Housing – RI Future

October 13, 2016

Lucy’s Hearth has a new home

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Tara D’Ambra and her 11-year-old daughter Olivia know exactly why Lucy’s Hearth, a women’s shelter in Middletown, needed a new home.

“I lost my job and just wasn’t able to sustain my apartment,” she explained. It was 2007, and she found refuge at Lucy’s Hearth. While the staff was excellent, D’Ambra said, “the building was so gloomy and scary.”

Not so with Lucy’s Hearth’s new facility on Valley Road, which was unveiled to great fanfare on Thursday. Tara and Olivia D’Ambra were featured guests.

The newly renovated 9,300 square foot building has 14 bedrooms, each with a private bathroom and two, two-bedroom suites for families. There’s a brand new kitchen, a computer lab and two laundry rooms. It has 60 percent more capacity than the old space.

“This building will change the way we design services for moms and kids,” said Jennifer Barrera, the director of Lucy’s Hearth. The old facility, said Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, “just wasn’t designed for kids.”

The new facility is. There are play rooms for young children, as well as a teen lounge. The rooms are colorful, and adorned with quotations such as “The greatest thing in this world is not so much where you stand as in what direction you are moving” and “The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” There are two different playgrounds on the 2.2 acre campus.

“I’m so happy for all the families who get to move into this top notch facility,” said D’Ambra, “happy not because they are homeless but happy because I know they will get the help they need here to transition back into housing, back to thir life, back to their community.”

Lucy’s Hearth has been around since 1984 as a night-to-night shelter for women and children. It “delivers holistic wrap-around services for resident mothers and their children including case management, daily nutritional meals, mental health treatment, referral and advocacy, early intervention for children 0-3 years of age, life skill training, financial literacy education, on-site GED education and more,” according to a press release.

This year alone, Lucy’s Hearth has provided services to 74 women and 79 children. It has served more than 25,000 meals in 2016 and provided close to 5,000 transitional bed nights.

Barbara Fields, the executive director of Rhode Island Housing, said, “this new building enables Lucy’s Hearth to expand its support services for families who may not know where else to turn.” She also used the event to campaign for question 7 on the ballot, which would direct $50 million to create affordable housing and repair blighted neighborhoods. Senator Jack Reed, long a supporter of Lucy’s Hearth, also attended the opening.

July 26, 2016

Neighborhood improvements coming to Olneyville

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Olneyville is getting an upgrade as two new commercial spaces and 36 new affordable housing units, in 14 different buildings spread throughout the neighborhood, will be developed by next summer as part of a new $10.4 million project being called Amherst Gardens.

“We are excited to be starting construction,” said Wendy Nicholas, the executive director of ONE Neighborhood Builders, formerly known as the Olneyville Housing Corporation. “Amherst Gardens has been in the works for several years, and we are delighted that all of the pieces – the properties, the designs, the construction crew, and the funding – are now all in place.

The project, Nicholas said, is part of ONE Neighborhood Builders “campaign to improve the neighborhood, block-by-block, making it a better place for families to live, to raise their children and to find employment.”

ONE Neighborhood Builders described the project as a “scattered site housing development, with the new or rehabilitated homes scattered throughout the residential core of Olneyville, primarily along the Amherst Street corridor. The development will reinforce the small residential scale of the neighborhood, provide much-needed affordable housing, and resolve long-standing areas of blight.”

Cynthia Langlykke, of ONE Neighborhood Builders, said the scattered site design of the project allows for many properties, encompassing 10 blocks of Olneyville, to be improved. “The acquisition process for a project like this never easy,” she said. “But we think it has the biggest benefit to the community.”

Nicholas added, “In addition to creating much-needed affordable housing, our goal also is to improve the whole neighborhood as a good place for everyone to live, to raise their families and to work. We tackle the deteriorated or otherwise troubled properties scattered in our community.”

The apartments will be rented to people who earn annually less than about $30,000 a year, depending on family size. The two commercial properties do not have affordability restrictions. “Neighborhood businesses will be encouraged to apply,” Langlykke said.

“On behalf of the Olneyville community, I’d like to thank ONE Neighborhood Builders for rebuilding and reimagining Amherst Street,” said City Councilwoman Sabina Matos, who represents the Olneyville neighborhood. “Quality affordable housing is paramount to a thriving urban community. This development expands our housing options, creates a safer, more vibrant neighborhood for Olneyville families, and further improves the area around one of our most important assets—William D’Abate Elementary School—and directly benefits the students who learn and play there.”

The Amherst Gardens development, slated to break ground in January and be complete by August, “will reinvigorate blighted properties into vibrant, much-needed housing for families,” said Barbara Fields, the executive director of Rhode Island Housing, which contributed more than $700,000 to the project plus an $800,000 loan. “The Amherst Gardens initiative builds upon other investments in housing, commercial development, parks and the arts – all of which are enhancing the quality of life in the Olneyville neighborhood. Amherst Gardens is a great example of the kind of transformational development that the proposed $50 million Housing Bond will support.”

June 17, 2016

Amos House has a new home

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“Amos has a new house,” said Ned Handy, right before the ceremonial ribbon was cut on Amos House’s new community center on Pine Street in Providence.

The grand opening of the new 29,000 square foot operations center for Amos House – Rhode Island’s largest social service agency and soup kitchen – was a gala affair for South Providence. Pine Street was temporarily closed to accommodate the large crowd. Senator Jack Reed, a slew of state legislators, Providence Police Chief Hugh Clements and many other local dignitaries were on hand. There were several congratulatory speeches and then tours of the new facility, complete with refreshments and lunch. State Senator Harold Metts donned a dashiki, a traditional West African shirt, for the occasion.

Senator Jack Reed, who was a pro bono lawyer for Amos House as a young man, said “Amos House provides an extraordinary service to the community. It represents, really, the best of Rhode Island. And now they have the facilities to help them do it much better.”

The new $6 million facility was paid for, in part, by a $1 million gift from Rhode Island Housing and a federal money secured by Senator Reed. Employees of Amos House, half of whom are former clients, contributed $45,000 of their own money.

“When we embarked on this project seven, eight years ago, many people said we would not do it,” said Eileen Hayes, the popular CEO of Amos House. “We could not possibly raise $5 million for a community center on the south side of Providence. But guess what, we did it!”

The facility has a large dining hall and a kitchen on the first floor. On the second floor there are classrooms, group meeting spaces and a state-of-the-art computer lab. Staff offices are on the third floor.

February 23, 2016February 23, 2016

ACLU challenges ordinance restricting student housing rights

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The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has filed suit against the City of Providence to challenge a recently enacted city ordinance that prohibits more than three “college students” from living together in certain areas of the city. The ACLU of RI argues that the ordinance is discriminatory and ineffective at its stated purpose of improving neighborhoods, and will likely have the most impact on lower-income students.

Today’s lawsuit, filed in Rhode Island Superior Court by ACLU of RI cooperating attorneys Jeffrey L. Levy and Charles D. Blackman, is on behalf of the owner and tenants – four Johnson & Wales undergraduate students – of a house in the Elmhurst section of Providence. The City ordinance, enacted in September, makes this arrangement illegal by prohibiting more than three “college students” from living together in a non-owner-occupied single family home in certain residential areas. The suit argues that the ordinance violates the plaintiffs’ rights to due process and equal protection of the law.

The lawsuit claims that “there is absolutely no reason to believe that restricting the number of student tenants in a small subset of available rental housing (i.e., single-family homes) will make the affected neighborhoods any quieter, safer or cleaner. On the contrary, the ordinance is an unconstitutional intrusion into the rights of college and graduate students to choose with whom they wish to live, and the rights of property owners to rent their homes to tenants of their choice.”

The suit notes that there are already multiple ordinances in place to address noise, parties, traffic, and other possible nuisances. In challenging the ordinance’s discrimination against students “based solely on their occupation and/or educational status,” the suit further points out that “college student” is so broadly defined that it includes anyone enrolled in a college or university, whether they are a full-time undergraduate student, a PhD candidate, or a professional taking classes part-time.

The ACLU of RI raised these concerns before the Providence City Council approved, and Mayor Jorge Elorza signed, the ordinance into law in September.

Attorney Levy said today: “The City and State already have laws in place that regulate overcrowding, loud parties and underage drinking. This ordinance goes too far by attempting to legislate who can live together in the same house. Ultimately, it will have its most significant impact on students from low-income and middle-income families who can’t afford to cover a larger share of the rent in a single-family home.”

ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown added: “The ordinance’s unfair stigmatization of Providence’s students is contrary to the City’s reputation as a welcome host to the local colleges and universities. More vigorous enforcement of laws already on the books, along with increased collaboration with the educational institutions, would be a more productive method to deal with the legitimate concerns that some residents have raised.”

The lawsuit seeks to halt all enforcement of the ordinance and have it declared unconstitutional.

A copy of the complaint is available here: http://riaclu.org/images/uploads/FHC_v._Providence_Complaint.pdf

February 15, 2016February 14, 2016

Lead poisoning in Rhode Island

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[A version of this article was originally published by The College Hill Independent on February 12, 2016.]

435px-Symptoms_of_lead_poisoning_(raster) Several men huddled around a fire hydrant late on a recent winter night. They were workers with Providence Water, a state-regulated department of the City of Providence that provides the capital with its water supply. They were flushing the main, the large pipe that runs down the center of a street, by releasing a high velocity stream of water from the hydrant. Over time, minerals from the water build up on the walls of the pipe, tightening its aperture and reducing flow and water quality. According to the workers, these flushes have nothing to do with lead.¹ Providence, the workers were quick to point out, has the second best water in the country.

The claim that Providence has the second best water in the country used to appear on the homepage of Providence Water’s website, until it was removed sometime between October 16 and December 16, 2014. This despite the fact that in 2012, 2013, and 2014 the water consumers got from the tap exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) lead action level, being the level of concern at which remedial measures are triggered under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Under the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the utility was required to distribute brochures notifying customers of elevated lead levels in all three years.

The most recent legally required notification of high lead levels was issued May 28 of last year. 2015 water quality data has not yet been released, but a spokesperson for Providence Water, Dyana Koelsch, told the Independent that “the latest testing shows that we do meet current regulations.” It is important to note, however, that meeting current regulations does not mean that the lead levels are below the EPA’s level of concern. For example, an excessively high lead level coupled with an informational brochure is fully in compliance with federal regulations without indicating that water lead levels are safe. As of the time of writing, water quality data had yet to be released.

But the tests that produce such data may be intentionally misleading. UK newspaper the Guardian recently exposed several US health departments for giving at-home water-testers instructions that would lead to systematically underreporting the amount of lead in tap water. The Rhode Island Department of Health allegedly instructed residents selected to participate in the testing to run their taps “until cold” before filling the sample bottles, a practice that reduces the amount of lead in the water and does not reflect the lead content of water that has been sitting in the pipes for several hours (like, for example, when you wake up in the morning).

Koelsch called the Guardian’s claim a “misunderstanding” and said that, while the utility would not go “tit-for-tat” with a newspaper, she conceded it would indirectly rebut the accusation by communicating “the truth.” Providence Water has not yet communicated a statement to the Independent, but has updated the section of their website dealing with lead at least three times between February 5 and 10. The old page, “Lead In Your Drinking Water,” has been replaced with “Reducing Lead Levels in Drinking Water,” and the link on the homepage now reads “Lead in Household Plumbing.” Providence Water has not placed dates on their statements. The most recent one (as of February 10) says, in part, “Our water meets or exceeds all Federal and State Safe Drinking Water Act Regulations.”

Despite lead being a highly regulated and tightly monitored neurotoxin, information about one’s personal risk from lead can be surprisingly difficult to get. Some Rhode Island buildings are certified as lead safe, but most aren’t. And some 80 percent of homes are thought to be older than 1978, the year lead paint was outlawed for home use, according to the Rhode Island Department of Health. Providence Water estimates that 20,000 homes in Providence are still serviced with lead pipes that run from the mainline in the center of the street to the sidewalk, where the homeowner’s piping begins. Federal law has required that Providence Water distribute brochures via mail informing residents of excessively high lead concentrations in the city overall, but doesn’t require that the utility distribute information detailing exactly where utility-owned lead service lines are used. Consequently, a system map is not available online. Customers may call the Lead Service Hotline or the Water Quality Hotline and inquire about a specific address, but it’s easy to imagine that many Providence residents do not know that they should be doing this. And information about pipe material isn’t widespread even among utility employees. None of the maintenance employees from that night knew what metal the service lines off the main they were flushing consisted of.And even if someone does know the material of the pipes, both in their service line and in their own plumbing, testing for lead in the water that comes out of the tap is done mostly by conscientious customers that are willing and able to pick up a lead testing kit and pay a $10 processing fee. Koelsch did say, however, “I’m sure if people can’t afford the $10 they’ll give [the test] to them.”

A recent report by the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island shows that environmental toxins are predominantly concentrated in low-income and minority neighborhoods of Providence. This finding is supported by a 2010 study in the Maternal and Child Health Journal that demonstrates that lead poisoning is concentrated in Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, and Woonsocket, and in poorer and less white areas within each of those cities. In some suburban census blocks they found zero cases of lead poisoning between 1993 and 2005, compared to one urban census block where 48.6 percent of children were lead poisoned in that same time period.² But local activists from organizations such as Childhood Lead Action Project and the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island say the problem goes beyond the presence or absence of environmental health hazards in these neighborhoods. “We don’t live in a city and a state where everyone has the same power to act on the information that they may or may not have about lead hazards and other environmental hazards in their homes,” Laura Brion, Director of Community Organizing and Advocacy at the Childhood Lead Action Project, told the Independent.

Since federal and state legislation began targeting lead in the 1970s, the incidence of lead poisoning has steadily decreased in the United States, a fact that has lead some media outlets to call news coverage of the Flint, Michigan water crisis overdone. In the mid-1970s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the average US child under the age of 5 had a blood lead level of 15 micrograms per deciliter. In context, the on-going crisis in Flint finds 4.9 percent of the city’s children with blood lead levels greater than or equal to 5 micrograms per deciliter, the amount of lead that the CDC defines as lead poisoning.

Rhode Island is one of the country’s worst states when it comes to lead poisoning. According to a 2010 study by Rebecca Renner published in Environmental Health Perspectives, the rate of children with elevated blood lead levels in Rhode Island is three times higher than the national average. Renner attributes this, among other things, to corrosive water that strips traces of metals from the pipes, to the fifth-oldest housing stock in the nation, and to the tens of thousands of Providence homes serviced with lead service lines.

“We also have issues, just like Flint, with lead pipes being used to bring our water to our homes,” Jesus Holguin, Youth Leadership Director at the Environmental Justice League of RI, told the Independent. “There are similarities between Providence and Flint when talking about our Industrial past and the way these industries have all closed down and moved away, leaving a legacy of pollution in our communities. The right to clean air, clean water, and safe places for kids to play is something that wealthy communities take for granted. Many low-income and minority communities don’t get parks, street lights, housing code enforcement, or safe drinking water.” Koelsch, for Providence Water’s part, says that the utility “take[s] concerns from all their customers seriously, no matter what neighborhood they live in.”

Renner believes that the Rhode Island Department of Health downplays the correlation between lead in drinking water and lead poisoning among children, arguing instead that other environmental sources of lead are the prime drivers of lead poisoning. “When we see elevated blood levels, the typical sources are either paint, dust, or soil,” Joseph Wendelken of the Rhode Island Department of Health told the Independent when asked about Renner’s position. (For the record, Laura Brion agrees that paint, dust, and soil are more often the culprits behind elevated blood levels, but worries that the current flawed testing protocol means that we don’t really know what the scope of the lead-in-water problem is.)

Despite this worry, Rhode Island is making progress in the fight against lead poisoning. Data from the Department of Health show the prevalence of lead poisoning has decreased steadily from 34 percent of children in 2002 to 5 percent in 2014. “Rhode Island is still known, nationwide, as a lead poisoning hot spot,” says Brion. “We’re known as a lead poisoning hotspot that has done a lot to make the situation better, but we’re still not ahead of the pack.” The 2014 data indicate that about 1,000 children had elevated blood lead levels that year, according to calculations made by the Independent. And for advocates, that number is still too high.

Every case of lead poisoning is preventable. The sources of lead are well-known and the mechanisms by which it enters the blood stream are non-controversial, even if the relative proportions to be attributed to water versus soil, dust, and paint are debated. That’s a big reason why these 1,000 lead poisoned children in Rhode Island represent a scandalous failure to public health advocates despite the fact that the figure is an improvement on ten years ago. And it’s why the situation in Flint is such an outrage to so many. Part of what is missed by those who call media coverage of Flint overdone is the fact that ‘better’ simply isn’t good enough when it comes to lead.

Critics of lead abatement policies point out that the blood lead level considered to be poisoning has been lowered over time by the CDC—most recently in 2012 it was lowered from ten to five micrograms per deciliter. State Representative Joseph Trillo (R–Warwick), speaking in 2014 against a tax increase on home sales that would have provided $2.3 million for lead paint abatements said, the state’s improvement in the lead poisoning rate “wasn’t enough for the lead paint people. So what did they want to do? We had reduced it from thirteen thousand kids ten years prior down to twelve hundred. Now it was going down so low they said we have to lower the standard of the blood level. And they did that… we’re putting a tax on the property owners to put money towards a problem that’s been solved.”

But there is no known safe concentration of lead in the blood, and negative health effects have been found with as little as two micrograms per deciliter. The dangers of even low levels of lead are well established and include risk of a variety of neurological and other disorders. Inadequate funding or political will behind lead paint abatement programs, home risk assessment programs, or upgrades to water systems, will continue to allow a certain amount of lead poisoning to happen. And since the victims are predominately poor and predominately Black and Latinx, a certain political tolerance for lead poisoning seems likely to persist despite the efforts of generally well-intentioned yet underfunded health departments like Rhode Island’s. “Although Providence has made a lot of good progress around lead,” Holguin says, “we still see disparities in who’s affected in terms of race and income.”

“When I look at Flint I’m just heartbroken on so many levels because I just know how possible it was to stop the disaster from ever happening,” Brion told the Independent. “Every child that has been lead poisoned has experienced a violent attack on their brain. And I don’t think that’s a dramatic way of putting it. It deserves that attention, that horror, and that respect. Our normal should be zero. Because it can be zero and because all children deserve that.”

¹Providence Water officials disagree, and tout the practice as part of their anti-lead efforts.

²The paper does not make it clear whether that census block is in Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, Woonsocket, or Newport, which are statistically clustered together as the worst lead poisoning areas.

February 15, 2016February 14, 2016

Has slavery really ended?

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“Churches can be a place where
judgment, shame and contempt
[for families with felons]
are felt most acutely.”
Michelle Alexander

Time for a pop quiz question. Ready? In what year did the U.S. end slavery?

Most agree it’s 1865. Some historians disagree. Their answer: 1942.

True, the Triangle Trade’s enrichment of slave shippers ended with the Civil War. Tragically, however, legally coerced work continued. Some southern states were sly. Police falsely imprisoned blacks, and judges ordered lengthy sentences at hard labor.

“Convict leasing” was legalized. Douglas Blackmon describes this practice as “a system in which armies of free men, guilty of no crimes and entitled by law to freedom, were compelled to labor without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced to do the bidding of white masters through the regular application of extraordinary physical coercion.”

The penal system became the new slavery.

Still, the answer to our black-history-month query may not be 1942. Ready for a shocker? Enslavement of blacks exists today.

The War on Drugs intensified in the 1980s. In just two decades, those jailed for drug offenses increased ninefold. The Director for National Drug Control Policy, retired General Barry McCaffrey, referred to this imprisonment system as a “drug gulag.”

Mass incarceration is aggressively focused on communities of color. Despite blacks and whites having similar drug usage rates, a 1999 Human Rights Watch report states, “Black men are admitted to state prison on drug charges at a rate that is 13.4 times greater than that of white men.” Indeed, black men imprisoned, on parole and probation now exceed all men enslaved in 1850.

Bondage for drug offenses is inflicted almost exclusively on black and brown men. Whites are usually ‘off the hook.’ Even when arrested, whites are more often given alternatives to jail. When jailed, whites’ average sentences are 16.3 percent shorter than blacks.

Enormous numbers of black bodies are placed in bondage, their prison labor extracted, for non-violent drug offenses. Isn’t this a new system of slavery? Isn’t this massive discrimination also subjecting prisoners’ families—parents, spouses and children—to excruciating emotional and financial bondage?

As a permanent undercaste, the black community also suffers wage slavery. Whites’ average household income is 68.5 percent higher than blacks—and the black unemployment rate is twice that of whites. This severely depressed income continually increases economic inequality: Average white families now have thirteen times the assets of average black families.

It gets worse: Black prisoners’ sentences continue after release.

Imagine leaving prison. Determined to lead a good life, you plan to go to college—but you’re barred from getting a federal loan. Or you need a job but, if a black man, only five percent of employers will even grant you an interview. You may be desperate for public housing assistance. You can’t get it. By law, you probably can’t receive any public benefits—including food stamps if your kids are hungry. With all these cruel barriers, what choices remain? Can we see why ex-cons often return to prison?

Again, this discrimination primarily decimates blacks.

So who should correct these many forms of racialized financial rape? Why not the white community which perpetrates and often benefits from black bondage?

The first step is education: More fact-packed articles detailing the destructive impacts of racism can be found at www.quoflections.org\race.

Second, share these injustices with friends and family.

Third, let’s seek legislation ending the War on Drugs (really, the War on Black Men). Let’s eradicate laws discriminating against ex-felons. Let’s legalize a living wage. Also, our nation has the wealthiest white community in history, primarily due to centuries of labor stolen or cheated from African Americans. In the name of justice, we who are white can advocate for long-overdue reparations to be invested in neglected black communities.

Oh, and our pop quiz answer: Even in 2016, slavery continues on a massive scale.

February 11, 2016February 11, 2016

DARE challenges Elorza’s Everyhome initiative over gentrification and racial displacement

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Activists from DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) and Tenant and Homeowner Association (THA) set up outside Mayor Jorge Elorza‘s office on the second floor of Providence City Hall to demand changes to the city’s Everyhome program. About fifty protestors, carrying heart-shaped signs, and a poster-sized infographic about the program dotted with broken hearts, gathered in the foyer on the second floor of City Hall.

Mayor Elorza did not meet with the activists.

Roline Burgison, Tenant and Homeowner Association leader and member of DARE’s Board of Directors, began the speaking program. Burgison explained that she was forced to move in with family after a two-year fight to stay in her South Providence apartment following a foreclosure. She wants to return to the city’s Southside neighborhood, where she raised her children, but the rent is un-affordable, and low-income developments have long waiting lists.

“I went to a local Community Development Corporation the other day and was told that I could qualify for housing based on my income,” said Burgison in a statement, “but that I might have to wait two years or more. There is a housing crisis in this city, and the Mayor and the Everyhome program need to deal with that.”

Burgison explained that the group was there to “break-up” with the Mayor, because he had ignored their proposals to make the Everyhome program better, and denied their request for a Community Advisory Board to oversee the program. According to DARE and the THA, she said, community members’ hearts are broken over the gentrification and displacement occurring in some of the city’s low-income neighborhoods of color.

Malchus Mills, THA member-leader, outlined the group’s major concerns about the way the program is being conducted. “Right now, there are no standards for the quality of the homes once they’re renovated, the city is not being transparent about which properties are being targeted and why, and they are not addressing the desperate need for affordable housing in our city.” Mills went on to share statistics from Housing Works RI’s recent Housing Fact Book, including that 57 percent (over 18,000 households) of Providence renters pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent and the city currently has 10,500 units of affordable housing. “You need to make 43,000 dollars a year to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Providence now. How many people here make that?” he asked.

Joe Buchanan, DARE Board member and life-long Southside resident, outlined the group’s demands for changes to the Everyhome initiative. “We want the Mayor to announce the creation of a community advisory board for Everyhome and hold the first meeting in March. We want to see 50 percent of the properties targeted by the program set aside for very-low income housing, and we want a list of all the contractors hired for receivership jobs. We want this set-aside and the list by Tuesday.”

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016

DARE intervenes during a house auction in Providence

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As the Providence home of Charles and Mary Fortune was being auctioned off Tuesday morning, activists from the Tenant Homeowners Association (THA), a committee of Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), stood in the sub freezing cold carrying signs that read, “Housing is a Human Right” and “Don’t Evict, Negotiate!” hoping to deter investors and speculators from bidding.

As Charles Fortune and the THA members looked on, the auctioneer opened the bidding. Only one bid, for $45 thousand, was entered. At this point, according to DARE staff organizer Christopher Rotondo, a representative from the bank bid $100 thousand, effectively buying the property from themselves.

The Fortunes owe over $200 thousand on the property, where they have lived for twenty years. The Fortunes have been unsuccessful in attempts to negotiate affordable modification to their mortgage. They want the opportunity to buy their home at it’s current assessed value, estimated to be about $130 thousand, not including needed repairs.

The Fortunes are currently working with a non-profit lender, Boston Community Capital (BCC), to buy their home back at its current value. Though it may sound weird to people not familiar with foreclosures, the bank buying the property back from themselves may redound to the Fortunes’ favor, as the bank will now be motivated to sell the property at a reduced price.

In a statement Fortune said, “This home is my family’s roots. We raised our children here and do not want to leave. The bank should have made our payments affordable, but instead wanted to continue to foreclosure, where they will actually lose money! No we have the chance to get our home back with BCC, we just don’t want some investor buying it today and putting us out just to make money.”

The THA is made up of owners and tenants who have faced foreclosure and eviction. They are working to prevent “mass evictions being carried out by the banks” and “until suffering to thousands of people… dragging down our communities.”

January 6, 2016

Interfaith Vigil at State House proposes ambitious poverty agenda

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2016-01-06 Interfaith Poverty Vigil 02 — Bishop Herson Gonzalez

For the eighth year the Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty held a vigil at the State House near the beginning of the legislative season to, in the words of House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, “remind all of us in the General Assembly of how important it is to keep the issues related to poverty at the forefront of our agenda.”

The vigil was attended by representatives from a multitude of faiths. Governor Gina Raimondo, Speaker Mattiello and Senate President M Teresa Paiva-Weed all spoke briefly to the crowd. The keynote was delivered by Bishop Herson Gonzalez of the Calvary Worship Center in Woonsocket.

Maxine Richman, co-chair of the RI Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty (Coalition) spoke first, outlining the 2016 Advocacy Platform for the group. She began with a sobering statistic. 14.3 percent of Rhode Islanders live in poverty. That rate climbs to 19.8 percent when we talk about children specifically.

“A 14.3 percent poverty rate is the story for this year,” said Richman, “but it need not be the story for next year.”

The coalition believes that all Rhode Islanders are entitled to affordable housing, nutritious food, accessible healthcare, equitable education and work with decent wages.

Though the General Assembly raised the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) last session, something both Paiva-Weed and Mattiello touted as a great success in their opening remarks Tuesday, RI’s present 12.5 percent rate is a far cry from Connecticut’s EITC of 27.5 percent or Massachusetts’ 23 percent. The Coalition is asking the General Assembly raise the RI EITC to 20 percent.

2016-01-06 Interfaith Poverty Vigil 20 — Governor Raimondo

Channeling yesterday’s loud rally, and on the day that Governor Raimondo has officially broken her campaign promise to issue an executive order allowing undocumented workers to obtain driver’s licenses, the Coalition asked state leaders to take this important step.

Right now low and no income Rhode Island families with children are eligible to receive cash assistance for a maximum of up to 24 months within a five year window. A mother with two children is eligible to receive $554 a month for up to 24 months. When the 24 months are done, the family is cut off, leaving children to live in crushing poverty. The coalition would like to end the 24 month limit.

Also, as they have asked nearly every year and to no avail, the Coalition would like the General Assembly to take action to reform PayDay loans. This is unlikely as long as Speaker Mattiello continues to pretend that “arguments against PayDay lending tend to be ideological in nature.”

The coalition would also like to see an expansion of Child Care Assistance and Early Childhood Education. as of Fall, 2014, for instance, only 34 percent of eligible children were enrolled in Head Start, “with many centers maintaining long waiting lists.”

The Coalition further wants to reduce out-of-school detentions which predominantly target students of color and feed the school-to-prison pipeline. They would also like to expand opportunities for workforce foundational skills and occupational training.

The RI Coalition for the Homeless (RICH) needs adequate funding to implement Opening Doors RI, and would like state leaders to seek a $100 million affordable housing bond.

The Coalition also backs efforts to prevent domestic abusers from accessing guns, a bill that died in committee last year to the consternation of supporters and the embarrassment of the General Assembly.

The Coalition would like to see adequate funding for Senior Centers and lastly, the Coalition wants the General Assembly to maintain the current RIPTA Senior/Disbabled Fare Program, recognizing that balancing the budget of public transit of the backs of the most vulnerable is simply cruel. Paiva-Weed was the only state leader to state that she would work to make this happen. Raimondo vowed to make RIPTA “affordable” which is apparently a number other than free.

“These all sound good, but where do we find the money?” asked Raimondo.

“I am very concerned about imposing a fee on elderly and disabled RIPTA passengers,” said Paiva-Weed, “and I am committed to looking at alternative funding.”

Attempting to explain his statement at last years Interfaith Poverty Vigil where he said that he wants to eliminate the social safety net, Speaker Mattiello spun a vision of a Utopian future world. “When we get the economy to a point where everybody’s thriving,” said the Speaker, “every single family has a wage earner that is successfully feeding the family, and everybody is doing well and is well fed… families are happy… that will be the day we don’t need a safety net. And at that time our safety net will justifiably be smaller.”

Here’s Bishop Herson Gonzalez’s keynote address.

Note: I was fortunate today to get permission from Rachel Simon to run her pictures of the event. So all these pictures are under her 2016 copyright.

And here’s the full vigil.

November 23, 2015

Racial poverty and prejudice persists in many ways

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“I don’t think there is
a white privilege.”
– House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello

Rhode Island’s Democratic Speaker on race: “I don’t think anybody in society views any particular nationality as having any privilege over any other.”

This denies the experiences of many minorities. They know whites have greater privileges in education, employment, housing, banking and criminal justice.

Hardships perpetuate one another: Poor education leads to poor job prospects—and these impoverish housing opportunities. Payday lenders scam often poor minorities who also suffer increased arrests, bail, sentences and fines.

Rhode Island’s fourth-grade reading proficiency is 48 percent for whites; 18 percent for blacks; 17 percent for Latinos. Should we blame minority kids? No, students from low-income families score 19 percent, so poor minorities rank far lower than students from white families with better schools.

Financial health varies widely by race: The Census Bureau reports black median income for 2013 is $34,600; Latino, $41,000; white, $58,300. Lasting low income affects resources: Pew Research Center reports 2013 median household wealth for blacks is $11,000; Latinos, $13,700; whites, $141,900. The wealth of one white family equals ten Latino or thirteen black families.

White privilege is powerful. Minority disadvantages are painful—and keep accumulating.

Consider housing. Poor neighborhoods are often minority while upscale neighborhoods are overwhelmingly white. Public housing projects built in poor areas preserve segregation.

Also, mortgage discrimination continues long after redlining. For example, though whites had similar credit ratings, Wells Fargo steered 4,000 blacks and Latinos into subprime mortgages and charged 30,000 minorities increased fees averaging more than $2,500. Predatory mortgage brokers often targeted minorities and schemed foreclosing quickly on the first late payment.

The cycle of poverty is vicious: Poor housing reflects poor income, and these deficits lead to children’s destitute education. Mass incarceration often penalizes offenders’ families with costly travel expenses, bail, attorney’s fees, and phone surcharges. Payday lenders’ outrageous tactics intensify poverty. Thus, poor communities remain perpetually impoverished.

Mattiello affirms the adage, “high tide lifts all boats,” but this comparison fails: While the rich get richer, everyone else’s economic boat has not lifted for 30 years. Indeed, Financial Times reports income distribution so favors the wealthy that, if 1979 levels held, the bottom 80 percent of families would now earn another $11,000 a year.

Could your family use another $11,000 each year? Now consider the even greater loss to many minorities who, compared to whites, already have immense disparities in income and wealth.

Mattiello states, “To a certain extent we have to give particular attention to the minority community,” but also asserts some don’t “take advantage” of opportunities—“and that’s something that I quite frankly don’t understand.” But the disadvantage is understandable: Equal opportunity is a fiction.

It’s not that only some minorities take advantage of opportunities. Instead of implying victims of systemic discrimination are callous or lazy, we must accept that opportunities available to whites are often unavailable to minorities. Need more convincing?

A 2002 Harvard study found whites and blacks, controlled for similar qualifications, had vastly different employment prospects. The callback rate from job applications for whites was 34 percent; blacks, 14 percent. Moreover, whites with criminal records received callbacks 17 percent of the time; blacks, 5 percent.

This is shocking: Whites with criminal records received more callbacks than blacks who committed no crimes.

The Harvard study confirmed 1994 results by Sociologist Marc Bendick, Jr., et al.—but the disparity between blacks and whites without a record was 24 points, not 20.

Many arrested—but not convicted—are also treated as criminals. Harvard study authors indicate these unjust employment denials afflict millions of low-income Americans, especially people of color.

Blacks and Latinos need more than a high tide of nearly nonexistent opportunity: Mass incarceration must be remedied; banking scams need reform; and enormous gaps in income, wealth, education and housing require ‘affirmative action.’

Let’s hope Speaker Mattiello opens his eyes: The evidence for white privilege is overwhelming.

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 28, 2015October 28, 2015

RI Center for Justice discusses lawyering for social change

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It was a packed house at the RI Center for Justice as Executive Director Robert McCreanor lead a discussion about the collaborative work of community organizers and public interest lawyers in the area of social justice. On the panel were organizers and lawyers who work with DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) and PrYSM (Providence Youth Student Movement) in Providence, and MFY’s Housing Project, the Three-Quarter House Tenant Organizing Project (TOP) in New York City.

What became clear over the next ninety minutes is that lawyering works in support of community organizing, not the other way around. What this means is that lawyers interested in social justice work need to “find the legal work that can support the organizers,” according to Shannah Kurland, a community lawyer and Soros Justice Fellow at PrYSM.

Kurland started as a community organizer at DARE, and struggled with her decision to become a lawyer. She was “not sure if becoming a lawyer was a right fit” and asked herself, “was it selling out?”

Michael Grinthal, supervising attorney for MFY’s Housing Project and Three-Quarter House Project, also started as a community organizer. For him, lawyering is a better fit, especially now as a father of a two year old. In New York, “all battles come back to housing because its so hard to live in NYC,” said Grinthal.

MFY “was the legal office for the welfare rights movement,” says Grinthal, making a local connection by adding, “George Wiley is one of the founding organizers in that movement.”

The funding for much legal service work comes through “legal services corporation” but under a law pushed through by Newt Gingrich (in a deft example of racist legislating, I should add) “organizations that get such money cannot do community organizing,” said Grinthal

Michael Zabelin, Staff Attorney at Rhode Island Legal Services and a lawyer who often works closely with DARE was never a community organizer. His work with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau made transition to working with DARE “the obvious thing to do.” Zabelin twice mentioned the influence of community lawyer Steve Fischbach on his ideas around being a lawyer. Fischbach’s work around housing issues was instrumental in getting Just Cause passed a few years ago.

Paulette Soltani works with MFY Legal Services as a community organizer for the Three-Quarter House Tenant Organizing Project (TOP). TOP started five years ago to help organize tenants living in three quarter houses, described as an unregulated housing industry that pretends to offer transitional services for people recently released from prison or substance abuse centers. “They open buildings and pack 6-8 people in,” says Soltani, they sometimes “force the use of certain medicaid providers, as a form of Medicaid fraud.”

People living in these conditions can find themselves evicted without due cause. Often they are locked out and separated from their possessions. This can have the effect of sending these tenants back onto the streets, into homeless shelters, or into conditions that can ultimately send them back to jail or substance abuse.

As a community organizer Soltani must often deal with the immediate and personal issues of those she meets, “but the point of an organizer is to target systems” in addition to base building, outreach and leadership development. Her goal is to allow “people to develop their voices” as leaders and to work within coalitions.

Christopher Samih-Rotondo, Community Organizer at DARE and the Tenant and Homeowner Association (THA) agrees. He organizes low income communities of color in the south side of Providence. He works to develop team leaders for direct action and to effect legislative and policy change.

Samih-Rotondo spoke about Just Cause, passed because during the foreclosure crisis “banks became de facto landlords and would evict tenants without cause.” With lawyers his group “developed legislation to hold banks responsible for landlord tenant act.” The services DARE provides for individuals are done to “bring people in to form a movement, radicalize people, and change the system.”

Shannah Kurland doesn’t want this to sound too mercenary. Not all people who come to a group like DARE will stick around. Still, it’s important to help them. “Here’s a human being, part of our community, facing an issue,” said Kurland, later adding that, “a movement isn’t about one issue.” People who come one year to work on an issue like childcare may come back years later to do foreclosure work.

Samih-Rotondo thinks it is important to build individual capacities in people who come to his group for help. There are many things people can do without a lawyer, if they have the rules explained to them and can be empowered to act on their own behalf.

Soltani said that it is important for community organizers to meet “people where they are and understanding why they’re there in the first place. If they don’t come, ask why?”

For Sarath Suong, co-founder and executive director of PrYSM, lawyers have always been required. We needed “immigration lawyers early on to end Cambodian deportations.” More recently, PrYSM’s work on the Community Safety Act (CSA) required careful legal writing. The CSA has “twelve provisions that will curb profiling” and seeks to free people from “state, street and interpersonal violence.”

However, says Suong, “we know that policy will not save our communities. We know that communities need to save themselves, build a sense of resistance.”

Kurland agrees. “There are a ton of laws to protect you,” she says, “but they not enforced.” People in low-income communities of color learn that “here are your rights on paper,” now, “how do I stay safe on the street?” In other words, is asserting one’s rights in the moment worth the risk of being arrested or beaten?

When PrYSM started back in 2001, “only the police were engaging with SouthEast Asian youth” in Providence,” said Suong. PrYSM is based on Love, Power and Peace, and seeks to “hold Police accountable for the way they profile young people.”

The RI Center for Justice has a mission of “Protecting legal rights to ensure justice for vulnerable individuals, families, and communities in Rhode Island.” The Center currently works with Fuerza Laboral on the Wage Justice Project, with the Community Action Partnership of Providence (CAPP) on the Tenant Advocacy Project and with the George Wiley Center on it’s Lifeline Project.

September 19, 2015

DARE challenges PVD Public Housing Authority on inmates’ right to fair housing

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On Friday evening the Behind the Walls committee at Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) hosted the launch party for their Fair Housing campaign, which will challenge Providence Public Housing Authority (PHA) policies that uniformly exclude applicants based on past arrests and convictions.

The proposed policy would prohibit denial based on misdemeanors and arrests, protect applicants from long “look back” periods into their records, and would create a panel to review the qualifications of applicants with records. The Behind the Walls committee plans to present their proposed policy to the Housing Authority in the coming weeks. PHA Board member and city councilwoman Mary Kay Harris has written an official letter of endorsement for the campaign.

“Too many people have been denied a safe and stable home with their family because of something they did 10 or more years ago,” said John Prince, campaign organizer with Behind the Walls, in a statement. “Sometimes parents can’t go back and live with their kids because of an arrest, when they were never even convicted of the crime. That’s just wrong.”

According to Behind the Walls, “In 2014, 61 percent of all PHA denials were due to criminal record, and fewer than 1 percent of appeals were successful. Each year 1400 people are released from the ACI to Providence, 48 percent of which will return in their first 3 years home.”

“The idea that rehabilitation can work without a path to reintegration back into the community is a cruel and fraudulent hoax. One crucial way to help an individual return successfully to the community is to provide access to public housing,” said Judge Fortunato in a statement.

The launch event included soul food, spoken word performances by local poets including Franny Choi, Vatic Kuumbal and others. State Representatives Aaron Regunberg and Edith Ajello were in attendance as were Providence City Council Members Kevin Jackson and Mary Kay Harris.

Community members also celebrated the launch of the national community-driven report “Who Pays: The True Cost of Incarceration on Families” by the Ella Baker Center. John Prince, along with Sheila Wilhelm, were two members of DARE who traveled to Center in Oakland California to help develop the report. The report found that:

People with convictions are saddled with copious fees, fines, and debt at the same time that their economic opportunities are diminished, resulting in a lack of economic stability and mobility. 48 percent of families in our survey overall were unable to afford the costs associated with a conviction, while among poor families (making less than $15,000 per year), 58 percent were unable to afford these costs. Sixty-seven percent of formerly incarcerated individuals associated with our survey were still unemployed or underemployed five years after their release.

Many families lose income when a family member is removed from household wage earning and struggle to meet basic needs while paying fees, supporting their loved one financially, and bearing the costs of keeping in touch. Nearly 2 in 3 families (65 percent) with an incarcerated member were unable to meet their family’s basic needs. 49 percent struggled with meeting basic food needs and 48 percent had trouble meeting basic housing needs because of the financial costs of having an incarcerated loved one.

Women bear the brunt of the costs—both financial and emotional—of their loved one’s incarceration. In 63 percent of cases, family members on the outside were primarily responsible for court-related costs associated with conviction. Of the family members primarily responsible for these costs, 83 percent were women. In addition, families incur large sums of debt due to their experience with incarceration. Across respondents of all income brackets, the average debt incurred for court-related fines and fees alone was $13,607, almost one year’s entire annual income for respondents who earn less than $15,000 per year.

Despite their often-limited resources, families are the primary resource for housing, employment, and health needs of their formerly incarcerated loved ones, filling the gaps left by diminishing budgets for reentry services. Two-thirds (67 percent) of respondents’ families helped them find housing. Nearly one in five families (18 percent) involved in our survey faced eviction, were denied housing, or did not qualify for public housing once their formerly incarcerated family member returned. Reentry programs, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations combined did not provide housing and other support at the levels that families did.

Incarceration damages familial relationships and stability by separating people from their support systems, disrupting continuity of families, and causing lifelong health impacts that impede families from thriving. The high cost of maintaining contact with incarcerated family members led more than one in three families (34 percent) into debt to pay for phone calls and visits alone. Family members who were not able to talk or visit with their loved ones regularly were much more likely to report experiencing negative health impacts related to a family member’s incarceration.

The stigma, isolation, and trauma associated with incarceration have direct impacts across families and communities. Of the people surveyed, about one in every two formerly incarcerated persons and one in every two family members experienced negative health impacts related to their own or a loved one’s incarceration. Families, including their incarcerated loved ones, frequently reported Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, nightmares, hopelessness, depression, and anxiety. Yet families have little institutional support for healing this trauma and becoming emotionally and financially stable during and post incarceration.

The report suggested three critical reforms:

Restructuring and Reinvesting: Following the lead of states like California, all states need to restructure their policies to reduce the number of people in jails and prisons and the sentences they serve. The money saved from reducing incarceration rates should be used instead to reinvest in services that work, such as substance abuse programs and stable housing, which have proven to reduce recidivism rates. Additionally, sentencing needs to shift focus to accountability, safety, and healing the people involved rather than punishing those convicted of crimes.

Removing Barriers: Upon release, formerly incarcerated individuals face significant barriers accessing critical resources like housing and employment that they need to survive and move forward. Many are denied public benefits like food stamps and most are unable to pursue training or education that would provide improved opportunities for the future. Families also suffer under these restrictions and risk losing support as a result of their loved one’s conviction. These barriers must be removed in order to help individuals have a chance at success, particularly the many substantial financial obligations that devastate individuals and their families. On the flip side, when incarcerated people maintain contact with their family members on the outside, their likelihood of successful reunification and reentry increases, and their chances of recidivating are reduced. For most families the cost of maintaining contact is too great to bear and must be lowered if families are to stay intact. Removing cost and other barriers to contact is essential.

Restoring Opportunities: Focusing energy on investing and supporting formerly incarcerated individuals, their families, and the communities from which they come can restore their opportunities for a brighter future and the ability to participate in society at large. Savings from criminal justice reforms should be combined with general budget allocations and invested in job training and subsidized employment services, for example, to provide the foundation necessary to help individuals and their families succeed prior to system involvement and upon reentry.

August 30, 2015August 31, 2015

Occupy Providence returns to confront harassment of homeless

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In response to the alleged harassment of the homeless population in and around Kennedy Plaza by Providence Police, Occupy Providence met in the People’s Park (aka Burnside Park) with members of the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project (RIHAP) to discuss what could be done going forward to stop the criminalization of homelessness going forward.

Organizer and Occupier Susan Walker pointed out that in the winter of 2012, Occupy Providence broke their occupation of Burnside Park after negotiating with City Hall for a Day Center for the homeless. “Where is the Day Center today?” she asked. Occupy Providence has long concerned itself with homelessness, so this event marked a return to the group’s roots.

John Freitas of RIHAP spoke about the harassment of the homeless downtown by the Providence Police Department. Freitas says that the only thing that kept the police from following through on their threats to arrest homeless and homeless advocates rallying downtown on Thursday was the presence of the media. Even then, the police made a big show of force, with two paddy wagons nearby, plastic riot cuffs visibly hanging from belts and at least one officer making a big show of videotaping the participants. Feitas says this is just intimidation.

Homeless advocate Kate Miechkowski said that if members of the homeless population speak publicly about the ongoing harassment, they know that they will be retaliated against. In fact, only one woman agreed to talk about being homeless on camera, and she mostly talked about the difficulty of navigating the rules of homeless shelters while trying to rebuild her life. She wouldn’t talk about any harassment she may have faced or allow her name to be used.

The Occupy protest lasted over two hours. In addition to holding signs and making plans to address the issue of homelessness going forward, Occupiers also managed to hand out more than 200 copies of the Homeless Bill of Rights to members of the homeless population and others. The Homeless Bill of Rights is RI state law 34-37.1-3, passed in 2012.

It reads:

Bill of Rights. – No person’s rights, privileges, or access to public services may be denied or abridged solely because he or she is homeless. Such a person shall be granted the same rights and privileges as any other resident of this state. A person experiencing homelessness:

(1) Has the right to use and move freely in public spaces, including, but not limited to, public sidewalks, public parks, public transportation and public buildings, in the same manner as any other person, and without discrimination on the basis of his or her housing status;

(2) Has the right to equal treatment by all state and municipal agencies, without discrimination on the basis of housing status;

(3) Has the right not to face discrimination while seeking or maintaining employment due to his or her lack of permanent mailing address, or his or her mailing address being that of a shelter or social service provider;

(4) Has the right to emergency medical care free from discrimination based on his or her housing status;

(5) Has the right to vote, register to vote, and receive documentation necessary to prove identity for voting without discrimination due to his or her housing status;

(6) Has the right to protection from disclosure of his or her records and information provided to homeless shelters and service providers to state, municipal and private entities without appropriate legal authority; and the right to confidentiality of personal records and information in accordance with all limitations on disclosure established by the Federal Homeless Management Information Systems, the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and the Federal Violence Against Women Act; and

(7) Has the right to a reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her personal property to the same extent as personal property in a permanent residence.

August 28, 2015August 28, 2015

Homeless advocates confront PVD police over homeless harassment

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More than 50 homeless and community advocates protested and confronted the police on Thursday afternoon in front of CVS near Kennedy Plaza within sight of Providence City Hall. At least 14 police officers were on hand, though no arrests were made. The protesters carried signs demanding an end to “a noticeable increase of harassment of homeless folks around the city.”

According to the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless (RICH), “On Thursday, August 13th, Shannah Kurland, a community lawyer and activist, was arrested in front of the CVS located at 70 Kennedy Plaza. Witnesses state that Kurland was simply standing on the sidewalk near the CVS and clearly not blocking the entrance.”

The police officers told Kurland that she was in violation of “failure to move,” a non-existent offense with “no legal basis in city ordinance or state statute,” that is often used to threaten and harass homeless people, according to RICH. When Kurland explained that there was no such law, she was arrested

Protesters carried signs and defiantly committed the same “crime” as Kurland, standing in front of CVS, and refusing to move. “Advocates contend that with increasing frequency, people experiencing homelessness are being subjected to judicial and extrajudicial arrest, harassment, and discrimination,” said RICH in a press release, “Individuals who are homeless have been treated as criminals for engaging in activities necessary to survival, foremost among them resting and sleeping.”

One sign simply read, “Legalize Sleep.”

“We are sick of the harassment,” exclaimed Barbara Kalil, Co-Director of the RI Homeless Advocacy Project (RIHAP). “People are being targeted simply because of their housing status. Not only is that unacceptable, it is illegal!”

20150827_154840 — Outside Elorza’s office

Kalil lead a delegation into City Hall to present a letter to Mayor Jorge Elorza demanding a meeting to discuss the issues by September 4th and that the Providence Police be immediately instructed “to stop their practice of criminalizing homelessness and harassing homeless individuals” both downtown and in other city neighborhoods.

In addition, RICH and RIHAP demanded a “commitment on behalf of the city to provide resources for a permanent, accessible day center” and a “promise from the city to advocate for more permanent housing vouchers and identified units.”

Earlier in the day, a homeless constituent encountered two police officers “who told him that they know about the rally this afternoon and there will be many police officers there ready to arrest anybody who obstructs the sidewalk,” said Karen Jeffries of RICH in an email. According to the constituent, the police officers said, “We have Paddy wagons and many handcuffs ready to go.”

The police were in fact ready with plastic handcuffs hanging from their belts and two “paddy wagons” parked on the opposite side of Kennedy Plaza. During the protest the police made a large show of force that included at least one officer videotaping the crowd, for reasons that are unclear. The Providence Police are often videotaping crowds at such events, but do not seem to have any policies in place regarding the use of such video.

Shannah Kurland is the lawyer for Manny Pombo, a street musician suing the city of Providence for harassment, and John Prince, who was attacked by police in his own home for videotaping them from his yard. Kurland is also involved in her own lawsuit against the city of Providence for violating her free speech rights last year at a fundraiser in Roger Williams Park for then-Gubernatorial candidate, and now Governor, Gina Raimondo. Kurland is also legal counsel to five local Ferguson activists charged with trespassing for shutting down Interstate 95.

RICH drew attention to a report from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which “details the ways in which criminalizing ordinances are damaging both to individuals experiencing homelessness and to the cities that enact them. It also found that, despite a lack of affordable housing and shelter space, cities across the country are essentially making it illegal to be homeless with laws that outlaw life-sustaining acts, such as eating and sleeping, in public spaces.”

Key findings/conclusions from the report are:

-Homeless people are criminally punished for being in public even when they have no other alternatives;
-The criminalization of homelessness is increasing across the country;
-Criminalization laws violate the civil and human rights of homeless people;
-Criminalization laws are costly to taxpayers;
-Criminalization laws are ineffective;
-Criminalization laws should be replaced with constructive solutions to ending homelessness.

RI famously passed a “Homeless Bill of Rights” in 2012 with the intent of preventing, according to Sam Howard, in a piece written for RI Future at the time, “harassment or discrimination towards homeless people. This means kicking people off of park benches or out of libraries when they’re not doing anything wrong. It means that when someone applies for a job, the fact that their mailing address is listed as a shelter can’t be used as a reason to reject them. It means that a homeless person can’t have their stuff seized or searched if they’re not causing trouble. Basically, if the Governor signs this, it’s now a little bit easier for the homeless to enjoy all the little niceties of public life.”

The Homeless Bill of Rights set an important foundation for Opening Doors Rhode Island, the state’s plan to end homelessness, which states as a core value that “there are no ‘homeless people,’ but rather people who have lost their homes who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”

According to RICH, “Opening Doors Rhode Island outlines a plan that significantly transforms the provision of services to Rhode Islanders experiencing homelessness. Consistent with the new federal plan to end homelessness, the plan seeks to sharply decrease the numbers of people experiencing homelessness and the length of time people spend homeless.”

“The path to ending homelessness starts with treating those experiencing homelessness with basic dignity and respect, plain and simple,” added Kalil.

June 30, 2015

After 30 years, a new location for Lucy’s Hearth

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For over 30 years Lucy’s Hearth “has provided shelter and critical human services to women and children experiencing homelessness” from a rented former convent in Middletown. The convent was never ideal, so this week the shelter “broke ground” on a new location at the former headquarters of Child & Family at 19 Valley Road in Middletown.

Lucy’s Hearth is nationally recognized for delivering “holistic wrap-around services for resident mothers and their children including case management, daily nutritious meals, mental health treatment, referral and advocacy, early intervention for children 0-3 years of age, life skills training, financial literacy education, on-site GED education and more.”

The new location will increase the number of rooms for women and families from 10 to 16. Rooms will have kitchenettes so that mothers might prepare home cooked meals. There is acreage out back that could be used as a play area and community garden. The new location is on a bus line, and has ample parking. There is room now for expanded educational and recreational programs.

It’s a big win for Middletown and Rhode Island.

Below, Director Jennifer Barrera and Board Chair Susan Esrtling speak about Lucy’s Hearth and the programs on offer.

Narcheline Vazquez works for Lucy’s Hearth, but once, not too long ago, she and her young family sought shelter there for four months. “I didn’t plan to be homeless,” said Vasquez, “One day, my job was gone like people in Rhode Island experience all too often. Within months, I lost my apartment and had nowhere to go. We stayed in a few temporary situations until finally… Lucy’s Hearth offered me a home.”

On hand for the groundbreaking was Representative David Cicilline and Senate President M Teresa Paiva-Weed.

April 1, 2015

Homeless shelter standards legislation would reduce discrimination

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Advocates for the homeless say a Providence shelter discriminates against clients based on their sexual orientation. This, and other complaints, inspired the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project to work with legislators on standards for homeless shelters in Rhode Island.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Betty Crowley of Central Falls, will be heard by a Senate subcommittee today after the full Senate commences. A House version is sponsored by a wide range of Democrats, from Rep. Aaron Regunberg, a rookie and one of the more progressive legislators, to Doc Corvese, a veteran Democrat but also one of the most conservative members of the General Assembly.

The idea for the legislation was conceived in large part by the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project (RIHAP), headed by Barbara Kalil, Bill Chamberlain, and John Freitas.

“What we’re trying to accomplish is to set standards for anyone who is trying to shelter the homeless,” Freitas said. “As an advocacy group, we have to deal time and time again with people who have been denied shelter for arbitrary reasons.”

Among those reasons, they said, were girls wearing too much makeup, an unwed pregnant woman and sexual orientation.

The bill was inspired, in part, by the conditions at the Safe Haven shelter in Pawtucket, which was run by the Urban League and forced to close during the summer of 2014.

But RIHAP has also received many complaints about the Providence Rescue Mission at 627 Cranston Street. Freitas said he has seen a number of these violations themselves – including forcing residents to attend a church service which talks about the evils of homosexuality.

“I was talking to a gay resident while I was staying there, and the staff questioned my manhood,” he said. “When we were in line to shower, they separated us. I don’t deny anybody the right to their beliefs, but I don’t think shelters should be dependent on me falling in line with those beliefs. Shelters should be just that, a sanctuary.”

RIHAP also received reports that gay individuals have been discouraged from going there. And when they are do, said RIHAP members, they are purposefully made to feel uncomfortable, and are identified as gay to both the staff and residents.

They have been told the staff believes it is their religious right to turn people away because it is not publicly funded.

“They don’t answer to anybody, so they can get away with it,” Chamberlain said.

Jim Ryczek, executive director for the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, said that although they have received the same complaints, the Rescue Mission has not broken the law.

“Since they are not a member agency, they are free to operate their program as they see fit, as long as it doesn’t violate state law,” he said.

Sometimes, RIHAP members said, the discrimination is simply personal. “In some cases, it’s just a matter of a staff member doesn’t like you, so you’re gone. And there’s no accountability,” Freitas said.

Chamberlain said when such abuses are brought to the state, the response was that they did not want to withhold funding from the agencies. There were many times, though, when a grievance was brought forward and it did not receive a proper procedure.

“If you were to make out a grievance against a shelter you were staying in, it could potentially go into the circular file,” Kalil said. “Nobody is really watching anybody to make sure it’s getting heard. Not only does it not get heard, but they’re going to make it all nice, and nobody gives any timeline to when things will get fixed.”

Kalil added that they have also heard incidences of a shelter telling a homeless person they are barred, when in fact they are not. “We need to make sure their rights are respected,” she said.

The bill says “all homeless persons have the right to homeless shelter services regardless of political or religious beliefs, immigration status, former geographic location of residence, ethno-cultural background, (dis)ability, gender identity, criminal background, and/or sexual orientation.”

The bill also outlines that homeless individuals should not be expected to pay a fee to stay in a shelter and nutritious food should be provided and that shelters should provide residents an atmosphere of dignity, and that staff should accept gender identity as defined by the individual, among others.

These guidelines would be enforced by a committee formed by the Housing Resources Commission (HRC), which would include one homeless or formerly homeless person, as well as one resident or former resident of a domestic violence shelter. The committee would be responsible for several tasks, all of which would address the concerns outlined in the bill, such as resident rights and responsibilities, and organizational standards for the shelter itself. The HRC would be required to enforce and implement any of the approved regulations drafted by the committee.

The bill would also impose baseline standards for homeless shelters in Rhode Island. An External Review Committee would conduct four onsite inspections of all shelters in Rhode Island per year. Only one of these inspections would be scheduled two weeks before their arrival, the other three would remain unannounced. Penalties for violating any of these standards would be monetary; between 2 percent and 10 percent of their average monthly expenses, based on the severity of the infraction, and the agency’s history.

Concerns about the legislation include aversion to new regulations, as well as aversions to potential new costs, Ryczek said.

“The members are rightly bringing up that if there are increased costs, where is that coming from? We will advocate with state and federal governments and say that if we need to do this, you need to provide,” he said.

H5242 will be heard in the Senate Committee on Housing and Municipal Government meeting on Wednesday, April 1, at 4:30 pm. Updates to follow.

March 10, 2015March 11, 2015

RhodeMapRI and preventing future Fergusons

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A new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) by Richard Rothstein titled The Making of Ferguson: Public Policies at the Root of its Troubles puts some of the recent brouhaha over RhodeMap RI into keen perspective. We all know the story of the police murder of Mike Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, MO, the high profile demonstrations from the black community in response, and the heavy handed, militarized police reaction. The US Department of Justice released a shocking report of systemic racism and economic exploitation of the black citizens of Ferguson, but the report from the EPI provides insight into how a racially segregated, predominantly low income African-American community like Ferguson can develop in the first place.

Rothstein begins by blaming racial prejudice and racist public policy. “No doubt, private prejudice and suburbanites’ desire for homogenous affluent environments contributed to segregation in St. Louis and other metropolitan areas. But these explanations are too partial, and too conveniently excuse public policy from responsibility. A more powerful cause of metropolitan segregation in St. Louis and nationwide has been the explicit intents of federal, state, and local governments to create racially segregated metropolises.”

It’s important to understand that the policies Rothstein exposes in his report are not located only in the immediate area of St. Louis, these policies existed across the nation, and even where such policies no longer officially exist, their effects can still be felt today. These policies, according to Rothstein, include:

Government subsidies for white suburban developments that excluded blacks, depriving African Americans of the 20th century home-equity driven wealth gains reaped by whites;
Denial of adequate municipal services in ghettos, leading to slum conditions in black neighborhoods that reinforced whites’ conviction that “blacks” and “slums” were synonymous;
Boundary, annexation, spot zoning, and municipal incorporation policies designed to remove African Americans from residence near white neighborhoods, or to prevent them from establishing residence near white neighborhoods;
Urban renewal and redevelopment programs to shift ghetto locations, in the guise of cleaning up those slums.

RhodeMap RI was developed with an understanding of many of the problems Rothstein cites. The public review draft of RhodeMap has a section at the end concentrating on social equity that explicitly called on the plan to “implement a new economic model based on equity, fairness, and opportunity.” It is this part of the plan, the part that seeks to undo the kind of problems that plague communities of color like Ferguson, that seems to most bother RhodeMap opponents.

Rothstein takes a shot at offering possible solutions towards the end of his report, writing, “Many practical programs and regulatory strategies can address problems of Ferguson and similar communities nationwide.” For instance, governments might “require even outer-ring suburbs to repeal zoning ordinances that prohibit construction of housing that lower- or moderate-income residents – white or black – can afford. Going further, we could require every community to permit development of housing to accommodate a ‘fair share’ of its region’s low-income and minority populations…”

Rhode Island has something of a fair share law (as part of the Rhode Island Comprehensive Housing Production and Rehabilitation Act of 2004 and Rhode Island Low and Moderate Income Housing Act (Rhode Island General Laws 45-53)) which sets a 10% goal for each of the state’s cities and town to meet—the goal being that 10% of the units in a town are “affordable.”

Most of the pushback against RhodeMap comes from communities that have very little affordable rental housing and are predominantly White. Legislation to undermine existing laws requiring cities and towns to plan for affordable housing is part of that pushback , such as House Bill 5643, which would “eliminate the mandate requiring cities and towns to include an affordable housing program in their comprehensive plans” or House Bill 5644 which “would remove the mandate requiring cities and towns to include an affordable housing program in their comprehensive plans and would provide an opt-out provision regarding any provision in the state guide plan regarding affordable housing and any related land use provisions” are naked attempts to keep affordable housing, and those who need it, out of their communities.

The legislators who are introducing and supporting the bills are all Republicans, or in one case an “Independent” representing primarily suburban and rural communities like Richmond (Note: part of Rep. Justin Price’s district), West Greenwich (part of Rep. Sherry Robert’s district) Coventry, Hopkinton, Charlestown, Portsmouth, Exeter and East Greenwich. Note that Richmond and West Greenwich have made “no progress” and East Greenwich has made “no significant progress” in meeting the 10% goal.

Undoing the damage of decades of racist housing policy and preventing future Fergusons requires a plan. RhodeMap RI isn’t quite that plan, it’s more a collection of guidelines to help communities develop a plan, but it’s a good step in the right direction. Those opposed to RhodeMap like to put on their “free market” hats and declare that any government intervention into housing is some sort of fascist violation of property rights. However, racially segregated housing is the product of just the kind of government sponsored social engineering that RhodeMap opponents complain of, and many of those opponents have also waged fights to prevent construction of affordable rental units in places such as Barrington and East Greenwich.

To be consistent these defenders of the free market should be calling for a repeal of all zoning restrictions in their communities, but of course they will not. Instead, they will zealously guard the status quo by defending zoning laws that the prevent construction of low income housing too close to their safe suburban enclaves. Opponents of RhodeMap object to being called racists, but when their claims of defending property rights are not equally applied to property owners who want to build affordable housing on their land, what else are we to think?

January 14, 2015

General officers tour Harrington Hall, affirm value of social safety net

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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.

December 21, 2014December 22, 2014

Pigs Fly: RI Tea Party endorses government regulation

In a stunning turnaround, the RI Tea Party today made a full-throated endorsement of some of the most intrusive government regulations on the books. In a fundraising email, the group called on its supporters to “…rise up against this assault on everything you’ve worked your entire life to earn” — by defending existing zoning and land-use regulations throughout the suburban and rural parts of our state.

For years, suburban communities in Rhode Island (and elsewhere) have stood firmly against affordable housing through land use regulations demanding such things as minimum lot sizes, height restrictions, and prohibitions on multi-family housing. Making it perfectly clear that land-owners’ rights to property are not absolute, these zoning regulations set very clear limits on what can and cannot be built on a piece of land, the key reason it is such a surprise to see these restrictions endorsed by the RI Tea Party and other “property rights” defenders.

There is demand for affordable housing in almost every community in Rhode Island. Were the housing market a free market, it would be built, and there would be affordable housing all over the state. But in the suburban and rural communities, local land use regulations often prevent such housing from being built anywhere in town.

A sensible state would not throw out land use regulation — building codes and zoning regulations exist for a good reason — but would recognize when those rules and regulations had been used in ways that encourage segregation and make finding affordable places to live so difficult.

This is exactly what RhodeMapRI proposes — in the very passage the RI Tea Party quotes in their fundraising email shown here — and perhaps is why the plan enrages them so. Apparently they prefer the old restrictions on market forces to new ones.

Looks pretty persuasive, doesn't it? — Looks pretty persuasive, doesn’t it?

Rumor had it that this endorsement would have come out a week or two ago, before the RhodeMapRI plan was approved by the RI Planning Council, but that there were delays in filing the paperwork necessary to renounce the group’s previously held pro-market, anti-regulation, views.

For the RI Tea Party to endorse the status quo of zoning regulation was a surprise for many local observers. As one put it, “It’s really remarkable how flexible they are. It’s almost as if the political philosophy they espouse is just a cover for, well, something else.”

Another man on the street said, on the contrary, it was laudable for the group to be flexible about the government regulations they hated. “It’s the mark of a sophisticated mind that it can believe two completely contradictory ideas at the same time. Somebody smart said that once, wasn’t it Socrates or George Washington or someone like that?” He went on to say, “It’s like Mitch McConnell running against Obamacare in Kentucky while endorsing, and even defending, KyNect, Kentucky’s popular Obamacare exchange. If that kind of flexibility is good enough for Mitch McConnell, it’s good enough for the RI Tea Party!”

A random woman accosted on the street said, “Let go of me!”

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