In Rhode Island these days, losing a home is a disaster as devastating as a hurricane, a catastrophe that can ruins lives in multiple, terrible ways. This is because if you don't have much money and lose your home, the odds of getting another one are almost insurmountable, according to experts who have been tracking the state's accelerating rate of homelessness. "People used to go from one bad housing situation to another. They always found something," says Noreen W. Shawcross, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless. "Now, every door is closed, and they can't find anything. We are amazed when people can find a place."

The issue, Shawcross and others say, is a lack of affordable housing. Many new homes and high-end apartments have monthly rents as high as $2000 to $3000 a month. People with low and even moderate incomes are out of the picture.

In turn, this has led to an all-time high in the number of people who are homeless in Rhode Island. Last year's total was 5440, or about 1000 more than the previous year. And these are just the people that Shawcross and the others know about, because they sought help at the state's 21 emergency and domestic violence shelters. Uncounted are hundreds of families who doubled up with relatives or friends -- a crowded, tense situation that often results in the newcomers moving out.

Eric Hirsch, an associate sociology professor at Providence College, compiles annual statistics for the Rhode Island Emergency Food and Shelter Board. Beyond the startling 23 percent increase in the number of shelter visitors he calculated for last year, the most recent available figures, he also notes a continuing increase in the number of families needing shelter. On a night-to-night basis, about half the people seeking one of the 600 beds in the state's shelter system are in families, as opposed to single adults -- the first time families have been such a large part of the shelters' population.

Many of these families are getting some support from the state's welfare program, and a significant portion have jobs, although the recession has cut into that number, Hirsch says. About 30 percent were employed within the past six months, and 15 percent had jobs when they entered a shelter.

Even with the addition of 150 shelter beds over the last two years, raising the total to 600, the shelters are usually filled. What's not clear is how many people are turned away, and thus might end up sleeping in cars, in abandoned warehouses, and other shuttered buildings or even outdoors. Janis Lavallee Fisher, executive director of the Rhode Island Family Shelter in Warwick, which can house nine families at a time, says 800 different people were told there was no room last year.

Travelers Aid of Rhode Island has at least 30 people spending the night at its facility on Union Street in downtown Providence. But the men, women, and children who sleep there do so on the floor, because it has no beds. Anne Nolan, executive director at Travelers Aid, said one of the families she found on the floor included a mother, who was a certified nursing assistant, and her three young daughters.

When Nolan said hello, the woman burst into tears.

The woman said they had been doing fine on her nursing salary until the landlord raised the rent. At first, they moved into a two-bedroom apartment with family members, but it was just too cramped. As she searched for a place of her own, the woman took time away from her job, which she then lost.

Now, they were camped out on the floor at Travelers Aid.

"What did I do?" the woman cried. "I'm not a drug addict. I did everything right. How did I end up here?"

Illustration by Mark Reusch

It's easy to see how Mecca Wornum landed her $30,000-a-year job as an administrative assistant with a large real estate investment company in Boston. She's a tall, poised woman with a model's sculpted looks. She has a calm, friendly way of talking to people, which she says makes her good at customer relations.

Wornum, 31, grew up in Boston's Dorchester section and was part of a high-achieving group of inner-city school children who got to attend suburban schools. She was among 30 children who rode buses each school day to Lexington, one of Massachusetts' most historic communities, where housing is in such demand that some residents buy one home just to tear it down and build a bigger one. Wornum started in second grade and graduated from Lexington High School in 1989.

She went to Mount Ida College in Dedham, near Boston, for one year, but couldn't afford to continue when her scholarship ended. Later, she went to Roxbury Community College, studying business administration. A single mother after she had her daughter, she easily landed office jobs, leading to the real estate investment post. Two years ago, she looked for a place in Rhode Island, where she felt rents were cheaper but still close enough to commute to her Massachusetts job.

Indeed, on October 1, 2001, they moved to the townhouse, and her daughter went to the local schools -- an important factor in deciding where to live. Life seemed to be going the way that it was supposed to. But five months later, the investment firm downsized, and Wornum, as one of the least senior workers, was among the first to be laid off.

As she looked for a new job, her family helped her struggle to keep her apartment in the suburb outside of Providence. But finally, she couldn't keep up with the $1200 monthly rent payments, to say nothing of the $1300 price listed in the new lease.

She put some of their smaller belongings in storage. But the bigger items -- a wonderful leather sofa and some other big furniture -- she simply left.

Two days before the lease was up, Wornum sent her daughter off to school (she asked that the town in which they were residing not be identified since her daughter is still attending school there), then called Travelers Aid, saying they were without a place to live.

Many of those involved in the fight against homelessness believe public attitudes have coarsened since the 1980s, when the problem surfaced.

Hirsch, the PC professor and housing activist, believes homelessness became a problem when the federal government backed away from housing programs following the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980. The dramatic drop in federal spending can be seen in the 64 percent drop in the budget of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) between 1978 and last year -- from $94 billion to $34 billion -- says Brad Paul, housing policy analyst for the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, DC.

Paul says that in 1977, then-President Gerald Ford asked for 500,000 units of subsidized housing -- mostly in the Section Eight program. In contrast, President George W. Bush has requested 34,000 new units.

Paul and Hirsch say the homelessness that we are seeing today is a modern phenomenon -- that before the 1980s, it wasn't seen in the numbers and scope that it is now, and it's largely caused by the sheer lack of affordable housing.

While the issue drew much attention initially, it eventually faded into the background, Hirsch says. He paraphrases the attitude: "We've kind of dealt with that and let's move on. The thinking is whoever is homeless, it must all be their fault, and that tries to take the focus off the system and blame the people who are homeless."

Shawcross, director of the homeless coalition, calls the blame-the-victim philosophy a kind of "social punishment" that allows the public to think that, somehow, the homeless get what they deserve. But Shawcross and Hirsch say the real culprit is a devilish calculus of low wages and high rents, the fact that the private housing market has not provided enough places that poor households can afford, and the government has not filled the gap.

Government and private economists agree on the measure of "affordability" -- that housing costs should total no more than 30 percent of a householder's income. But that standard immediately puts homes out of the reach of many workers.

In Rhode Island's housing market, the federal government considers a "fair market" or typical monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment to be $687. Someone would need an income of about $27,480 to afford that. But nearly one-third of Rhode Island households earn less than $25,000 a year, according to US Census figures.

Worse, "fair market" rents may not reflect the reality of the current market, where the relatively few apartments that are available may be priced higher than those already rented. The homeless coalition tracks rents on a regular basis, and in December, found that two-bedroom apartments in the Providence area were going for more than $900 a month, which would require about a $36,000 income. These prices are far from realistic for many families, including those working at the state's $6.15-an-hour minimum wage, which provides an annual income of only about $12,800.

Of course, many people pay considerably more than 30 percent of their resources for housing. But a lack of apartments makes it hard to find one even if a family is willing to spend more than a typical amount. At the same time, non-economic issues such as substance abuse, alcoholism, and mental illness do play a part in homelessness, according to Shawcross and others. Hirsch's most recent homelessness survey noted that 11 percent of shelter residents reported drug problems; about the same portion had alcohol-related troubles; and 12 percent said they had mental health problems.

Shawcross said regardless of the cause, all people need homes.

"I think that some people, because of really chronic problems, particularly mental health and substance abuse, are going to continue to not be able to make the kind of progress that our programs offer to help them make it," Shawcross says. "I still think folks have a right to a room and a key, as fellow human beings."

Many people who show up at a homeless shelter, whether they have problems or not, originally had a place to live. About 38 percent, according to Hirsch's last report, had been living in their own homes before coming to a shelter; another 27 percent had been with family or friends.

It sounds too simple, but the experts say that the central reason most people lose their homes is that they can't pay the rent. So they leave. Or hang on until they are legally evicted. "The triggering event for homelessness is eviction," says Shawcross. "Or, in some cases, they've been evicted, then doubled-up with friends and relatives, and that string has run out."

"The idea that it's not just housing -- it's because of the troubles of people -- is ludicrous," she says.

There were some anxious moments after Wornum called Travelers Aid, but word finally came that there was room for her daughter and her in the agency's Family Center at a former Roman Catholic convent in Warwick.

Some mornings, Wornum says, it was hard even to get out of bed. But she bonded quickly with other mothers, especially the ones who fought not to become too embittered, and she was surprised to find that many had stories worse than her own. Wornum found temporary jobs, including one at a nearby insurance company, then her customer relations skills got her a job at AAA of Southern New England, at its call center for motorists reporting car trouble.

A routine developed. She and her daughter would have breakfast with the other shelter residents, then climb into Wornum's Pontiac Grand Am (with 351,000 miles on its odometer), and drive to the school in the community they'd left. Then, Wornum would go to her job at the auto club. After work, she'd pick up her daughter at an after school program, and they'd go back "home."

She also looked for a new place. Earning about $9 an hour, Wornum figured she could afford a $700 rent. In Woonsocket, she found what literally was an attic for that price. There was a better place in Providence for the same amount, but the landlord was nervous because of the short time she'd been at her new job.

Being homeless itself was a problem: she had no residential phone, just the one in the shelter and a sporadic pay-as-you-go cell phone, and her current "address" was that of the Warwick shelter.

Wornum found respite in prayer -- she attended a church where the pastor was a housing activist. And she and another mother took their daughters for walks in nearby park. It was good on some days just to get away.

W hile not a housing specialist, Bernard Beaudreau knows the dynamics of the issue, since he presides over the related problem of hunger as executive director of the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. He thinks hunger and homelessness aren't adequately addressed in part because people really don't appreciate the depth and the causes.

They are generous, however. In the past five years, Beaudreau says, the number of food bank supporters has quadrupled, from 5000 to 20,000. Janis Fisher, of the Rhode Island Family Shelter, says the same thing -- that often, people are remarkably generous. The past Christmas, a man walked into the shelter and asked how many children there were, and returned with 17 new bicycles.

But the problem, the experts contend, can't be solved on the basis of personal charity. For example, the much-honored program Habitat for Humanity, in which volunteers help families construct new homes, puts up far too few homes to even make a real dent. "It's a leadership problem," Beaudreau says. "People follow their leaders. When leaders don't act like there is a situation or don't care, what is the everyday, working person supposed to do, except on a very localized level?"

Thus, homeless advocates feel they have to go to unusual lengths just to keep government or big institutions from backsliding.

Shortly before Christmas, the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless staged a press conference at the same Warwick homeless shelter where Mecca Wornum and her daughter were staying. Owned by a local Roman Catholic parish that itself was in financial straits, the property was being put on the market, and homeless groups didn't have all the money to meet the $495,000 price. Further, if the land was sold, an adjacent building with two apartments for long-term homeless families would have to be torn down or moved.

Cameras rolling, Nolan, the Travelers Aid director, invoked comparisons to the Christmas story, saying that 2000 years earlier, another family couldn't find room at the inn, and here was the spectacle of a church spurning a chance to shelter scores of modern homeless families.

Shortly into the New Year, an anonymous donor put up $100,000 and the Diocese of Providence pledged $45,000 from the Catholic Charity Fund, enough with other money raised by shelter-backers to keep the buildings as homeless facilities.

But the publicity maneuver recalled similar measures a year earlier, when ministers staged a sit-in at the State House after then-Gov. Lincoln Almond announced he was killing most of a $5 million program for new housing. The shame of clergy getting arrested, plus demonstrations, resulted in a compromise in which the money for new housing was borrowed, rather than made a permanent part of the state budget. The rollback of an annual budget appropriation, which housing supporters themselves regarded as a token beginning to attack the problem, symbolized for them just what an uphill battle they faced.

Shawcross and others do feel that homelessness is in large part solvable, especially in tiny Rhode Island. It's a matter of simply providing more homes, she says.

Just how many homes -- and at what cost -- is unclear. Shawcross estimates that 5000 new units would go along way in solving the problem. But at an estimated cost of $125,000 per home, that would cost $625 million.

The need could be greater. The state Housing Appeals Board estimates that of 438,579 total housing units in Rhode Island, 35,217, are public or subsidized units -- just eight percent.

On December 30, housing advocates, who are generally left-of-center people, were pinning at least part of their hopes on an unlikely source: Republican former banker and corporate CEO Donald L. Carcieri. In a unique meeting shortly before Carcieri's inauguration as governor, housing forces, along with supporters of other progressive causes such as welfare reform and increased health care, had an unpublicized meeting with him.

The housing advocates said they want the governor and legislature to restore the annual budget housing provision, and for the state to open a barebones shelter, providing just cots and sandwiches, for persons turned away from the regular shelter network.

Carcieri made no promises and none were expected.

But Beaudreau says the group came away impressed with how closely Carcieri, whose campaign focused largely on business recovery and governmental reform, listened to their outline of the problems. "We were pleasantly surprised, and very pleasantly surprised," Beaudreau says. "We haven't had the attention of political leadership around this stuff for a long, long time."

A week later, on January 7, Noreen Shawcross, the homeless coalition director, stood shivering at inauguration ceremonies outside the majestic State House and listened closely to Carcieri's first official address.

And while he did not put it at the top of his to-do list, Carcieri included one phrase that Shawcross had yearned to hear a governor mention. "To be sure," Carcieri said, "there are many, many other issues where we need to challenge the system: among them . . . the lack of affordable housing."

Says Shawcross, "I waited for an hour in a receiving line to say `Thank you.' "

Mecca Wornum continued to work, to drive her daughter to school in her well-traveled Pontiac, and to search for a place for them to live.

One bit of hope was "transitional" housing offered by Travelers Aid at its Crossroads program: 75 housing units in North Kingstown and Providence where families can stay long term at low rent while they work toward getting permanent homes.

Wornum had been through two interviews, and was hopeful of getting a spot. But even if that worked out, she was told that it might be weeks, even months, before she could move in.

Like solving the overall homeless problem, individual stories don't have quick or easy endings. Still, Wornum seemed buoyed by the progress she was making. She had not broken, as she feared in her poem. She had to be there for her daughter, and she was.

And for sure, she was not ashamed of being homeless. She worked hard, she was doing what she needed to do. But she wondered about people who had homes, never thinking carefully about those who didn't.

By now Wornum knew that what was once unimaginable is really just around the corner -- that anybody can become homeless.

She wondered why other people didn't seem to realize how hard it is for people to get through that crisis.

Or why they don't understand that behind every "homeless" statistic is someone who is real, someone just as human as they are, someone who is breakable.

Editor's note: contributing writer Brian C. Jones is the husband of Judy K. Jones, government affairs liaison for Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation. She works on low-income housing issues with the groups mentioned in the article. Brian C. Jones can be reached at brijudy@ids.net.

Issue Date: January 17 - 23, 2003