Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit advocacy group, earlier this month led about 300 people on a march from Kennedy Plaza to the Statehouse to raise awareness about homelessness in the Ocean State.
Coalition Executive Director Jim Ryczek spoke with Providence Business News about legislative decisions affecting homelessness, the state of affordable housing in Rhode Island and why he and other advocates are pushing for reinstatement of the Neighborhood Opportunities Program.
PBN: How did the rally at the Statehouse go?
RYCZEK: The overarching theme was growing healthy communities and stimulating the economy.
From the standpoint of stimulating the economy, one of our major points was that we need to reinstate and fully fund the Neighborhood Opportunities Program. That’s a program that was first passed by the General Assembly in 2001, focused on rehabbing or building homes or apartment units for very low-income Rhode Islanders. And it’s our only source of targeted production money for that population – we’re talking 30 percent to 50 percent of median income. And it’s our only source of funding for permanent supportive housing programs for homeless individuals and families. … Not only is it an effective program as far as the outcomes for the clients, but … according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, these types of programs stimulate the economy by putting $9 for every $1 worth of investment back into the community in the form of jobs in the building trades, purchases of durable goods and all those types of things.
PBN: How has cutting funding for NOP affected homelessness?
RYCZEK: NOP still exists, until July 1. What happened was: In fall 2008, we still had $7.5 million on the books for NOP and we went through a round of applications and grants. And $5 million was granted. By the spring, we were going to be entertaining applications for the remaining $2.5 million, but the structural budget had already hit, [Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s] supplemental budget had already hit, actually eliminating all $7.5 million from that year’s budget.
PBN: That money was already spent?
RYCZEK: Some of it had been spent. All of it was granted, with signed contracts with providers. The short story is: The fix was that the General Assembly allocated $2.5 million in FY08 and $2.5 million in FY09. What that did was make the $5 million that was granted whole, but prevented any new projects from moving forward through the Neighborhood Opportunities Program.
In effect, NOP was stopped in spring 2008. And the governor didn’t put it in the budget for FY10, and we obviously think that’s a mistake and we want to put it back in fully funded.
PBN: There has been a record amount of homeless-shelter use in Rhode Island during the last few years, right?
RYCZEK: Yes. The use of shelters has been the highest in our state’s history over the last few years. We’ve been consistently above 6,000 individuals in shelter usage. We’re now experiencing the highest childhood homelessness in our state’s history.
PBN: What’s caused the spike in childhood homelessness?
RYCZEK: We’re still looking at the data to try to analyze exactly what’s going on there. My first take on it is that it’s due to two things that will bring us back to the foreclosure issue, which was part of our rally. Foreclosures went up considerably over the last year. This past year, since April 2008, we’ve had 136 families come into the shelter system who name foreclosure as the primary or secondary reason for their homelessness. The whole year previous, I think we had 25 families come in and mention that.
That’s due to, obviously, the subprime lending issues we’ve had in the state. … But most of those [now-homeless] families had been in rental units – they were paying their rent – and their landlords got into foreclosure problems. When you are a renter in a foreclosed property, the landlord-tenant act does not apply. With foreclosures, you could be asked to leave immediately. There’s no notification or just cause. They do have to get an eviction based on the foreclosure, but many families don’t know that.
The other issue is just the economic stress of the unemployment rate going up. People living on the edge and who just can’t make ends meet.
PBN: How will the $2.2 billion in anti-homelessness funding that U.S. Sen. Jack Reed’s office announced this month affect Rhode Island?
RYCZEK: The supportive housing program is [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] money that comes to the state to provide services for people who are homeless. It also provides some of the operating support for organizations to run those types of programs.
PBN: Is there an indication of how much of that funding will come to Rhode Island?
RYCZEK: There won’t be [a definite amount] until we go into the competitive grant process.
PBN: How is the Housing First program, which provides permanent housing for some of Rhode Island’s chronic homeless, going?
RYCZEK: They’ve now completed the second year of evaluation of the program. It still shows an [estimated] $8,000 per person savings over the costs of night-to-night shelter. When people think about night-to-night shelter, they think of it as cheap, because it’s about $25 a night to house somebody in a shelter. But the people that are being housed in that shelter also cost the system in emergency room use for primary care. When they go into the hospital for medical issues or psychiatric issues, those are usually costs that are passed on to the taxpayers.
Riverwood Mental Health Services, which runs the program, just got one of 13 national awards from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration. •
INTERVIEW
Jim Ryczek
POSITION: Executive director of Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless
BACKGROUND: Before joining RICH, Ryczek had been director of field education at Rhode Island College School of Social Work for five years. For the five years prior, he had been a clinical social worker with the Miriam Hospital’s Project Bridge program.
EDUCATION: B.M. in music education, from University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1987; M.S.W. in social work, Boston University, 1995.
FIRST JOB: In the summer after he finished high school in Ludlow, Mass., Ryczek was a “lackey” in the town’s sewer department.
RESIDENCE: Cranston
AGE: 43
