The state Department of Transportation announced on Nov. 4 plans to clear a piece of land where a homeless encampment had existed for nearly three years, setting in motion a standoff between DOT workers and local activists protesting what they term insensitive treatment of the city's homeless population.
Several Brown students, including members of the student group Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere, took part in demonstrations protesting DOT's handling of the clearance.
HOPE members joined local reporters and other activists at the encampment Nov. 7, arriving at 7 a.m. in an attempt to delay the scheduled demolition. Though bulldozers were ready to clear the area, DOT decided to temporarily postpone the project and work on a nearby lot.
"It's horrible publicity," said Julia Wolfson '06, one of the students who visited the site. "People standing in front of a bulldozer is not an image you want to have."
Activists returned the following two mornings before demolition commenced during the afternoon on Nov. 10.
The encampment, cleared for highway construction, was located on Hospital Street near Point Street and provided shelter to anywhere from seven to 15 people at different points during its three-year existence. People staying at the encampment, many of whom had been there for at least several months, were given three days to pack up whatever belongings they had before vacating.
One homeless couple had set up a "shack-type dwelling" that featured a makeshift heating system. They had reportedly been staying at the encampment for 18 months and were the only residents who did not leave following the demolition announcement. "It was a pretty legitimate shelter for them," said HOPE member Geoffrey Gusoff '07.
For Wolfson and other student activists, the three-day warning shows a lack of respect for Providence's homeless community.
"It's understandable that that area needed to be cleared," Wolfson said. "The problem is they gave them very short notice."
Residents of the makeshift encampment reportedly had a verbal agreement with DOT allowing them to stay there, Wolfson said.
Even though the encampment was eventually cleared, the demonstration did have some positive effects, according to Eric Hirsch, treasurer of People to End Homelessness and an associate professor of sociology at Providence College.
"I think the main success of the demonstrations was that we did give them additional time to look for a new place," Hirsch said. He added that, as a result of the standoff, he believes DOT will give homeless people facing relocation more time - perhaps as long as a month - to find other accommodations in the future.
Without the help of HOPE volunteers, Hirsch said, "it's possible the DOT might have gone ahead with the demolition" on Monday. "They were extremely helpful in terms of having people at the construction site," he added.
Still, protesters object to how DOT handled the clearance. Though the department promised to provide sleeping bags and tents to those misplaced by the demolition, these provisions did not arrive on time, Wolfson said.
DOT did later provide two cold-weather sleeping bags and a tent, Hirsch said.
"We didn't really feel that was adequate, but it was better than nothing," he said.
The department also tried to arrange for case workers to meet with each relocated person, Wolfson said.
DOT workers "felt kind of bad about what was happening," Gusoff said. "This is the largest encampment for people. Hopefully, there will be somewhere else that the people can stay."
When DOT announced its demolition plans, it encouraged relocated homeless people to seek support from Crossroads Rhode Island, a service provider located at 160 Broad St.
The department decided to enlist Crossroads because "they are the experts on this," said Dana Alexander Nolfe, a DOT spokeswoman. Such demolition projects "aren't something that anyone wants to do," she added.
Should future clearance projects occur, "we will work with Crossroads Rhode Island and other agencies who deal with the homeless in the most timely manner possible," Nolfe said.
However, Wolfson said the decision to refer the affected homeless population to an agency like Crossroads fails to acknowledge that residents of an encampment often deliberately avoid such assistance.
"A lot of people outside don't want to be in the social service system," she said. "It's a very difficult environment to live in."
Gusoff agreed that offering social services to displaced encampment residents is "not really an effective solution."
Hirsch said he believes future demolition projects are in the works. "We know of sites where they are going to be doing additional construction where there are people living," he said.
Last week's standoff with DOT occurred simultaneously with a campaign to get Governor Donald Carcieri '65 to increase accommodations for Rhode Island's homeless families.
Upon hearing that the state's family shelters had exceeded their capacity in September, HOPE began trying to draw attention to the issue, writing a letter to Carcieri lobbying for an additional 10 to 15 units of shelter housing to temporarily alleviate the shortage. When the governor did not respond after two weeks, HOPE organized a group of students and traveled down to the State House. Eventually, the group was able to speak with a policy representative, who vowed to address the issue.
A Nov. 9 demonstration marked the culmination of this campaign, though homeless activists had been informed the day before that 10 of the requested additional units would be made available.
HOPE typically approaches Carcieri's office for assistance in pressing situations, largely because the governor can quickly allocate emergency funds without legislative hang-ups, Gusoff said. This sort of advocacy attempts to raise awareness for a homeless population that lacks a strong political voice, he said.
"Families can't represent themselves in this kind of thing," Gusoff said. "A lot of families are scared to speak up."
Even though organizers achieved their immediate goal of securing additional housing units, "we still did the demonstration to show the immensity of the problem," Gusoff added.
