PROVIDENCE — Over a dozen homeless advocates and care providers gathered on the steps of City Hall Wednesday afternoon to demand Providence Mayor Brett Smiley and other city officials halt plans to clear out two of the capital city’s largest encampments on Friday.

The city plans to give 48 hours notices for people to vacate encampments on Houghton Street and a highway embankment between I-95 and Branch Avenue. Combined, those two sites include roughly 70 people, according to the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness.

Speakers at the coalition’s rally called the city’s timeframe for people to leave “unacceptable.”

“This is a violent action,” said coalition director Kimberly Simmons. “Imagine if someone came to your house, broke in and decided to wake up and move you immediately.”

The sites have posed “serious safety concerns” since they were first reported to the city “a few months ago,” city spokesperson Josh Estrella told Rhode Island Current. 

Letters sent to homelessness advocates and providers April 30 from the Providence Police Department don’t offer specific concerns regarding the Branch Avenue site, but said the Houghton Street encampment needs to be cleared because of soil contamination.

“As such, it is imperative that the site remain appropriately secured and free of occupants to prevent exposure and to enable necessary mitigation and redevelopment,” the letter reads.

He also stressed that the encampment clearings are not raids, as suggested by homelessness advocates. 

“The city has a process when an encampment is reported by a member of the public or another entity,” Estrella said. “This involves a multi-department approach of which Providence Police are one piece.”

During the rally, Providence City Councilor Miguel Sanchez outlined six demands to city officials. Topping that list is a request for the city to provide 30 days written notice in both English and Spanish. 

Other demands include prohibiting police from searching tents and backpacks when clearing the encampments, along with banning bulldozers and brush grinders from operating during any evictions.

Opening of Providence pallet shelter community delayed

Karen Andes, director of Brown University’s Master of Public Health program, told the crowd the use of police and heavy equipment will lead to further trauma for unhoused people.

“That’s not the way we want to treat people in Rhode Island,” Andes said.

The other big task is for city officials to identify a new parcel of land where displaced people can relocate for temporary housing.

State officials are in the process of opening 45 one-room cabins, also called pallet shelters, within the on-ramp to Route 146 South on a lot located off Victor Street. Shelters were initially scheduled to open “before the end of the first quarter” of 2024, but crews are still awaiting final approvals from the state as it hooks up the shelters to utilities.

“We are still doing site preparation that’s needed (utilities work, etc.) and obtaining final approvals for ECHO, but we will reach out when we have more information to share,” Housing Department spokesperson Emily Marshall said on April 17, when cabins were mostly constructed.

The state’s Department of Housing on the status of the pallet shellers could not provide additional details Wednesday.

The director of the pallet community previously said residents Riley won’t occupy the shelters either some time this month or in June.

“We cannot tell people to move without having another livable, viable piece of land appropriated,” Sanchez said. “This is only going to create a disaster.”

Sanchez himself did not name any specific location where a new shelter could be built. Simmons also did not offer any sites, but she said neither has the mayor as the city moves forward on clearing these spaces.

In a video recorded by Province-based journalist Steve Ahlquist earlier in the day, Smiley told reporters “it’s not clear to us where they go.”

“It’s a struggle and it’s a case-by-case basis, which is why we work with providers to try to find the best option,” Smiley said. “And we know in some cases that there are no good options.”

Ahead of the rally, Estrella said the city works with providers to “provide outreach, support and services to the varying individuals that have occupied the property.” 

Advocates also ask that city officials collaborate with them, along with those living in the two encampments, to better facilitate 

“If you have to move people, let us work together to make that happen effectively,” Simmons said.

Estrella did not respond to questions on if the city plans to meet any of the coalition’s demands.