It’s Wednesday afternoon at 5:20 upstairs at the Olneyville Boys and Girls Club, and Alan G. Hassenfeld looks worn out. Clutching a crumpled green apron in his hand, the Hasbro Inc. chairman relaxes, having just spent the afternoon serving hot meals to children who might otherwise have gone without. Now, in a makeshift dining room in which tables have been set with paper plates and napkins, he and other executives volunteering today for a new program to feed children citywide chat before sitting down to eat.
Hassenfeld reflects on why business people should volunteer.
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”To see it, (to) get your hands dirty, makes a big difference,” said Hassenfeld, who is helping launch a program in conjunction with Rhode Island Community Food Bank and Boys and Girls Clubs of Providence called Kids Café. “Unless you can put a face on a real problem, no one listens.”
Hassenfeld was asking people to listen to an important fact: that Providence, like all cities, has hungry children. It has adults who can’t find jobs. It has whole sections that are struggling to rebound from neglect.
It raises the question: Is the touted renaissance of Providence, in which a river has been moved and a $450 million mall is being erected, reaching the neighborhoods?
It depends on whom you ask.
”I think it’s starting, but it’s got a long way to go,” said Joseph E. Newsome, executive director and president of the South Providence Development Corp., a nonprofit coalition that seeks to improve the area’s economic climate.
“Quite a number of Providence neighborhoods are suffering from 40 to 50 years of continuous dis-investment, and it takes an enormous amount of effort to reverse that – and resources, which don’t tend to flow here.”
Newsome should know. A former state representative who has lived on the city’s south side for 20 years, Newsome can show you vacant lots and empty buildings. He can point to illegal dump sites. But he can also show you progress, like the $300,000 rehab of a three-story colonial-revival home at 570 Broad St. that will serve as a business incubator for small professional businesses.
He can also point to the development of new business at 150 Colfax St., the site of the former Coken Electrical Engineering Co.
All of these things represent vast improvements, even compared to five years ago, Newsome said. Business is starting to notice. A new dialysis center that will soon open at the corner of Broad and Plenty Streets is one example, he said.
Compare Foods, a New York supermarket chain that specializes in ethnic foods, is another. The store moved to Broad Street seven months ago and has flourished. On a recent Thursday afternoon, Spanish music blared as shoppers strolled past tall stacks of canned Goya beans and sacks of enriched rice.
”We’re more ethnic,” said Store Manager Sam Brito, adding that his selection of Asian, Jamaican, and Spanish foods makes Compare different from other supermarkets.
Retailers moving back into the city has become a trend in recent years, said Patrick McGuigan, executive director of The Providence Plan, a nonprofit that works to revitalize the inner-city. With suburbs being saturated, he said, businesses are taking advantage of the tax credits available in inner cities. They’re also exploiting the buying power of the high numbers of people living in dense areas, he said.
McGuigan said Providence needs an explicit strategy to spread the prosperity of the downtown to its neighborhoods. He cited Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr.’s “Three Cities” proposal – in which the city would develop the waterfront along Allens Avenue, the old factory district on the opposite side of Route 95 from Providence Place, and the area between Atwells Avenue and Broad Street – as an example of a plan that would connect the downtown and residential areas, and provide the infrastructure the city needs to attract business.
But community activists seem to agree that education is the most important aspect of any plan for the city. McGuigan is one of them.
”I don’t think there’s any disagreement, no matter what your point of view, schools are key,” he said. “We need a mechanism to fund education.”
Legislators attempted to solve the problem when they passed Article 31 in 1997. The bill, which went into effect in 1998, required that all communities receive the same amount of school funding that they received in fiscal year 1997. Through a series of programs, the bill then diverted about 80 percent of the state’s new school aid money to the state’s 10 urban communities.
The change was made because cities like Providence are facing special problems. For example, its school population has shot up by 6,000 students – from 20,000 to 26,000 – in the last 10 years, an increase that is about the size of the entire East Providence school system.
In addition, students in Providence tend to move around more and require more services than their suburban counterparts, noted Peter M. Marino, director of policy for the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.
The problem with Article 31, however, is that it cemented the inequalities that had been built into the state system, Marino said. That is why legislators must create a funding mechanism that deals with a wide range of needs, such as providing resources equitably and ensuring accountability, he said. “A formula has to address all those issues,” Marino said.
But while experts say education is one of the city’s problems, it is far from the only barrier it faces while redeveloping neighborhoods. Irwin Becker, executive director of Greater Elmwood Neighborhood Services Inc., a nonprofit, said Providence needs more than piecemeal efforts. Rather, he said, it needs something akin to the Marshall Plan, an effort that deals with poor neighborhoods’ myriad needs, from better access to equity and capital to better transportation.
And you can’t forget taxes, which Becker cites as a key issue.
”Our taxes are a killer in this city,” he said.
Specifically, experts say Providence is burdened by its Tangible Property Tax, the highest in the state and among the highest in the region. While taxes on wholesale and retail inventory are being phased out, the city’s taxes on computers, furniture, leased equipment, and lease-held improvements remain. The tax on these items is $76.78 per $1,000, 2.4 times the real estate tax of $31.99 per $1,000.
Bill Collins, director of policy in Cianci’s administration, said the mayor is trying to find a way to cut the tangible property tax in half so that it equals the real estate tax. The problem is that doing so will cost $25 million. And finding that money is difficult, he said.
”We do recognize that it is a problem,” Collins said. “(It’s) an important priority.”
But the city has other priorities as well. One of them is leveraging federal Housing and Urban Development funds to assist business development in neighborhoods, said John F. Palmieri, the city’s director of planning and development.
Experts say the city needs programs to encourage small business development in its poorer areas for a number of reasons. But one primary reason is to counter the flight of businesses to the suburbs. When Brown & Sharpe left the Smith Hill area of Providence for North Kingstown, they say, it took with it the primary source of income for the area. After that the neighborhood began its decline.
Slowly, however, a neighborhood nonprofit group called Smith Hill Community Development Corp. is rebuilding the area’s most blighted neighborhoods. Working with the city and federal funds, the group is buying old homes, rehabilitating them, and renting them to low-income residents.
Goddard Street is a prime example. Once a wealthy neighborhood, it gradually fell into the hands of drug dealers, prostitutes, and gangs. Today, the street has calmed down as more and more houses are rebuilt, said Executive Director Aime Brissette.
On a recent tour, Brissette pointed to crack houses that had been restored and now gleam with new paint, freshly planted flowers, and well-landscaped lawns guarded by simulated rod-iron fences.
The progress gives Brissette reason to be optimistic.
”Things are changing,” he said, “so when you talk about whether a renaissance is happening, I say it is.”
