CITY WATCH Housing crisis points to need for new approaches BY ALEXANDER PROVAN

Trees line pristine streets hedged by meticulously restored houses. The Woonasquatucket River can be heard over the din of children returning home from some of the best public schools in the city. Residents sip espresso at a number of cafés as the neighborhood’s mill buildings empty of architects, artists, and other professionals. The neighborhood? Olneyville, circa 2015.

It could just as well be Elmwood, the West Side, or Smith Hill, all of which received grants from the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation as part of the quasi-public organization’s Neighborhood Revitalization Program. RI Housing’s Chris Barnett says the goal is to "bring together neighbors and neighborhood groups to create a holistic plan for revitalizing the area they live in." In doing so, the group hopes to address the substantial gap between the supply and demand of affordable housing in the state. Rhode Island added 10,000 new households from 2001 to 2003, for example, while building just 7800 new homes and apartments.

While the idyllic image of Olneyville’s espresso-drenched future may gloss over the dangers of gentrification, an inclusionary zoning provision would reduce the threat posed for existing residents by continuing development. Such provisions, which are popular on the West Coast and exist in many major cities across the country, mandate that any sizable development would have to include a certain amount — generally 10 percent — of affordable housing. (So far, though, Mayor David N. Cicilline, questioning whether such a mandate would discourage development, has been lukewarm about the concept.)

As it stands, the gap between income and housing costs has continued to outpace the availability of housing for working families, since the average statewide rent for a two-bedroom apartment has skyrocketed from $613 in 1999 to $1121 in 2004, while incomes increased by only 10 percent. More and more Providence denizens have reason to be concerned. Barnett notes that the ranks of "people who have traditionally needed help" finding affordable housing — the homeless, pensioners, welfare recipients, the elderly, and others living paycheck to paycheck — are increasingly "being joined by folks who are wage-earners and are being shut out of the housing market."

Meanwhile, Rhode Island’s Low and Moderate Income Housing Act goes into full effect this month, requiring 29 communities to ensure that at least 10 percent of their housing stock is reserved for low- and moderate-income families. Ben Gworek, a community organizer for the Rhode Island Housing Network, which is monitoring the act, lauds the plan as a "big step forward," but contends that the state still needs to "invest a lot more money in housing production." Currently, Rhode Island spends $7.50 per capita on housing, compared with $25 in Massachusetts and $21 in Connecticut.

In Providence, City Councilman David Segal and the Housing Network are holding a series of neighborhood meetings — the first occurred Wednesday at Beneficent Church — to influence the Planning Department by encouraging support for affordable housing. Nobody raised the issue at the Planning Department’s own community meetings over the summer.