Opening of Providence pallet shelter community delayed

PROVIDENCE — Corralled within the on-ramp to Route 146 South stand 45 empty white one-room cabins, adorned with blue doors and little windows. But the first residents to occupy them won’t arrive until either May or June.

Welcome to Smith Hill’s newest subdivision: “ECHO Village.” These tiny cabins, also called pallet shelters, will soon serve as the state’s first community of temporary shelters for people experiencing homelessness. The village will be managed by Warwick-based community development corporation House of Hope.

When the $3.3 million project was first announced in January, a Rhode Island Department of Housing spokesperson said ECHO Village was scheduled to open “before the end of the first quarter” of 2024. But crews are still awaiting final approvals from the state as it hooks up shelters to the electric grid and sewer system, said House of Hope Executive Director Laura Jaworski said.

“We are still doing site preparation that’s needed,” said Housing Department spokesperson Emily Marshall.

“These things sadly take time,” Jaworski added. “But we’re continuing to make forward progress, which is good stuff — we’re really anxious to get this online.”

Funding will come from State Fiscal Recovery Funds and Community Development Block Grants, as well the city of Providence. The project remains on budget as of Wednesday, Marshall said.

While ECHO village would be the state’s inaugural pallet community, Rhode Island is not the first to have such a shelter. Other pallet villages were established in Boston, Massachusetts in 2022 Burlington, Vermont in 2023.

Each 70-square-foot cabin is meant for single occupancy, but couples can share a unit if they request a second bed. That small space is by design, Jaworski said.

“They’re not meant to be someone’s forever home,” she said.“It’s a safer, dignified space. People can decompress, which is really important. As human beings, we are not meant to constantly be in a state of fight or flight.”

The cabins will have electricity, with charging outlets for smartphones, but no plumbing. The village will have a community room, along with ADA-approved combination bathroom/shower facilities and a laundry room. House of Hope staff will work out four office structures to provide case management, housing application assistance, job training, substance use recovery and mental health services. 

The pallet community will be located on Victor Street in Provdience’s Smith Hill neighborhood — about a block away from the Foxy Lady, a well-known strip club. A Housing Department spokesperson in January said the location was chosen because it was close to transportation options, amenities, and services.

“You drive past the Foxy Lady to go to the State House, Smith Hill, Providence College, or the highway,” Jaworski said. “It’s not like we’re in their parking lot. If it just happens that we get some ambient light, then so be it.”

The only concern Jaworski said she initially had about the location was that it was in the cloverleaf of the on-ramp to Route 146 South.

“That to me felt weird,” she said.

But Jaworski said the land would otherwise go unused in a state that needed to create more shelter space.

Over 1,800 people in Rhode Island were experiencing homelessness on a single winter night in 2023 — up 14.8% from the prior year, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“I couldn’t sleep at night waiting for housing to be developed,” she said. “I felt like I had a responsibility and to use my role here to push and advocate for emergency shelter — we could make this work.”

Once it’s up-and-running, Jaworski said she expects ECHO Village to operate “for a few years, at least.”

“But ECHO can’t come online in a vacuum,” she said. “It can only be successful if we’re adding more housing in places where we’ve underdeveloped.”

Individuals and couples will be selected to live at the site through the state’s Coordinated Entry System — a calling system designed to ensure people experiencing housing insecurity have “fair and equal access” to shelter.

Correction: The pallet shelter community still requires final state approvals. A previous version of this story said it was from the city of Providence.