Building a healthier Rhode Island

Editorial Pages Editor Edward Achorn is on vacation.

Success and opportunity — no matter how you define it — start with healthy and stable housing. For 125 years, Crossroads Rhode Island has been helping Rhode Island’s most vulnerable residents.

Founded 125 years ago as the Traveler’s Aid committee of the YWCA, Crossroads’ mission has evolved through the years to meet the ever-changing needs of the community it serves. Today, the local nonprofit owns or manages more than 370 affordable apartments statewide to help fulfill its mission to help homeless or at-risk individuals and families secure stable homes.

Each year, as many as 4,000 Rhode Islanders experience homelessness. The vast majority of them are working people struggling to balance two or three minimum-wage jobs, transportation challenges and escalating housing costs. Hundreds are families. For too many, an unexpected job loss, illness or rent increase is all it takes for them to fall into homelessness.

On any given night, Crossroads can provide emergency shelter to about 270 men, women and children. In fact, Crossroads is the only homeless services provider in Rhode Island that is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But that only scratches the surface of Crossroads’ full impact.

In 2018, more than 3,500 men, women and children received support from Crossroads. Approximately 2,000 were provided with emergency shelter. About 1,000 either maintained or moved into permanent housing.

More than 430 participated in adult education and employment programs, including a Certified Nursing Assistant program that graduated 85 students last year and helped them get and keep good jobs with local health-care providers.

These programs help explain why Crossroads is consistently held up as a national example in the fight against homelessness and the battle for affordable and reliable access to safe, healthy housing. Through its best-practice housing-first philosophy, Crossroads is building a healthier Rhode Island. Given appropriate support and adequate affordable housing, more than 90% of those who experience homelessness in Rhode Island ultimately achieve self-sufficiency and never become homeless again. That’s good for our communities and it's good for our economy.

When people have secure housing, they also spend less time at the hospital, their health-care costs plummet, and they’re more reliable employees. Eric Hirsch, a sociologist at Providence College, recently noted in the HousingWorks RI Scholar Series that chronic homelessness and housing insecurity are  major contributors to rising health-care costs. He also notes that only one-fifth of Rhode Island households in need of housing support actually receive it. His research points out that investments in housing will reduce health-care spending and lower costs for all Rhode Islanders.

Indeed, a 2008 pilot study found that investing $725,000 to help provide secure housing for 48 chronically homeless Rhode Islanders reduced health-care spending by $1.1 million in the first year of the program — generating $380,000 in net savings.

It’s not just health care. Housing stability is also critical to improving education. Research shows that low-income kids who change schools frequently because of homelessness or housing instability score lower in school, are more likely to have learning disabilities and behavioral challenges, and are less likely to earn a high school diploma.

Undoubtedly, we need more funding for housing, and we need more housing stock. To address those challenges, we first need to recognize that secure housing is the most urgent building block for great schools, healthy communities, and a thriving economy.

As Crossroads celebrates its 125th year in Rhode Island, there is still difficult, unrelenting work ahead to expand opportunity for every Rhode Islander — especially our most vulnerable residents. We can achieve that with more access to healthy, stable and affordable housing.

Bill Hatfield is vice chair of the Crossroads RI board of directors and president of Bank of America in Rhode Island.