'Just getting more and more dire': Senate panel weighs 'bold' affordable housing proposal

Miguel Martínez Youngs is nearly 30.

Normally, at this stage of life, he and his friends would be talking about buying houses, he told the Senate Committee on Housing and Municipal Governance.

But instead, he said, their conversations tend to center around questions like, "Has your rent gone up? How much?"

Martínez Youngs, a Warwick native who works for a national group called Demand Progress but was testifying as a volunteer for Reclaim Rhode Island, was one of several renters who showed up to voice support for the "Create Homes Act" on Tuesday.

Sponsored by Sen. Meghan Kallman, D-Pawtucket, the bill proposes using $300 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to create a centralized Department of Housing. It would allow the state to buy land and build what's sometimes known as "social housing" — developments where some residents pay heavily-subsidized rates, and others pay full market price.

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It also incorporates what Kallman has described as a "carrot and stick" approach for dealing with towns that don't meet their state-mandated affordable housing quotas. All cities and towns in Rhode Island are supposed to ensure that at least 10% of their housing stock meets certain affordability criteria, but only six communities have done so.

The "carrot" consists of increased educational funding for towns that build more affordable housing. The "stick" is a provision that would apply to communities that haven't reached the 10% threshold by 2026: Any new affordable housing developments would no longer need to be approved by the municipality, "notwithstanding any municipal law or other statute to the contrary."

The provision "strips municipalities of their decision-making authority if they are not meeting their housing goals," testified Jordan Day of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns. Doing so would be "absolutely an overreach of the state’s authority," she said.

Several housing advocacy groups opted to remain neutral, with some saying that they needed more time to analyze the potential repercussions of the sweeping changes proposed in the 40-page bill.

The risk, said Brenda Clement of Housing Works RI, is that "if we don’t get it right, we will be back here again with bigger problems."

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"I would rather focus on short-term immediate needs," she said, pointing to the fact that hotel vouchers for some homeless families will expire at the end of June.

When it comes to enacting broad housing policy changes, Clement warned, "We have a history in this state of starting big, thinking big, and never funding it properly."

The bill was introduced in mid-May, a relatively late date in the legislative session, which ends in June. Several groups, including RI Housing and the Housing Network of Rhode Island, warned against moving too quickly.

"Bold steps are certainly needed to address the housing shortfall that has been decades in the marking," Carol Ventura, the executive director of RI Housing, wrote in a letter to the committee. "However, it is critical that these changes be undertaken in a thoughtful way that includes input from the wide range of stakeholders that would be impacted."

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Melina Lodge, the executive director of the Housing Network, echoed those concerns and urged committee members to hold the bill for further study. She described the timeline proposed in the bill, which would go into effect on July 1st, as "extremely aggressive."

Splitting with the other nonprofits, United Way of Rhode Island expressed strong support for the bill, saying that it would offer incentives for towns to build more housing, and allow for more coordination between different agencies.

Other proponents pushed back against the idea that the timeline outlined in the bill was too aggressive or the legislation was moving too fast.

"The situation is just getting more and more dire," said Jordan Goyette, the political director of Reclaim Rhode Island, which has identified the bill as one of its major priorities for this year's legislative session. Currently, building affordable housing in Rhode Island involves a "very scattershot" system of highly complex subsidies that often end up being underutilized, he said.

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Another Reclaim volunteer, Andre Dev, said that after renting for 10 years, he now finds himself unable to buy a home because he's competing with bidders who are waiving inspections and paying cash. Some of his friends have opted to move out of state, he said, yet when he walks down Wickenden Street he sees empty buildings.

"I can't express how demoralizing it is," Dev said.

Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler of the Rhode Island Working Families Party, which tends to be closely aligned with trade unions, said that the bill would be a boon to the building trades. It would ensure that construction jobs are available "both at good times when the economy is doing well, as well as in a recession," he said.

The committee also heard from Raquel Baker, who described herself as a victim of domestic violence and said that she had ended up homeless, in part due to her history of evictions and criminal record.

Crystal Berube, who has previously spoken about her experience being incarcerated in Rhode Island, also submitted written testimony.

"I have been homeless residing in numerous hotels for almost a year now, and it's exhausting," she wrote. "The resources allocated now for similar ventures are quickly depleting, and I am still left without an affordable APARTMENT TO RENT...Perhaps for me personally if there were more housing developments, then it wouldn't be so difficult to find sustainable, affordable housing."

The committee voted to hold the bill for further study.

"This is a very large bill that requires work," Kallman acknowledged at the start of the hearing, saying that there were "a number of things to finesse."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI housing shortage: Bill to overhaul state's approach gets hearing