Throughout January, a polar vortex swept through most of the country, with temperatures falling to the single digits in Providence. The starkness of the homelessness crisis was yet again highlighted as the weather dipped into fatally low temperatures with not enough shelter beds to meet the needs of people living outside.
The response to this winter weather emergency included a makeshift shelter at City Hall with the leadership of City Councilors Justin Roias and Miguel Sanchez in the first week of the year; a temporary warming center at The DaVinci Center in the last week of January; and finally, a joint hearing between the Senate Oversight Committee and the Committee on Housing and Municipal Government on January 21.
During the joint meeting, lawmakers questioned the newly appointed, acting Secretary of the RI Department of Housing, Deborah Goddard, about the department’s response to homelessness in Rhode Island—including the ongoing ECHO Village project, which has faced delays due to questions about which regulatory code the structures should fall under. The 45-unit shelter village located off Route 146 is seen as an alternative to traditional shelters, with its website stating that it aims to create “Rapidly deployable units providing a safe & cost-effective temporary shelter for those experiencing homelessness.”
A pallet shelter village with fewer units than ECHO opened in Boston in December 2021. Located in a parking lot next to Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, Pallet—the company contracted by the State of Massachusetts—stated that the 18 shelters were “built in approximately two weeks.” However, the success of the rapidly deployed shelters was temporary, as the state closed the program in May of last year as federal COVID-assistance funds ran out.
Here are some facts about ECHO Village, by the numbers:
March 2024 – the initial expected opening for ECHO Village
February 2025 – the estimated completion time Rhode Island Housing Secretary Deborah Goddard provided at the joint committee senate hearing on Tuesday, January 21
7 months – the length that the project has been under active construction, according to House of Hope Executive Director Laura Jaworski at the joint hearing, saying “That’s still incredibly aggressive and [a] remarkable time period to have done what we have done on that site.”
54 – total units: 45 one person sleeping units; 4 office units; 4 bathroom/shower units; 1
community room
70 sq ft – the size of the sleeping units
524 – people in RI living outside right now (at the time of reporting)
$3.3 million – the initial budget for the pallet shelters’ purchase, operations, and construction
$4.6 million – the current project total, according to reporting from WJAR. The additional costs are attributed to construction costs, according to the Department of Housing.
56 – The average number of days individuals wait in the shelter queue
670 – The maximum number of days an individual has waited on the shelter queue in RI
Sources:
RI Coalition to End Homelessness’ Inflow Data
Steve Alquist’s Senate Oversight Recording
NBC 10 I-Team: Rhode Island’s delayed Pallet home project is over budget
Providence pallet shelter village expected to open by end of February
Dana Schneider is a writer and poet living in South Providence with her cat named Froggy. She enjoys gardening, reading, and hanging out in Providence’s many beautiful parks.
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