$1.3M over budget, Providence pallet shelters to open next week

Yahoo

05-02-2025

Pallet shelters are shown amid the snow on a lot located off Victor Street in Providence on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. The community of cabins meant to shelter homeless people is slated to open Feb. 11, 2025. Occupants may move in as soon as Feb. 12. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
The grand opening of 45 tiny cabins to provide housing for people with nowhere else to go assembled off Route 146 in Providence is finally coming — and at $1.3 million over budget.
Nearly a year after the state's first community of temporary pallet shelters for people experiencing homelessness were constructed, the Rhode Island Department of Housing on Tuesday announced the opening ceremony for ECHO Village will be on Tuesday, Feb. 11.
The ceremony will include a guided tour of the site on Victor Street that will be managed by House of Hope, a Warwick community development corporation.
So when can ECHO Village expect its first occupants? Ideally by that Wednesday, House of Hope Executive Director Laura Jaworski told Rhode Island Current.
'This is a moment that we have been waiting for,' Jarowrski said in an interview.
It's been a very slow process to open the one-room cabins and auxiliary buildings that make up ECHO Village. Part of the reason involves confusion over how the cabins fit into the state's fire and building codes.
State Fire Marshal Timothy McLauglin revealed to a legislative panel in December that his office ultimately decided last spring to go with the code used for hotels or dorms, even though the cabins are freestanding structures.
It's the kind of confusion House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi never wants to see in future shelter projects. Shekarchi on Jan. 22 introduced legislation that creates a new type of emergency shelter under the state's building code called Supportive and Versatile Emergency (SAVE) units.
The bill would also allow municipalities to be exempt from the normal fire and building codes for 180 days, so long as a city or town declares an emergency.
Shekarchi's bill received its initial hearing by the House Committee on Municipal Government and Housing Tuesday evening, where it was held for further study as is standard practice when legislation is first introduced.
'The unnecessary delay is not something that we need to have, especially at this time of year and this political climate,' Shekarchi told the committee. 'People should not be having to wait as we address this issue.'
It's rare when Shekarchi testifies before a committee. House spokesperson Larry Berman said on average the speaker appears three times per year.
Ensuring compliance with the state's fire code led the cost of ECHO Village to skyrocket to a projected 40% over its original $3.3 million initial budget.
Housing Department spokesperson Emily Marshall on Tuesday confirmed the project was over budget by $1.3 million, due in part to installing fire alarms in each cabin, fire suppression units, and fire retardant paint. The amount includes three outstanding invoices totaling approximately $758,375 now under review, Marshall said.
'As work is ongoing, we do anticipate some additional invoices to encompass the remaining construction work,' she said in an email. 'At this time, we are projecting being approximately $1.3 million over budget on construction, and operating funds have not yet been utilized.'
The project's budget included $1.2 million to buy the shelters from Pallet, a public benefit corporation based in Everett, Washington. Around $1 million was budgeted for House of Hope to operate shelters, with an additional $1.1 million for construction costs.
'Please note, this is only an estimate since work is still being completed, and we have not yet received the final invoice,' Marshall said in an email.
But state officials had anticipated construction overruns and that the department has reserved unspent pandemic aid to cover the cost, Marshall said.
Shekarchi called the cost increase disappointing, but not surprising.
'As projects get delayed, the costs to the state and the developers increase,' he said in a statement. 'I encourage the Department of Housing to work diligently on minimizing these delays and the resulting additional costs moving forward.'
Gov. Dan McKee's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on ECHO Village's overall cost.
The long delay has made it challenging to keep the state focused on solving its homelessness problem, Jaworski said.
'The part that is frustrating is we've lost a lot of the why of this project,' she said. 'We've lost sight of the humanity that needs to be happening. We still have a state where hundreds of people are sleeping outside.'
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX