PROVIDENCE – In the year ended June 30, the statewide emergency shelter system provided more people-nights of refuge than ever before, including record numbers of families and long-term homeless people, the Rhode Island Emergency Food and Shelter Board reports.
Ocean State shelters provided a record 234,226 nights of shelter to homeless men, women and children in 2005-2006, shelter board estimates show.
The number of individuals sheltered rose 8 percent to 6,889, swelling 56 percent in the five years since 2000-2001.
The number of families sheltered rose 9 percent to a record 882, increasing 50 percent since 2000-2001.
The system also saw more long-term homelessness in 2006-2006; a record 9 percent of shelter clients had been homeless for two years or more.
“This human crisis can be effectively addressed through full implementation of the state’s strategic plan to end homelessness,” said report author Eric Hirsch, a Providence College sociology professor. That plan calls for more subsidized housing, especially for families, and for “creative management” of rental subsidies, among other proposals.
“We’re very concerned about the impact [of] proposed state budget cuts,” especially on young adults, 800 of whom may be at risk under the proposed change that would end state foster care at age 18 instead of 21, said Jim Ryczek, a shelter board member and the executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless. “Our homeless shelter system is at or very near capacity every night,” he added.
“We know how to solve this crisis,” said Anthony Maione, president and CEO of United Way of Rhode Island. “If we work together – philanthropy, government, the faith and business communities – we can.”
Additional information is available at www.uwri.org.
