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Homeless in RI: Into the Woods With Heat, Water, and Christmas Cookies – Bernie Beaudreau
Temperature today, Dec. 30, 2am – 27 degrees. Wind chill, feel like – 11 degrees
by Bernie Beaudreau, community advocate and volunteer – contributing writer
I received a text on Friday morning, December 26, from Marilyn, another homeless person camped in the woods near my home. She wrote “Hi Bernie my name is Marilyn. I was given your card by Carl. “My boyfriend and I are homeless. We are staying in the woods. My neighbor, Carl, suggested I text you because we have been without heat for a few days since we ran out of money for propane.” I texted her saying I would see what I could do and will get back to her soon.
My step daughter, her husband and his father, and their younger daughter had planned to volunteer at the Pawtucket Soup Kitchen later in the day. Adrienne, the soup kitchen manager, called me late morning and said that our help wasn’t needed due to the extreme cold. She said there would be only a few folks that could endure the frigid walk to get to the meal site on Walcott Street safely. She was planning a meal for the few that would brave the elements anyway. So, we went with “Plan B” and arranged with Marilyn and two other homeless campers in the woods to check on their fuel supplies and deliver propane and some Christmas cookies my grandchildren had baked.
Marilyn explained to me that she and her boyfriend, Jerry, had lost their apartment a year ago, collected some camping gear and moved to this place in the woods, not far from fourteen other homeless campers scattered about. It was their second winter in a tent. I asked if they had tried using the state’s shelter system and she said there is nothing available for couples. Men and women are separated at the shelters. Marilyn said with great conviction, “Jerry and I have been together for eleven years and we’re not going to be separated now.”
Marilyn thanked us for the propane and cookies and said this should be the only time they need help because Jerry had just begun a new job at Walmart and would receive his first paycheck on January 2nd. She also found a part-time job at a local sandwich shop starting the first week in the new year.
My inquisitive 11-year-old granddaughter and her parents asked more about the homelessness crisis on our way to the next tent site. I explained that there are solutions for homelessness but many more people need to learn about their real needs and care enough to support new and effective government and community supported projects to increase the supply of affordable housing as well as new, good-paying job opportunities.
We visited two other homeless friends encamped together and delivered propane refill tanks. I was pleased to see one of them using the (safer but less powerful) DIY copper tub alcohol burner I delivered earlier in the month. He said it keeps his two-man tent warm enough to be able to sleep on a cold night. I have four more burners handy that I’d like to introduce to others, maybe more.
It was also great to see the plentiful supply of water bottles that long-time volunteer, Pat Ford, had delivered from Cumberland on the Monday before Christmas to these tent sites. For the past three years Pat has made it his year-round volunteer mission to collect donated water and deliver it to encampments throughout the state. As the saying goes, “water is life” and Pat has long recognized that the supply of bottles of water is a year-round vital need. We had organized a couple of drop off locations at the edge of the woods where folks would meet us and help with the distribution to the other tent sites. These were new sites for Pat to add to his water deliveries. Pat told me it costs his mutual aid group – LibertarianMutualAid.org – about $2,000 a month to rent the cargo van and fill it several times to deliver to the unsheltered homeless.
Feeling optimistic, Marilyn and Jerry, with their two new jobs, are on their way to a better life. They know it will take awhile but hope to save enough to secure a low-cost apartment, if they can find one.
*Names and locations have been changed.
Bernie Beaudreau, community volunteer, Rumford, RI
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Housing RI provides a list of resources, housing, emergency shelters, some of which change from day to day – access that list HERE – https://housing.ri.gov/resources/individuals-experiencing-homelessness
Thank you
Hi, we are trying to make a difference
our fb page is below
and coverage of our recent is summit is below as well
the event was fun and a success see the article below Housing Summit Advocates for Prefab Shelters and ADUs
the state , riddc, want to hold a statewide summit next
the FB page for the initiative is below, this also has a history of postings related to the event
lets have a have a great 2026 together!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1928273934704288
Housing Summit Advocates for Prefab Shelters and ADUs
By Newport This Week Staff
on November 26, 2025
By Zane Wolfang
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The recently formed Regional Affordable and Homeless Housing Coalition held a forum on Nov. 19 at CCRI Newport to discuss the most critical needs of the more than 2,000 homeless individuals who live in cars, tents or on the streets of Newport County.
Speakers included Cheryl Rob¬inson, of Turning Around Min¬istries, Jimmy Winters, from the Newport Housing Hotline, and Annette Bourbonniere, of Accessi¬bility & Inclusion Consulting.
Robinson estimated that Newport is home to approximately 30 people who are sleeping in cars or on the streets every night. She had a clear message that regardless of stereo-types, anyone can become homeless.
Her presentation, “Voices of the Unhoused,” featured audio clips from interviews with unhoused individuals, including senior cit¬izens, a young single man, a dis¬abled woman, and a family of two working parents and three young daughters who are currently living in a local motel after struggling to find permanent affordable housing in multiple states.
When asked by an audience member about the efficacy of a pallet shelter, a temporary pre¬fabricated structure to get people off the street, along the lines of Echo Village in Providence, Rob¬inson suggested it may be a better solution as transitional housing. It would then free up shelter beds for those transitioning off the street.
“It is hard for some people to ad¬just,” she said. “It depends on how long they have been out on the street. We’ve had some people who we have helped get apartments, and they still sleep on the floor. They won’t sleep on the bed. So there needs to be a transition process.”
Winters has been helping people get off the streets in New¬port since 1978. He and his wife, Barbara, run the Newport Housing Hotline, operating on a shoestring budget to keep people from freezing to death by putting them up in local motels. Asked how the situation has changed over the de¬cades, he said, “It’s still a very, very uphill battle, and we’re getting more desperate situations now. In the past, if you needed affordable housing, you might be able to go to Fall River. Now Fall River has a 10-year waiting list for Section 8.”
Citing the extreme shortage in affordable housing and multi-year waitlists in surrounding towns, Winters endorsed the pallet shelter idea as a solution.
“It’s important to work together to address this problem,” he said. “It’s not going to go away, so the pallet situation is an excellent idea because we just have to get people off the streets into afford¬able housing.”
Bourbonniere, a local economist and advocate for the unhoused and people with disabilities, shared data from the federal HUD Point-in-Time Count in 2019 and 2023 to contextualize the the in¬crease in homelessness in Rhode Island. It showed a 370 percent in¬crease in homelessness across the state, and a 65 percent increase in households with at least one child.
Bourbonniere, who experienced housing insecurity herself before becoming an advocate, also spoke about the intrinsic tie between healthcare and housing. She showed a graph revealing that over 30 percent of Rhode Island’s home¬less population have a mental health disorder, over 20 percent have a chronic illness, and nearly 20 percent have a physical disability.
“Both systems are not working,” she said. “Healthcare for homeless people has to be brought to them. What we have here on the island is pretty fragmented and inacces-sible. And we are kind of looked down on for being homeless and for being disabled. They don’t want to give people credit for knowing what they need.”
Paul Bernard, the founder of Newport Modular Homes, ex¬plained the benefits of the state’s new accessory dwelling unit (ADU) law, which took effect in 2024. He said the law is suited to some of Aquidneck Island’s housing need, because they can be rented at a lower rate than other apartments in the area. They would help aging homeowners generate enough income to keep up with rising local property taxes, he added. The law provides homeowners the right to develop a single ADU on any owner-occupied property to accommodate a disabled family member. It can be added either within the existing footprint or on any lot larger than 20,000 square feet, provided the ADU’s design satisfies building codes, size limits and infrastructure requirements.
Other service providers sent rep¬resentatives to the summit and set up tables in the lobby, including Child and Family, the Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Healthcare, and Devel¬opmental Disabilities & Hospitals.
This summit was the second held by the coalition. It first met on Nov. 3 at Innovate Newport to discuss solutions to the housing crisis that included a “tiny homes” presentation.