As the sun was setting on August 27, about two dozen people from a variety of neighborhoods on the West Side stood in a circle around two benches in Dexter Park to share their grievances with John Hope Settlement House (JHSH). The West End community center once provided a variety of services, including before and after school programming, job training, and a food pantry. In recent years, many of these programs have been severely reduced or eliminated completely.
“You got all these rooms in there, and none of them are being utilized,” Adrien Hazard, one community member, said. “We’ve got three kitchens… that I could have these teenagers in where I could teach them. Where I could stop them from being killed in these streets and going down the path that I went down.”
In addition to lack of community programming, neighbors expressed their concern about the organization’s crumbling building at 7 Thomas P. Whitten Way, resulting in unsafe conditions for children and staff members. Concerns about alleged misuse of funds also came up as one neighbor after another spoke.
Community organizers Janice Luongo, Rosa Ortiz, and Michell Bridges of the recently formed coalition Save John Hope led the conversation. Rochelle Lee, who is on the Board of Trustees at PPS, is also one of the founding members, along with former state Representative Joe Almeida. The group is calling for the entire board of directors at John Hope to be removed immediately. In a petition circulated by Save John Hope, the group alleges that the current board has “failed its fiduciary responsibilities to act as trustees of the organization’s assets.”
One point of concern at the meeting was the longevity of John Hope’s joint daycare and preschool, located inside their building. This daycare has served as a vital source of childcare in the working-class neighborhood for years. JHSH has been housed in the building at 7 Thomas P. Whitten Way since 1946, but members of Save John Hope alleged that the board has failed to maintain the historic building. The roof is being repaired ahead of the start of the school year, but Save John Hope argued that much more needs to be done before the building is safe and sanitary for children and staff.
The roof of the building at 7 Thomas P. Whitten Way is being repaired before the start of the school year. August 29, 2024. | Photo by Keating Zelenke
“They’ve got rats, they’ve got mice, they’ve got mold — and there’s children in that building — they’ve got leaky windows,” Luongo said. A resident of Smith Hill, she is a longtime community activist and managing editor of Street Sights, a magazine targeted at Rhode Island’s homeless population.
John Hope Settlement House owns another property at 11 Higgins Avenue by Nathanael Greene Middle School in Smith Hill. It’s unclear what that building is currently used for, or what it has ever been used for. When PPS drove by the property, the windows were boarded up and the glass on the front door appeared to be broken.
Another point of concern among the people at last Tuesday’s meeting was mismanagement of funds. A former member of John Hope’s board of directors was present at the meeting; Nick Horton, now co-executive director of Open Doors, served on the JHSH board from 2017 until 2019. He said he worked as the treasurer for much of that time.
“The books are in total disarray,” Horton said. “It’s very possible that there hasn’t been an audit since 2013.”
Save John Hope said that they have met with a variety of government officials to voice their concerns, from local city councilors to the state attorney general. None of these officials were able to get the coalition any financial information on how the group is being run from the inside, exacerbating their suspicions.
John Hope Settlement House has been a pillar of the Black community in Providence since the late 1920s. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, JHSH was one of the city’s only community centers that catered to people of color, specifically African Americans.
“We’re here in support and, as an old person, a certain devotion to John Hope,” Rochelle Lee said. Many of the other meeting attendees expressed a similar feeling, assuring each other that they came from a place of wanting to help the organization survive.
“[John Hope] is where I raised myself,” Rosa Ortiz said. She worked with JHSH for over a decade as head of the cheerleading program. Her organization, the West End Community Revival Association, works to bring free events to the community. Many of those events were hosted at JHSH, until they decided to no longer work with her.
“If it wasn’t for that place, I wouldn’t be where I am now,” Ortiz said. “I want that to be something we’re always thinking about, because that’s our home.”
PPS reached out to JHSH’s board of directors, but has not yet received a response. Their website appears to be under construction and offers no contact information, nor does it have an updated list of who is currently on the board. The organization’s Facebook has not been updated since 2023.
This story was originally published by the Providence Preservation Society, which is shifting to include local news coverage. Read more here and subscribe to the PPS Newsletter.
Keating Zelenke is the Mary A. Gowdey Special Projects Fellow at The Providence Preservation Society. She graduated from Stony Brook University in 2023 with a B.A. in Journalism and a concentration in multimedia production. Her greatest skills lie in both feature writing and print layout design, and it’s important to her that the news be accessible and interesting for all readers.
