Homeless in RI: Deadline 4pm TODAY for Coalition data to go to Governor as crisis efforts continue

Photo: Office address of the RI Coalition to End Homeless

RI State House encampment

As of Friday night, no one remained in tents at the Rhode Island State House encampment. The state reports 7 individuals accepted shelter offered to them. Four people had shown up earlier at the Cranston Street Armory .On Saturday morning specialty cleaning crews from Single Source Disaster Recovery, dressed as they do when encountering situations where reported needles and drug use were involved. They removed items including tents, mattresses, clothes, bicycle tires, food items, etc. Then the plaza was power-washed. The Governor watched the beginning of the process before walking in to his office.

Governor’s Office:

From Matt Sheaff, Senior Communications staff for Governor Dan McKee : “The Dept of Housing continued to be on site at the encampment last night & transported 4 individuals to shelter. Staff had a continuous presence at the encampment from 6PM yesterday until the last tent was removed today. This allowed people to continue to pursue shelter solutions & get access to their belongings. Since the ruling yesterday, no one has been arrested and no one was in a tent this morning when the cleaning company arrived.”

The Cranston Street Armory

The Armory was put into action to be set up for its 5pm Saturday night opening. Members of the RI National Guard were seen bringing in water, hand-wash stations, cots, and helping to set up service rooms, including a medical treatment area. The facility was set up with 66 cots, a pet area, food area to serve three meals a day. 25 people were there at open time with 4 having been seen in the medical area almost immediately.

Official announcements named Amos House as having the contract to run the facility. It was also mentioned that Crossroads would be providing wrap-around services.

Media reports said 70 people were now at the Armory. The original set up was to be for 50 with fire inspection people saying “no more than 100”. As of Monday it is unclear where the balance from the 11 at the RI State House came from. Confirmation from the state has not yet come in.

Deadline TODAY to the Coalition to End Homelessness

The Governor issued specific instructions to the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness. This came after the head of the RI Department for Children and Families issued a directive to members of the homeless service community that they must report any child living outdoors or in conditions uninhabitable so the agency could get involved to offer immediate placement or services. Also, as the weather goes to below freezing consistently, the executive department of the state wants to see the information as it is known. The deadline is TODAY, Monday, December 19th at 4pm.

Required are:

• The location of the 80 encampments as known to the Coalition on December 9th.

• The waiting list in the CES system as it was on December 14th.

There was also instruction for engagement staff to utilize the provided software system to log in engagements with homeless individuals.

The Coalition responds

Jennifer Barrera, Chief Strategy Officer at the RI Coalition to End Homelessness, said in an interview with Uprise RI after the letter was released,

“Recently we’ve been asked to provide the location data and we told them we don’t have it. That’s the way that we protect our client’s privacy and security – particularly the folks that are unsheltered. If we have a list somewhere in our database of the location of every encampment – street address-wise – it is a risk. Our clients are at risk of physical harm; they’re at risk for their encampment to be vacated by a request that they move; they’re at risk of their encampments being destroyed, damaged, or items being stolen.

The street outreach providers maintain their own individual records, or knowledge of locations and they don’t share it with anyone because it’s just like you or I: You wouldn’t want your street address being blasted out to everyone in the State of Rhode Island if you were at risk. So we’ve told the state that we don’t have the data.”

From an NBC10 interview with Barrara:

“All of the homeless advocates who are involved in those actions also share the same thought as I: we need to focus on getting sufficient resources for shelter beds and housing online in the state of Rhode Island. That needs to be our main focus,” Barrara said… “there’s no physical list, adding outreach workers keep the information themselves. The privacy and security of people living in those encampments is paramount,” she said. “People experiencing homelessness are really vulnerable for physical violence, for some of the municipalities or other entities to come in and remove their encampment.”

To read more of our series on Homeless in RI, go to:

Homeless in RI: Armory opens, State House eviction holds up in court

This is a developing story and will be updated throughout the day