PAWTUCKET – The renovation of a former funeral home on Garden Street into permanent housing for the homeless was celebrated this week by state and local officials and affordable-housing advocates.
The $1.38 million project has transformed the McAloon-Kelly Funeral Home, built during the early 1900s, into The Residence at Garden Street. The building will house six chronically homeless men, according to Rhode Island Housing. The six residents will be trained in woodworking and carpentry by licensed carpenters and encouraged to take computer courses at Woodlawn Community Center, the agency said.
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“For the past three years, the renovation of this building into permanent supportive housing for six chronically homeless men has been a dream. Today, we are celebrating the reality,” Nancy Whit, executive director of the Pawtucket Citizens Development Corporation, said in a statement.
“As a member of the Homeless Working Group in Pawtucket, PCDC is thrilled that we can offer a concrete contribution to ending homelessness in Pawtucket,” she said.
Also attending the ribbon-cutting Wednesday were Pawtucket Mayor James E. Doyle; Richard H. Godfrey, executive director of Rhode Island Housing; Susan Baxter, chair of the R.I. Housing Resources Commission; and state Sen. Daniel J. Issa, D-Pawtucket, Cumberland and Central Falls.
With local rents, home prices and utility costs all “out-of-reach,” Godfrey said, “more and more Rhode Islanders are finding themselves homeless and in need of permanent supportive housing and services.”
Rhode Island Housing is a self-sustaining agency that helps Rhode Islanders to obtain homes they can afford, offering loans, grants and consumer education. To learn more, visit www.rhodeislandhousing.org.
Additional information about the nonprofit Pawtucket Citizens Development Corporation, founding during 1990, can be found at www.pawtucketcdc.com.
