’s and St. Andrew’s Church where Penfield preaches. Rooms are rented to former inmates in exchange for staying sober, finding work and putting their lives back together – all of which the Blessing Way offers help with.

“We have life skills classes, financial management, emotional development,” Penfield said, describing some of the services Blessing Way offers its clients. There are job skills training sessions and a program that puts people to work in the community as day laborers and carpenters. Last year DARE spoke to residents about the Ban The Box law that prevents employers from asking about arrest records on job applications. Residents are required to attend drug counseling, and random drug tests.

“There are myriad roadblocks people encounter when they get out of jail,” she said. “Anyone would be weighed down. If there are addiction troubles or mental illness, it’s a miracle when people can do it on their own.”

Penfield attends to a repair to the heat at the Blessing Way.

A zero tolerance policy on drugs is necessary, Penfield said. “You must be severe and they have to leave … they trigger everyone else around them.” And, she added, “the next day you’re going to have everyone in prison thinking you’re a crack house.”

From 2006 to 2012 153 people have gone through the Blessing Way program, Penfield said, and 61 percent of men graduated as did about 58 percent of the women. She assumes men do better because the availability of manual labor jobs makes it easier for men to find post-prison employment.

The beds aren’t always full at the Blessing Way. That’s partly because of the strict no drugs or alcohol policy, and partly because it can’t always afford to take in new residents. The program operates on a very small budget, and only some of the staff take a paycheck. Penfield does not, but there are a few former residents who earn a small stipend for helping out. Penfield has housing through the church but only gets paid for 10 hours a week. She’s essentially experiencing the same poverty as are the residents of the Blessing Way.

But rather than give up, she’s expanding her focus. Penfield told me recently she looks forward to working more directly on matters of racial justice and police brutality. Today, she is speaking at a Stop the Violence prayer vigil with “faith, community and law enforcement leaders” who “will lead us in a prayer and share a commitment to justice, safety, respect and dignity for everyone,” according to a press release.

She said this tack is part of another new chapter for her.

“I think god is calling me to work with our white brothers and sisters, to help them become more aware of how we’ve unconsciously held onto our privileges,” Penfield said. “Call it white supremacy if you will, that’s really what it is.”

But she isn’t trying to shame anyone, not even the police officers she works closely with on these and other issues. In fact, she seems to approach the topic of police brutality with the same compassion and convictions that she practices with her Blessing Way work.

“I try to see every person as a beautiful flower,” she said, “and maybe some of us just need some watering.”

October 29, 2015October 30, 2015

RIDOH Director Alexander-Scott weighs in on LNG in PVD

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Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, director of the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH), responded to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) request for comments on National Grid’s plans to build a new liquefaction plant at Field’s Point on the south side of Providence.

The project has been the target of sharp criticism by environmental and social justice groups as an example of environmental racism, and much in Dr. Alexander-Scott’s assessment backs up such an assessment.

Though the director does not outright oppose the project, she does recommend that “FERC conduct a robust review of the project that fully incorporates public health perspectives and reviews potential public health concerns” and that RIDOH, “be deemed a cooperating agency, with all the rights and opportunities to participate in FERC’s review of this project preserved thereby.”

“Given the set of potential risk scenarios,” says Dr. Alexander-Scott in her final paragraph, “RIDOH requests that FERC consider requiring a Risk Management Plan for both the proposed liquefaction facility as well as the existing LNG storage facility, which does not currently have a Risk Management Plan.” [Emphasis mine]

“As Director,” says Dr. Alexander-Scott, “my strategic priorities for RIDOH are to address the social and environmental determinants of health, to eliminate health disparities in Rhode Island by promoting health equity, and to ensure access to quality services, especially for vulnerable populations.”

In her letter, Dr. Alexander-Scott outlines quite a few hazards and “risk scenarios” relative to the project.

Examining the proposal from a geographic standpoint, Dr. Alexander-Scott notes that the facility is planned within “an industrial area with a concentration of facilities listed in the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), facilities requiring Risk Management Plans (RMP), and Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities (TSDF) that handle hazardous materials.”

Perhaps more critical “is the concentration of healthcare facilities and critical health system infrastructure within close proximity to the proposed project. Rhode Island’s only Level 1 Trauma Center is located in the Rhode Island Hospital complex, which includes Hasbro Children’s Hospital and is adjacent to Women and Infants Hospital. There are many additional primary care, specialty care, pediatric healthcare, and Federally Qualified Health Centers within this area of interest at varying degrees of proximity to the site location of the proposed facility. Providence Community Health Center’s administrative building and Chafee Health Center are within the half mile radius parcel map…”

Having this much emergency and non-emergency medical care infrastructure in one area, and an area so close to the proposed liquefaction facility requires “that careful attention be paid to any potential impacts to this critical healthcare infrastructure, including both for the cumulative impacts of construction and normal operation of the facility, and for any potential increased risk for accidents or emergency situations,” says the Director.

She sums up some of the potential accidents or emergency situations:

Although the possibility of an emergency or disaster may be low, the combination of multiple hazardous facilities, healthcare infrastructure, and vulnerable communities requires extra care and attention. Potential hazards may include leaks, fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, storm surge, equipment malfunction, accident, terrorism, and the added risk of secondary offsite incidents including chemical incidents or explosions from co-located facilities requiring chemical risk management plans. RIDOH is concerned about the health impacts that would results from a worst-case scenario involving secondary impacts, which might involve amplified chemical reactions with substances such as chlorine, ammonium, and heat from flammable materials stored in co-located facilities. The close proximity to the I-95 highway corridor, and Rhode Island’s level 1 trauma center present an additional risk to the critical infrastructure needed for responding to any potential disaster situation. With a medically-vulnerable population and a relatively high percentage of people who are linguistically-isolated in the adjacent community, considerations around communications in disaster preparedness and response should also be taken into consideration as part of the environmental assessment and/or a broader emergency/risk management review.”

Though she doesn’t use the term “environmental racism,” Dr. Alexander-Scott provides numbers making it impossible not to draw such a conclusion.

“Socioeconomically,” says Dr. Alexander-Scott, “the one mile buffer around the proposed facility is 75 percent minority population…, 56 percent low-income…, 17 percent linguistically isolated… and 31 percent have less than high school education.” (86th percentile for state). The combined socioeconomics for the neighborhoods of Upper and Lower South Providence and Washington Park are 82 percent minority population…, 64 percent low-income…, 24 percent linguistically isolated… and 33 percent have less than high school education.” She notes that “these socioeconomic statistics are of important public health interest as significant social determinants of health.”

“RIDOH,” says the director, “has ample data on poor health outcomes, elevated health risks, and racial and ethnic health disparities within the City of Providence and in particular within the neighborhoods of Upper and Lower South Providence and Washington Park, which are in closest proximity to the proposed project. RIDOH’s 2014 Asthma Claims Data Report used health insurance claims data to produce detailed hot spot maps for asthma prevalence, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations, which all show asthma hot spots and elevated asthma risk in this focus area, at some of the highest levels in the state. Providence has the highest asthma-related pediatric hospitalization rates in the state, and asthma is elevated in low-income individuals and Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino communities.”

It seems that the efforts of National Grid, in building this facility, stand in direct opposition to the Department of Health’s mission to improve health outcomes in at risk neighborhoods.

“RIDOH is funding 11 Rhode Island non-profit organizations and local governments at various levels to support innovative approaches to improving health outcomes,” says the director. “The Department of Health and these grantees have created Health Equity Zones – defined geographic areas where high rates of obesity, illness, injury, chronic disease or other adverse health outcomes will be improved by coordinated strategies to reduce and manage chronic diseases, promote healthy lifestyles, improve birth outcomes, assure healthy child development, and create environments where healthy choices are easier to make. It is the vision of the Department of Health, that communities are engaged in democracy and committed to equality and diversity. Through these Health Equity Zones we will create and maintain sustainable and healthy places for all Rhode Islanders to live, work, and learn. It is imperative that alterations to the community’s landscape by other sectors does not impede the progress being achieved by such initiatives.”

Ironically, the build up of LNG infrastructure in Rhode Island will contribute to climate disaster, yet the location of the proposed liquefaction facility is at risk from sea level rise caused by climate change. Dr. Alexander-Scott doesn’t explicitly touch on this irony, but says, “Other environmental factors that are worth considering in the scope of the review include coastal flooding, both current and future levels given projected sea level rise, as well as potential storm surge and wind impacts. The effects of climate change on this project and therefore long-term population health is a necessary, additional component of the current environmental review.”

You can read the full letter from Dr. Alexander-Scott here.