Uprise RI could not be at the press event held by Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee and incoming Secretary of Housing Stefan Pryor on Tuesday, but thanks to Coalition Radio and their YouTube video, we were able to review the comments made regarding housing. The event was held to introduce Pryor as Rhode Island’s new Housing Secretary and to celebrate the opening of a new affordable housing development, courtesy of One Neighborhood Builders, located at the King Street Commons in Olneyville. The video starts with an introduction by One Neighborhood Builders executive director Jennifer Hawkins.

[As this piece was being prepared Channel 10 News announced that outgoing Housing Secretary Josh Saal has signed on to be a consultant for the Department of Housing. Saal was fired by Governor McKee last week for failing to deliver on the job.]

The transcript has been edited for clarity and non-housing discussion has been removed, but you can watch the entire video here:

Governor McKee: As I said at my State of the State [Address], I don’t believe there’s a community in the state of Rhode Island that does not want to do its part in terms of expanding the housing opportunities in our state.

Secretary Pryor: This is a moment of opportunity. There are enormous challenges in front of us, but it’s so clear that Rhode Island is united with the conviction that we do more to produce housing at every income level. And that in doing so, we protect the vulnerable, including individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness. And that’s what we’re going to do. We’re gonna do more on all of those fronts.

It’s a tremendous privilege to enter this position at this moment in time because obviously we didn’t wish for the challenges that our state faces on the housing front, but it has produced that mandate, and we must seize the moment. I’m pleased that there is the beginnings of a housing department and there are some outstanding professionals who are doing work every single day for the state. There are municipal leaders and workers who are hard at the job as well. There are developers, there are advocates, and there are providers who are getting the job done best they can, with what in the past has been an under-resourced scenario. Now we’re seeing resources applied. Thank you. Governor McKee and General Assembly, including the Speaker and the Senate President.

We have a quarter billion dollars applied to the task. That’s a lot of money. It’s also not sufficient. We have more work to do. We have proposed and enacted into law the first in memory recurring funding stream for housing, but it will only accumulate a handful of millions dollars a year. We’ve passed new bond issuances. All of these things are outstanding accomplishments, and in some cases represent record levels of investment, but there’s still not enough. We have work to do. That work breaks down into three big categories:

• Category one is housing production. We need to get out of the scenario where Rhode Island is bottom of the list or close to it, for the rate of housing production compared to other states. We can do better. We need to focus on affordability, including for the most vulnerable residents of our state who struggle the most.
• Second category is homelessness. We need to increase the intensity of our focus on helping individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness. There has been a significant increase in shelter availability and warming centers, and we’ve begun the process of building permanent supportive housing for the homeless community, among other vulnerable communities. We must do more, as the governor himself has said. It’s predictable that winter will come next year. So the governor and I are committed to ensuring that we are ever better prepared. And the planning begins now for next winter.
• Third, the housing organization that will help to drive this work. We need to continue the reorg process that Governor McKee has already started. We are very blessed that the governor has included more than 20 new positions in his budget for the housing department. We need to build the department in earnest. We need to unify the varying divisions of the state that work on housing. We need to create a coherent system that helps with the aforementioned activities.

If we get all of that going, it will be a very good start, but we’ll still have work to do. We’re so pleased to be at the task. We know that Rhode Island can lead the way. We led the way in terms of economic recovery coming out of Covid under this Governor, with this General Assembly, right here in Rhode Island. We led the way for the northeast and indeed we’re one of the leaders for the country. We’ve led the way on public health measures throughout the pandemic and under Governor McKee, we know we can lead the way on housing. Now we start in earnest.

Press: When it comes to the homeless population here in Rhode Island, there’s been much to do with that. But the middle class: When it comes to people who can’t afford the rental hikes, people who are looking for one or two bedroom apartments. Coming in on just your second da, what is your priority in addressing housing production?

Secretary Pryor: What’s essential is that we find ways of working in concert with cities and towns to produce more housing. I would argue that in the modern history of Rhode Island, there has not been a Governor with a better relationship with our municipalities. Governor McKee was a mayor. He has authentic relationships with mayors and town managers across the state: suburban, rural, urban communities, all the above. We can make progress based on honoring those relationships, identifying the priorities for cities and towns, and providing new tools and mutual commitments of mutual accountability to get the work done. Our housing market is overheated. We are, in a sense, a victim of our own economic success. We have such a strong economy – plenty of vulnerabilities, don’t get me wrong – but we’ve had such a strong economic recovery and we’ve seen such strides that the housing market is tight. And there are other reasons for it, including the inability of some towns that have wished to build housing to do so. So we’ve got work to do there, and, as a result, we’ll succeed in building middle income housing and housing stock across all income levels. The last thing I want to say on that is we do need to be deliberate about affordability across the board, inclusive of what some call workforce housing. It’s a little bit of an outmoded term, so forgive me for its use, but the term workforce housing expresses that middle bracket and is extraordinarily important.

Richard Asinof [Convergence RI]: Do you intend to continue your contract with Duffy & Shanley to handle communications work, or are you going to redirect that money towards other priorities?

Secretary Pryor: At this point, I’m taking a look at all of the staffing and all of the contracting that has been arrived at, and taking a look at what we need going forward. So I’m not going to comment on any one feature of that, but I can tell you that we look forward to building a strong organization that’s equal to the task, as the governor has charged us.

Richard Asinof [Convergence RI]: So you won’t need Chris Raia to accompany you to every event to speak for you?

Secretary Pryor: I’ve been in no way specifically speaking to any one contract.

[Editor’s Note: Duffy & Stanley is the communications company former Housing Secretary Josh Saal used to keep press inquiries at bay.]

Press: Governor, your thoughts on the Wall Street Journal article today that outlines how bad the homelessness crisis is throughout all the New England states. And Secretary Pryor, are you willing to do an audit of where the money is being used? House Speaker Shekarchi is talking to Gene Valicenti about all the money that’s gone to Crossroads and a lot of the different agencies. Are you willing to do an audit to try to figure out what’s being spent, where, and if it’s spent being spent correctly?

Secretary Pryor: We will be undertaking an assessment of the expenditures, the contracts, the performance measures, across the board, internal to the state and external in terms of those procured and contracted for services. We’re going to conduct an assessment. An audit has specific meaning. I’m not using that term, but I’m responding to your question. We’re going to assess all of the above. Once we conduct our work, that will be taken into account as we think anew about the reorganization and about the contracts and activities going forward.

Governor McKee: I haven’t read the Wall Street Journal, but if they’re saying there’s a homelessness issue nationally, in New England and Rhode Island, I would agree with that. We expect to do the very best that we can, and that should bring us to that point where we’re the very best at doing the work that we’re doing, including homelessness.

Press: On the radio this morning, people pointed out a lot of encampments that keep on popping up throughout the state. Would the state be interested in looking to build a database of where all these encampments are, and maybe a company that works directly with you instead of some of these advocacy groups?

Secretary Pryor: It is important that we understand the potential demand among clients, individuals and families for beds or for warming center slots. We’re going to take a look at the system as it stands. We’re gonna look at the federal laws and rules on how such work is conducted, and we’re also going to go about this work as human beings working with fellow human beings. I’m proud of the fact that Assistant Secretary Hannah Moore and I, as we’ve gotten started, we’ve already twice gone out with outreach workers to meet homeless individuals and families where they are and to understand what they’re experiencing during this particular winter – including on the extremely cold Friday evening we were out there. We want to understand the conditions as human beings working with fellow human beings.

Press: You have an idea of how many encampments there are?

Secretary Pryor: That is a figure that will be included in our overall look at the system.

Pat Ford [Coalition Radio]: Governor, the performance this weekend of the Cranston Street Armory location has been largely described by many individuals as disastrous. One state Rep went so far as to apologize to his constituency not having a real plan as to where to transfer people at the last minute and bringing people to an already overburdened Harrington Hall. What lessons did we learn from this weekend since, as we all agree, and as Secretary Pryor said in the runup, that winter happens every year.? And frankly, why wasn’t there planning in place for an event like this weekend months ago?

Governor McKee: Well, first of all, I want to thank the staff at DCAMM [Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance], the National Guard, Amos House, as well as our staff who is going above and beyond on a a weather condition that impacted people around the state of Rhode Island, whether they were in a shelter, in their home, in the the convention center or whatnot. That was handled very well. And I was there. I physically went there with Stefan on Saturday night. I saw exactly what was going on. I toured the facility. We opened up, a few days in advance, 40 [new] shelter beds, which is in a really good spot on Hartford Avenue. We transitioned people to beds. I’m not aware of anyone who was looking for a shelter that did not have a shelter on Friday or Saturday night.

Pat Ford [Coalition Radio]: Folks reported all day Saturday that they were cold and people reported from that location. And in addition to that, I think we’re back to going outside to go to the bathroom.

[The Governor ignored this question]

The remainder of the questions were not housing related.