• Rising rental costs are a strong predictor of homelessness, according to federal studies and research.
• Homelessness in Rhode Island has increased significantly, with nearly 2,400 people experiencing it nightly.
• Providence has been named the nation’s least affordable metro area and is considering a rent stabilization measure.
• Modern rent stabilization policies can help prevent displacement without halting new housing development.

Homelessness is too often framed as a personal failure rather than a systemic one. That framing ignores the broader systems that determine who can access and afford housing, and it fuels policies that punish rather than prevent. If Rhode Island is serious about reversing the rise in homelessness, we need an emergency brake on the soaring cost of housing. Rent stabilization is one tool Providence can use to do that.

Decades of research show that rental housing costs are a strong predictor of homelessness. A federal study found that when rent increases just $100 between communities, overall homelessness – the number of people staying in shelters and living unsheltered – increases by 9%. The impact is even more pronounced when counting just those outdoors: in my research, the same rent increase is associated with a 28% rise in unsheltered homelessness. In plain terms, rising rents push more people out of stable housing and into homelessness.

Here in Rhode Island, these numbers are not abstract. Last January, 618 people were counted living outdoors, a 15% increase from the year before and nearly five times the number in 2020. When people staying in shelters are included, nearly 2,400 Rhode Islanders experience homelessness each night, a 35% increase in just one year. These figures reflect real and preventable public health harms, including exposure to extreme weather, exacerbated chronic illness, and increased risk of injury and death.

Meeting people’s immediate needs requires adequate shelter and investments in deeply affordable and supportive housing. Those steps are essential to protect people who are already unhoused. But focusing only on emergency responses is like bailing water from a boat that is still filling. Unless we slow the flow by addressing rapidly rising rents, homelessness will continue to grow faster than shelter systems can respond.

Providence has been named the least affordable metro area in the nation, with the fastest rent growth in the country. Leaders know housing costs are a top concern for voters. In response, the City Council is introducing a rent stabilization measure that would limit how much landlords can raise rents each year. If passed, it would provide renters with predictability and protection from sudden rent hikes, the kind that often trigger displacement and homelessness.