middletown – RI Future

October 20, 2016

North Smithfield and Lincoln Town Councils come out against Burrillville power plant

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On Tuesday night the North Smithfield Town Council voted unanimously to oppose Invenergy‘s $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant, and on Wednesday evening a second unanimous vote opposing the power plant happened in Lincoln. When Middletown votes to oppose the plant next week, as is expected, that will bring the total number of municipalities passing resolutions in opposition to the power plant to four, since Glocester passed a resolution last week. Many other cities and towns are considering similar resolutions as per the Town of Burrillville‘s request, with Cranston‘s town council discussing it at their next meeting.

Denise Potvin and Suzanne Dumas of Burrillville, Rhoda-Ann Northrup of Cranston and Lorraine Savard of Central Falls all spoke out against the plant in Lincoln. Only Savard spoke out against the plant in North Smithfield.

Over 60 local environmental groups have come out against the power plant, the Burrillville Zoning and Planning Boards have expressed their opposition, and both Pascoag and Harrisville have chosen to not sell Invenergy the water they need to cool their turbines.

Below see video from the Town of Lincoln’s meeting last night and from North Smithfield’s meeting Tuesday night.

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.

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.

July 13, 2012July 13, 2012

Progress Report: Hard Knock Life in Middletown, Kennedy Chides Gemma, Patch on ALEC and Woody Guthrie

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The Providence Journal describes the conditions of a Middletown group home for children that caused the state to inspect all of its 76 facilities around the state: “broken glass littering the floor, trash strewn in different rooms, and a foul odor in the air, according to the police report.”

It might not be a story that attracts much attention, but it’s an important one none-the-less. The very least fortunate among us, literally orphans and other at-risk kids, are living in conditions described by police as being “deplorable.” If, as a community, we don’t want to afford these tremendously disadvantaged children a suitable home simply because it’s the right thing to do, then we should at least do so because the alternative is surely much worse for Rhode Island in the long run.

While I linked to a clip from Annie yesterday, it’s important to note that there is rarely a wealthy industrialist like Daddy Warbucks who swoops in from the private sector to rescue these kids from state care. It’s up to us to ensure that they grow up to be healthy productive members of society.

Seems like we weren’t the only ones to find Anthony Gemma’s lack of support for Democrats a bizarre. Former congressman Patrick Kennedy chided the increasingly irrelevant candidate for his comments on the Buddy Cianci Show, reports WPRI and RIPR. “This is about Rhode Island, not about each candidate, and I don’t think Mr. Gemma understands this,” Kennedy said. Ian Donnis makes an interesting observation about Kennedy carrying this message for Democrats: “Kennedy, now out of elective office, allows the current members of RI’s congressional delegation to avoid the fray while simultaneously delivering a sharp message that will draw considerable media interest.”

Woonsocket Patch reports on CVS dropping out of ALEC and lets Rep. Jon Brien, the local face of ALEC, get away with a pretty disingenuous description of the far-right wing bill mill.

“ALEC is described by board member and Woonsocket Rep. Jon Brien (Dist. 50, Woonsocket), as a bipartisan group that puts lawmakers together with businesses to come up with ideas (ultimately, legislation) “That will foster a free-market society,” reads the article. ALEC is roughly about as bipartisan as the Rhode Island General Assembly and I’m not quite sure how voter ID and Stand Your Ground laws help “foster a free-market society.”

Speaking of voter ID laws, Vice President Joe Biden continued the White Houses assault on the often-disenfranchising election laws.

A blog that bills itself as being “home of the most self-aggrandizing commenters” details a Twitter exchange with Portsmouth Rep. Dan Gordon. The author of the post describes the Twitter exchange as “pretty odd behavior from an elected official, but Dan Gordon is no ordinary state representative.” True that!

Gordon wasn’t the only Rhode Islander whose handiwork was featured on an out-of-state website yesterday. Freelance photographer and RI Future contributor Ryan Conaty had a . His pictures will be in Sunday’s print edition.

The Boston Globe reports that Mitt Romney worked at Bain for three years longer than he has claimed in the past.

Tomorrow is Woodie Guthrie‘s birthday. It’s also the nine-year anniversary of Rhode Island’s most embarrassing moments in recent memory: when Governor Don Carcieri had the State Troopers raid the Narragansett Indian Reservation because they weren’t paying taxes on cigarette sales.

So let me get this straight: Mitt Romney avoids paying taxes and Republicans call his actions patriotic. But when a Native American tribe does so, well send in the troops.