Thursday, January 11, 2024

GoLocalProv News Team

Professor Erich Hirsch of Providence College appeared on GoLocal nearly two years ago, hitting the proverbial “panic button” about the growing need for the unsheltered in Rhode Island.

He called for the state to deploy 500 pallet houses to address the emergency.

Ironically, one of the elected officials who fought against the first effort to deploy pallet houses is one of the most controversial — and now former — politicians in the state.

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That official claimed that the pallet homes would attract sex offenders; he is now facing multiple charges, including alleged sex crimes against minors.

On Thursday, the state announced an effort to develop a pallet shelter community to be operated by House of Hope and named ECHO Village. The community will feature 45 individual, free-standing one-room units, 70 square feet in size.

This is not a new strategy. In places like Eugene, Oregon, tiny houses have been used for the homeless for a decade.

In 2022, Hirsch flagged that COVID increased the number of unsheltered and rental prices are exacerbating the problem.

He is Co-Chair of the state’s Homeless Management Information System Steering Committee.

Hirsch said the short-term and the long-term needs could be addressed in part by deploying hundreds of “pallet shelters.”

“We’re saying we need 500 of these rapidly deployable structures now for 500 people because that’s what we’re expecting very soon, and if you know, if you look at the economic impact of COVID and the rising rents there could be a few hundred more beyond that,” said Hirsch on GoLocal LIVE in May of 2022.

The estimated cost is $7.5 million for the first year with the majority of those dollars being a one-time expense. Compare this to the $16.8 million a year, paid by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to keep formerly homeless people in Rhode Island hotels.

Hirsch said the coalition is proposing locating the shelters in the state’s Pastore Complex in Cranston. 

Cranston Plan Blocked

Initially, the State looked to deploy pallet homes in Cranston.

In October of 2022, then-Republican Cranston Councilman Matthew R. Reilly (R-Ward 6) called upon Governor Daniel McKee to drop his proposal to build villages of pallet housing for the homeless at the Pastore Complex in Cranston.

“The addition of the proposed ‘homeless village’ would significantly increase the amount of registered sex offenders and homeless to an area that is already dangerously saturated,” noted Reilly. 

Reilly added, “Enough is enough. Another city can step up for once. For too many years, the City of Cranston has been taken advantage of by the State as it continues to flood more and more state facilities and services into the Pastore Complex while drastically reducing funding to the City. Additionally, Cranston has to utilize additional extensive public safety resources of fire and police needed to respond to the various facilities and buildings at the Pastore Center. This unfair obligation, with minimal state financial assistance, is a drain on our budget and takes critical public safety personnel away from servicing the rest of our city’s needs.”

The McKee administration backed off its Cranston plan.

Reilly resigned in 2023 after he was arrested and charged with multiple crimes and presently is facing drug and first-degree and second-degree child molestation sexual assault charges.                                       

Hirsch, who has researched the trends on the homeless in Rhode Island for years and has been quoted when the number has gone up or down, is a noted expert on the issue. 

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