As homelessness grows dramatically across this country and in Rhode Island, organizations like Newport’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center (MLK Center) are also being challenged to meet the increasing demand among the area’s poor for basic needs, particularly food.
Both issues – homelessness and food insecurity – were prominent in reports released recently by the MLK Center and the RI Coalition to End Homelessness.
The MLK Center announced that in the past year, it distributed more than 1.1 million meals to nearly 6,000 people in Newport County over the last year, an increase of more than 30 percent.
The Homeless Coalition released the results of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual point-in-time homeless survey, conducted one day and night in January across the country. The survey found 2,442 people in Rhode Island who are homeless, living in shelter, cars, campgrounds and shelters, a 35 percent increase over last year.
Both reports come as the U.S. Supreme Court Conservatives last week, on 6 to 3 decision found laws that criminalize sleeping in public spaces do not violate Constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. That ruling upheld Grants Pass, Oregon’s ban on camping.
Meanwhile, the MLK Center’s Heather Hole Strout, executive director, said “the numbers are staggering.” She said 30 percent of those receiving food are seniors, many of whom are “trying to age in place” because they have nowhere else to go.
At issue, she said, is the rising and stagnant donations. “The summer months are particularly challenging, when donations ebb and need rises. To help sustain the food pantry, the MLK Community Center” has developed what it calls its “Freedom from Hunger campaign,” asking for donations of food or cash that will be matched “dollar per pound or dollar per dollar up to $25,000.”
Food donations can be made at the MLK Center’s loading dock Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Financial donations can be on line at the MLK Center’s website, mlkcenter.org/support-us/.
While the MLK Center does not deal directly with housing issues, Strout sees it often among the Center’s clients. At the time of the Point in Time survey, she said 25 people were staying in the city’s “warming center” and others were “staying in their cars…people need a place to live and a place to sleep.”
While there are “stopgap” approaches it’s “a problem that needs to be addressed by the state and cities and towns…quickly,” she said.
“With poverty on the rise and the lack of affordable housing, homelessness will continue to rise in Rhode Island unless we take immediate action,” said Kimberly Simmons, executive director of the Homelessness Coalition. “The growth in the Point in Time count is the result of a lack of investment in affordable housing, rising housing costs, and large numbers of evictions.”
Here are numbers as reported by the Homeless Coalition:
- On that one night in January, there were 2,442 individuals experiencing homelessness, as compared to 1,809 last year.
- There were 1,565 individuals who were found homeless and 877 people in families experiencing homelessness.
- Some 534 Rhode Islanders were living on the streets, a 60 percent increase from last year and a 652 percent increase from 2019.
- The number of those characterized as chronically homeless rose from 629 last year to 936 this year.
- Among the homeless in January were 142 young adults and 130 veterans.
In its call to action, the Homeless Coalition is calling for greater investment in the “Homeless Response System,” increasing emergency shelters, more efficiency in the Department of Housing, additional affordable housing, and a “Robust Permanent Housing Problem Solving Fund to assist households with flexible funding.”
