Homeless in RI: Clearing Encampments without Real-World Options Fails Everyone – Bernie Beaudreau

by Bernie Beaudreau, community advocate and volunteer, contributing writer

Over the past three weeks I have reached out to twelve homeless individuals encamped in the Providence metro area, providing propane refills for their tent heaters.

One homeless man, Frank*, sharing a small tent with his wife, texted me Tuesday late in the afternoon to tell me that he and other tent dwellers on a grassy patch off Hospital Street were served a ‘Notice to Vacate’ by the Providence Police.  The notice was dated 9/15/2025.  None of the current encampment tent dwellers were there in September.

Frank was told by the officers that they had until 7 AM Wednesday morning to leave, at which time they were going to bulldoze the site.  This was a day and a half less than the required 48 hour-notice.  He and another site neighbor, Janet, were scrambling to find another place to land. As the sun was setting, Frank reached out to me while experiencing anxiety and panic under the pressure to identify and move to a new location by 7:00AM.

I called the Providence Police and asked for more time for Frank, Janet and the others encamped there to leave, waiting at least until the winter weather breaks.  The unsympathetic desk sergeant said he wasn’t authorized to cancel the vacate order and that I would have to contact the city’s law department during their hours on Wednesday, which would be after the scheduled 7 AM clearing of the encampment.

I asked a friend to join me at 6:50 AM Wednesday morning, before the clearing, to ask the police officers present for more time and stand up for Frank, Janet and the others.  A police cruiser came by at 7 AM and stopped for a few minutes and then took off.  We stayed around for an hour and left. Frank and his wife and Janet had been staying at the site nightly since the beginning of November. The tents of three more homeless folks who stayed in their tents several nights a week were also to be removed. Frank told me later that morning that around 9:30 AM, the police came with the heavy equipment and cleared the encampment.

Nowhere to go

When I spoke with Frank after the site was cleared, he told me that a friend told him of a spot about a mile away to set up camp.  He’s been through this routine several times before.  It took Frank several trips hauling his tent, equipment, clothes, everything he owned, in a shopping cart and on his back.

The cruel irony is that this Hospital Street patch of state land adjacent to the highway, far from residential and commercial property, was the very location that the Providence Police guided another homeless couple to last April.  They were moved from the sidewalk of West Franklin Street just before the on-ramp to 195 East.  The Hospital Street encampment grew with another 4 to 5 tent dwellers taking refuge on the grassy roadside triangle patch.

Have the police now cleared an encampment they helped to grow? Apparently so.

What was the urgency to vacate and clear the site, especially in the dead of winter?  Does the city, the state, or anyone really care what happens to these displaced humans struggling to survive outside?  The lack of capacity of the state’s shelter system, the lack of support for the homeless in encampments and the shortage of affordable housing units are the true indicators that we and our government are not caring nearly enough.  These suffering fellow human beings are too often blamed for their own situations.  When we do this, we let ourselves off the hook, freeing ourselves from civic and humanitarian responsibility.

I can’t imagine the enormous hardship and struggle it must be to locate outside hiding places to set up a tent and survival gear over and over again, with no hope for, or progress toward, a real place to live.  Waiting lists for subsidized housing are years long.

The state-sponsored shelter inadequacy – almost no beds, must lose possessions, couples separated

Some have wondered why the Franks and Janets living outside aren’t in the state-sponsored shelters.  One answer is that there are virtually no shelter beds available, especially in January.  Some who chose to stay outside in tents have had very bad experiences in homeless shelters and have been traumatized.  Those that do seek a shelter bed have to lose most of their belongings, including their tent and heating gear, to be allowed in.  If you have a partner, you must be separated in gender-specific shelter quarters.  There are virtually no couples shelter accommodations in our state.

Last year’s Legislative Session included a bill—an amendment to the Homeless Bill of Rights–that did not pass but should have.  It would have helped address the survival needs of hundreds of unsheltered homeless persons in our state.  It would provide for more humane responses to the needs of the unsheltered homeless population establishing the right to:

• privacy and protection from unlawful search
• access to trash receptacles and toilet facilities (portable or permanent) in order that they can live in clean and sanitary conditions
• suitable alternatives for relocation to be made available to all persons occupying encampments in collaboration with outreach workers, prior to any enforcement action to clear the encampment site.

Rhode Island needs to create greater opportunities for local and state government, community organizations and caring individuals to work together collaboratively to extend generosity and support for those who struggle to survive outside.  Pushing unsheltered homeless people from site to site is not the answer.

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*names changed to protect identities

Read more articles by Bernie Beaudreau – HERE.

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Housing RI provides a list of resources, housing, emergency shelters, some of which called pop-ups that are temperature dependent, change from day to day – access that list HERE – https://housing.ri.gov/resources/individuals-experiencing-homelessness

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Editor’s Notes:

At publication on Jan. 17th it was 28 degrees, 26 feel-like, with snow in the forecast – and a below freezing forecast for next week.

RINewsToday has reported in the past that emergency overnight shelters require a person in need to come in with only one bag of possessions and to sit in a chair – there are no cots and you cannot get onto the floor for rest. These shelters open as early as 7am to be vacated and often don’t open at night until well after dark.

Encampments are expanding once again in Rhode Island – there are wooded homeless encampments visible in Pawtucket, other Providence locations, Warwick and Cranston, as well as other cities in the state.

The national Point in Time Count, required by HUD, is set for next week, Thursday, January 22nd. In Rhode Island, responsibility for the annual Point-in-Time (PIT) Count has historically been coordinated by the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness. This year, the Executive Office of Housing (within Rhode Island’s Executive branch) has taken over lead coordination of volunteer recruitment and field operations from the Coalition after the housing secretary raised concerns about the accuracy of past PIT count data.   

Notably, in 2025, Tara Granahan of WPRO Radio did her own “count” by contacting the police chief, mayor, or other official of every RI city and town, and within about 3 days had the data that very closely estimated this enormous task done by volunteers walking the streets. In 2024, a person sleeping on a park bench was “not disturbed” but counted, according to directions. He was found to have been dead – his story was the most read story in RINewsToday for 2025. 

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