Gaps in regulations for fire suppression systems prolonged ECHO Village opening

Rep. June Speakman opened the final meeting of the year of the special legislative commission she chairs on Thursday afternoon with a reminder:

“We are not here to point fingers,” the Warren Democrat told those who came to the House Lounge at the State House for an update on a project announced last January that was supposed to be a fast response to the state’s homelessness crisis.

But Rep. Joshua Giraldo, a Central Falls Democrat, was quick to press Rhode Island’s newest housing secretary about the opening date for ECHO Village, the state’s first community of temporary pallet shelters for people experiencing homelessness. 

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“I think the public deserves a date,” said Giraldo, one of 17 members of the Special Legislative Commission to Study Housing Affordability.

The $3.3 million village of 45 one-room cabins was originally supposed to open before the end of March on Victor Street in Providence within the Route 146 onramp but has faced continued delays due to permitting and supply chain issues. And now the tiny cabins, also called pallet shelters, likely won’t have their first occupants until early next year, Housing Secretary Deborah Goddard told the commission.

“Sometime this winter,” Goddard said.

Goddard appeared for her first public meeting since starting her job on Dec. 2. She was joined by Fire Marshal Timothy McLauglin and Deputy Marshal David Pastore, along with Laura Jaworski, executive director of House of Hope, a Warwick community development corporation, that is managing the pallet shelter community.

Holding up the project, Goddard said, are fire suppression units that need to be installed in each of the 45 cabins. 

The units were ordered from Chicago-based Fireman 24/7 in September and are expected to arrive next week, Housing Department Spokesperson Emily Marshall told Rhode Island Current in an email late Tuesday night.

“I do understand the frustration surrounding the delay of their opening, but when it comes to ensuring Rhode Islanders are safe, that has to be our utmost consideration,” Goddard said.

One of many projects on Goddard’s plate, ECHO Village is also the most urgent with the approach of winter and an expected increase in the state’s unhoused population. At least 2,442 unhoused people across Rhode Island were counted when volunteers conducted an annual survey for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in late January 2024, up 35% over the 2023 count.

The Department of Housing announced the pallet shelter village last January, committing funding from State Fiscal Recovery Funds and Community Development Block Grants, as well as funding from the city of Providence. The 45 cabins were supposed to serve as a core part of the state’s plans to add 300 new shelter beds across Rhode Island as part of its strategy to reduce homelessness over the winter. The site is about a mile south of a homeless encampment off Route 146 on Charles Street that was torn down in August 2023.

Despite the chair’s reminder at the start of the meeting, frustrated commission members had many pointed questions for the unflappable Goddard, who answered each inquiry calmly.  

“I’ve done city council meetings in New York,” Goddard said in an interview after the meeting. “That didn’t feel like the hot seat,” Goddard said in an interview after the meeting.

Her seat in front of the commission may not have been hot. The same can’t be said for the state’s fire marshal and his deputy. Commission members asked McLauglin and Pastore several times why suppression systems were even needed for 70-square-foot shelters.

Much of the reason is to comply with fire code changes passed after the 2003 Station Nightclub fire that killed 100 people, McLaughlin told commissioners. The fire that started after pyrotechnics ignited foam insulation on the walls and ceiling at the West Warwick nightclub spread quickly because there was no sprinkler system in the building.

“I’m not going to sit out and have that happen under my watch,” McLaughlin said. 

Providing safe structures is important, said commission member Margaux Morisseau, the former deputy director of the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness. But she emphasized that unhoused people also have a right to protection from harsh winter weather.

“When they’re living outside, they’re much more likely to die on our watch than in a unit that is designed to the same specifics as my own home,” Morisseau said.

McLaughlin also explained that his office found it difficult to determine which section of the state fire code applied to the pallet shelters . Ultimately, his staff went with the one used for hotels or dorms — which the state also used in its initial application, he said.

The state’s fire code for emergency shelters specifies that structures can have a maximum capacity of 16 people.

Morisseau asked Pastore and McLaughlin whether they considered asking the General Assembly to update the state’s fire code to create a new category for pallet shelters.

“There just wasn’t time to do that, and no one really had the appetite to even do something like that,” Pastore responded.

Rhode Island Foundation CEO David Cicilline, who sits on the commission, was dissatisfied with the responses from the two fire marshals.

“The idea that this has not happened yet, and we still don’t have a proposal from anybody in state government charged with facilitating this kind of project is alarming,” Cicilline said. ‘We’ve had a year now.” 

Jaworski acknowledged there are plenty of moments to “Monday morning quarterback,” but told commissioners the construction of pallet shelters was the best way for the state to address its growing unhoused population.

“There are a lot of advantages, namely the folks that we’re serving don’t succeed when there’s someone on the other side of that wall, or somebody living upstairs,” she said.

Along with fire suppression systems, Goddard said ECHO Village still needs electrical hookups and fire retardant painting work. Once final inspections are done, the shelter will operate through at least Sept. 30, 2025.

The lease between the Rhode Island Department of Housing and House of Hope was approved Tuesday by the State Properties Committee. A copy of the agreement was not immediately made available.

??“I certainly want this investment to have a long lifespan,” Goddard said. 

So does Jaworski, but not too long.

“I do not want my kids to know that ECHO Village is around in 20 years,” she said. “This is a temporary emergency response until we can get ourselves together.”

Correction: This story was updated Friday at 11:54 a.m. with new information about the shipment of fire suppression systems.