Almost 66 percent of Rhode Island voters approved a November ballot question asking if they wanted to borrow $120 million to create more housing. But there are also signs around the state of a housing backlash, with some residents and local officials opposing the development needed to expand the housing stock. And the median price of a home in Rhode Island is now $480,000, about 12% higher than one year earlier. Here we are as the state tries to dig its way out of a housing crisis that developed over many years.
This week on Political Roundtable, I’m going in-depth with head of the Housing Network of Rhode Island Melina Lodge.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Donnis: Here we are at the end of 2024. If I asked you to give the state a letter grade for its efforts this year to address the housing crisis, what grade would you give it?
Lodge: Grade, a “B.”
Donnis: Unpack that for me.
Lodge: I think we have made very admirable progress towards a very large problem. So I can appreciate that progress maybe doesn’t feel as quick as it needs to or in the right scale, but when I compare back even 10 years ago in this job, how frequently we were talking about housing, how many housing bills were coming forward, how many dollars were coming forward for housing development. We’re in a very different space these days. And so I think it feels fair to say we are in a good place, still plenty of work to be done, but certainly have made a lot of progress compared to where we were historically.
Donnis: Nonetheless, by one estimate, the state needs to create about 24,000 new units of housing to address the housing crisis. And that’s not going to happen overnight, even with the state throwing a lot of money at the problem and with voters approving in November a $120 million housing bond. How long do you think it’ll take to make serious inroads against that number of 24,000 units of more housing needed?
Lodge: So the 24,000 housing units needed is actually for the lowest income Rhode Islanders. So that’s the floor, not the ceiling. That’s for folks making at the lowest income stratosphere. So, I think it will probably take our lifetime and beyond. I don’t think a housing crisis or, you know, even if you’re being proactive, it’s not something you start and stop because people shift, household formation shifts, population shifts, where people live, where opportunities are, so I think it is something we need to commit to as a sort of lifelong priority that we integrate the same way we think about environmental considerations in this state. Education, workforce, health care, right? These are all just part of our day to day life and so is housing. And so I don’t think we should be thinking about it as a problem we solve. It’s something we commit to and incorporate in our day to day priorities.
Donnis: There are signs of a backlash around the state against efforts to create more housing. In one such example, Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr. recently threatened a lawsuit to try and block a proposed 252 apartment complex. You say that kind of multi-unit density is what the state really needs. So what can be done about these signs of a backlash against efforts to build more housing?
Lodge: Well, I think the voters have already spoken up, right. 65 percent of the state approved a $120 million housing bond, and I think that speaks volumes to the housing crunch that really all Rhode Islanders are feeling. At this point, this is no longer just a low income problem. This is now, we’re seeing creeping into the middle income class as well. And I think, specifically in Johnson, 60 percent of the voters approved the bond in that municipality. So again, I would say overwhelming support for housing as a whole and specifically for affordable housing because people are feeling the crunch in their day to day lives.
Donnis: What steps would you like to see the General Assembly take in its new session in 2025 to make more progress on the housing crisis?
Lodge: So I think sort of top of mind for me and you know, just spitballing here, looking at multifamily zoning. Most of our state is by-right zone single family. So single family means one house per one lot. And in a small state with limited land mass, we have a lot of environmentally sensitive land. It’s going to really limit what we can actually physically build and our housing crisis is a direct correlation of inadequate supply relative to population and demand. So, looking at multifamily zoning by-right in areas that make sense and can support that higher level of density. I would also suggest we look at getting rid of a sort of a technical component of the Low-Mod Act, but there is some provision for municipal municipalities to be exempt.
Donnis: You mean the requirement that municipalities have 10 percent affordable housing?
Lodge: Correct. There’s a provision that allows for communities who have a certain percentage of their housing stock as rental stock do not need to meet the 10 percent they’re exempted. I think when you look at those communities, a long time ago, rental housing used to actually be a more, you know, naturally occurring affordable choice, and that isn’t really the truth anymore about what people are seeing. Median rent right now is about $2,100 a month for a two bedroom. So I think really revisiting that in today’s landscape to see if it makes sense to have those types of exemptions. Often those municipalities who are exempt also have access to water and sewer infrastructure which would allow us to develop more densely, so those communities aren’t really using the comprehensive permit process or aren’t even contemplating affordable housing developments because they’re not required to.
And the third thing that I would offer would be looking at our calculation for the fee in lieu structure. There’s a provision currently that allows developers to pay to not build affordable housing as part of their development. And the fee that gets generated is quite low and couldn’t actually produce affordable housing if you needed to take the cash and try to supplant those units. So coming up with a formula that would generate a fee that is more impactful, so that if there is a scenario where the developer cannot build the affordable housing, that the municipality at least has the financial resources to get another partner, like a non-profit developer, or another for profit developer, to build those units and have the resources to do that.
Donnis: There have been a lot of delays in opening Echo Village, a pallet shelter in Providence. One of the issues is the fire safety concern. And the regulation that was put in after the disastrous Station fire in 2003. But I wonder, does this situation show that there’s too much bureaucracy and red tape when it comes to opening this sort of thing?
Lodge: Yeah, I would say a hundred percent. I mean, this was a state led project, right? It’s the state working on state owned land with state entities, and it feels very much like we’ve missed an opportunity here. Rhode Island could have been a leader in this innovative model, and instead we’ve seen other states and other cities open similar pallet shelters, sometimes within a hundred days and some of which have even closed because pallet shelters are meant to be an emergency housing solution specifically related to COVID and certainly can appreciate remarks around health and safety and, and we’re not advocating in any space that we should diminish those things. But I think that narrative also is absent of recognition that people who are unhoused are also unsafe in this state in winter. So this suggestion that if we don’t properly take care of fire code issues that death could result. Well, death could result when you sleep outside and, you know, 20 degree weather. And we have seen that time and time again, you know, people passing away on park benches, in their cars. And so I think we certainly could have been more expeditious in this.
Donnis: Beyond Echo Village, how would you assess the state’s efforts to help the unhoused and homeless this winter?
Lodge: I don’t know that much has been really communicated that I’ve heard. I know there was a lot coming out last year about new shelter beds being created. You know, I’m not really aware of what the status of those shelter beds, sometimes the funding that’s used for these things are very temporary in nature because beds are meant to be very temporary in nature. So I think we’re seeing the unhoused numbers going up and so it’s hard to gauge whether that is a true number of more individuals who are physically losing their housing or that we lack the shelter facilities to take them in when they do present. But, in either way, I don’t think we’re in a very good position with the unhoused population.
Donnis: You made a positive statement after Governor McKee selected Deborah Goddard as the state’s new Housing Secretary. Why do you think she’s the right person?
Lodge: I think Deb brings a lot of experience related to housing development. You know, she’s been with the state now as a consultant for a couple years and I’ve had the opportunity to work with her. And I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re going to be able to move forward in getting some things done. Obviously time will tell whether we’re really able to make the headway and do some analysis around what does the department need to be enabled to do? What authority does it really have? But I think for right now, it’s fair to say, we’re seeing good progress on a couple of items that have languished and so hopefully as the state plan moves forward once we can see a final presentation of the state governance report, I think it’ll be easier to make an assessment about the success or the future success of the department. But I wish her good luck.
Donnis: Chris Shea from the Rhode Island Current recently asked the Department of Housing for Secretary Goddard’s schedule, and he was asked to make a public records request to get it. Does that show that the Department of Housing is a lot more opaque than it should be?
Lodge: That seems like an unfortunate response. I think it’s difficult to gauge how various responses come through to various entities. You know, like I said, I’ve always had very good luck in getting connected and touching base with people when I’ve had questions. So I would like to think that those same opportunities are afforded to other people.
Donnis: In closing, do you think there’s too much siloing of the state’s housing bureaucracy with multiple agencies like the Department of Housing and Rhode Island Housing working on overlapping issues?
Lodge: I think in this moment, you know, that is the appearance, but I think it’s important to remember that the housing department is really still in its sort of infancy and that for many years Rhode Island Housing and the Housing Resources Commission, which were created to sort of run the housing space, have operated. And unfortunately, when the department was created, there wasn’t really a reconciliation of what each of those entities did. And so there was some duplication and I think that’s where the governance report that’s supposed to be submitted on December 31st will be important in laying out each entity’s responsibilities and hopefully we’ll see some positive and collaborative suggestions about how to make each of those three bodies contribute to a greater whole.
Donnis: Melina Lodge, Executive Director of the Housing Network of Rhode Island. Thank you very much for joining us.
Lodge: Thank you.
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The cyber-attack on the state’s portal for health and benefit programs is another political headache for Governor Dan McKee. The exact cause of the breach is not yet known, and these attacks are increasingly common. But the situation also shows how unexpected events — and the response to them — can have a big effect on politics. You can read more about that in my Friday TGIF politics column, posting by around 4 this afternoon on X, Bluesky, Threads, Facebook, and at thepublicsradio.org/TGIF.
That’s it for our show. Political Roundtable is a production of The Public’s Radio. Our producer is James Baumgartner. Our editor is Alex Nunes. I’m Ian Donnis, and I’ll see you on the radio.