Homeless in RI: Housing First is a Human Right, a Personal Reflection – Taylor Ellis

By Taylor Ellis, commentary contributor 

“Housing First” solves the unhoused human rights issue if implemented. It is simply based on providing people housing and simultaneously, quality social service programs. It has been carried out in a very limited way over the last two decades.

Recently, Governor McKee’s new Executive Office of Housing has published its Housing Plan 2030 which has housing goals for the next few years. Those goals are about ten times lower than needed, for housing first, aka, permanent supportive housing units for the thousands of people unhoused and with extremely low incomes in our state.

Our government prefers to provide for war, arms, militarized police, armed security apparatus etc. for domestic control and global domination to feed corporate profits for the few.

Multiple people have died from hypothermia in Providence this winter. This was predictable as hundreds of people live outside or in cars. Even warming centers open through the coldest nights were not available in sufficient number or needed locations. This is not a tragedy – it is a crime and it is systemic.

What do we choose? We choose humanity and human rights but we do not wield enough power to overcome the efforts of others who have different personal and corporate priorities: creating inordinate wealth, power, and privilege and thus poverty and suffering for millions and millions of others.

The people of Rhode Island have responded, donating food, clothing, blankets, and money to countless charities, supporting bond issues for housing, and volunteering at three churches that open their doors to save lives… called Project NOD, for No One Dies. Some others drove the streets on the coldest nights looking for people lying on sidewalks, checking people in tent encampments, trying to save lives… never seeing so-called public safety officers doing the same.

Instead, our government instructs police to raid encampments of the unhoused and trashes their possessions and people continue to die on our sidewalks. The same sidewalks where unhoused people are targeted and harassed by police, illegally searched, incarcerated, and abused.

Do we believe each person’s life has the same inherent value? That each unhoused person, each immigrant and refugee, each Palestinian in Gaza or the West Bank, every Cuban, every person, really has equal value… then we must change things.

Housing first – and so much more.

Taylor Ellis of South Kingstown worked for a RI non-profit for 19 years, developing and maintaining affordable housing for people who have suffered homelessness. He is an active member of RI Homeless Advocacy Project that organizes and advocates for human rights of the unhoused community. It meets on Wednesdays at 134 Mathewson Street Providence at noon on Wednesdays.