The annual count of homeless individuals and families in Rhode Island – and across the nation — began today, with the expectation that the numbers that have consistently been rising for five years will continue to rise.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development conducts its Point-in-Time Count on what used to be one specific day in January that has now expanded to five days, according to Russ Partridge, executive director of the WARM Center in Westerly and Welcome House in Wakefield.
This phase looks for those characterized as “unhoused,” individuals literally living on the streets. The full count includes those in emergency shelters, transitional housing and “safe havens on a single night.”
While the count begins in January, the actual numbers are not released by HUD until December. In 2023, there were 650,000 homeless individuals across the country, a 12 percent increase from 2022.
In 2023, in Rhode Island, the count found a total of 1,810 individuals, which included 595 persons in families, 81 young adults, 629 chronically homeless, 100 veterans, and 1,214 individuals. Over the last five years, the numbers have increased yearly – 1,055 in 2019, 1,104 in 2020, 1,267 in 2021, 1,576 in 2022, and 1,810 last year.
The number of those unsheltered has also increased dramatically, from 71 in 2019 to 334 last year.
Asked what to expect this year, Patridge simply said shelters statewide have been “overwhelmed.”
The Point-in-Time Count, HUD says is used when making decisions “regarding federal/sate funding, advocacy routes, and resource management.”
Meanwhile, what was announced with great promise some two months – a 12 family temporary homeless shelter on the URI campus, is still bogged down in what has been described as the “bureaucracy.”
Partridge’s WARM Center was to manage the facility, a former temporary shelter for developmentally disabled individuals recovering from COVID during the Pandemic.
Involved in the process are three state agencies – State Properties Committee, Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities & Hospitals, and Department of Housing.
Partridge says they are still waiting for one more inspection and is concerned the project has now become delayed by government bureaucracy.
“The bureaucracy involved is sometimes overwhelming,” he says. “Is it going to happen? Maybe not in that building.”
Those who expected to occupy the family shelter have not been informed, Partridge says, and are now housed in motels, with funding from the Department of Housing.
If the family shelter opens it is only slated to be temporary, ending in April when Behavioral Health intends to again use it for developmentally disabled individuals.
