Here are the facts
By Steve Ahlquist in UpRiseRI
“The 80 number, I don’t believe is accurate,” said the Governor,
who later, and contradictorily said, “I’m not disputing any numbers.”
The Governor added that there is no list of the 80+ encampments.
“I know the advocates have that list,” said Uprise RI.
“They don’t,” said Governor McKee, only it turns out they do, and that information was provided to the State this Fall.
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| The information in this chart is based on street outreach worker data and is not data derived from the homeless management information system (RIHMIS). |
Uprise RI contacted the Coalition’s Communications and
Development Manager Juan Espinoza for a comment.
“The Coalition has information on encampments throughout the
state, but given the nature of homelessness, this information changes
regularly,” wrote Espinoza. “This Fall, we estimated approximately 82
encampments and prepared the visual below, which was shared with the Department
of Housing at the time.”
“For privacy and safety reasons, we are not sharing exact
locations of encampments,” continued Espinoza, “however if sufficient resources
were available to shelter or house everyone in these locations, the Coordinated
Entry System (CES) would be able to effectively deploy these resources.”
The coordinated entry system is a “nationally recognized process developed to ensure that all people experiencing a housing crisis have fair and equal access and are quickly identified, assessed for, referred, and connected to housing and assistance based on their strengths and needs.” The system is also designed to help Rhode Island satisfy federal HUD regulations.
As for the number of people sleeping unhoused in the state, that
number has fallen from 502 in early November to an estimated 385 in early
December.
“In terms of the current unsheltered number, we are glad to report
that our two week unsheltered number has reduced, as you can see below,” said
Espinoza. “This is likely a result of shelter beds coming online, however there
still remains a huge gap of resources for those outdoors.
“This unsheltered number is calculated by counting persons who report they are living outside and have either interacted with CES or a street outreach worker in the last two weeks.”
“It would be more prudent for the Governor’s office to engage in
in-depth planning to add additional shelter beds to address the 385 Rhode
Islanders experiencing homelessness than to attempt to vacate an encampment,”
wrote Espinoza. “There are not enough shelter beds available for the members of
the encampment, much less the 385 unsheltered Rhode Islanders.”
