Shuttered shelter works to restart emergency services

WARWICK – The Rhode Island Family Shelter, a 27-year-old nonprofit that closed its shelter five days ago under financial duress, is working to re-establish emergency services, Executive Director Patti Macreading said Thursday.
The nonprofit is able to maintain its seven permanent supportive affordable housing apartments on the second floor of our building despite the closing of the shelter, Macreading told Providence Business News, but has relocated seven shelter residents with the help of other family service agencies and nonprofits and laid off 11 workers.
The two housing programs were located in the same building at 165 Beach Ave. in the Conimicut neighborhood of town, Macreading said.
The Board of Directors, which has experienced turnover due to the unexpected death of two members within the past six months, met Tuesday to consider next steps, Macreading said.
“Our focus is to try and work with some other agencies and the board to maintain our mission and possibly re-establish the emergency shelter,” she said. “At this point we are looking at all options. We met with [Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian] Wednesday [but] we haven’t taken any steps yet.”
The nonprofit has seen its funding drop from $500,000 to about $400,000, yet still gets the same percentage – about 40 percent – in government funding, Macreading said. The rest comes from donations, fund-raising, grants and local trusts and foundations. She could not say how much it costs to run the shelter or the affordable housing programs.
“I have to work out some of those numbers with the board,” she said. “With just level funding and an increase in expenses, we’ve had trouble sustaining the operation. We were trying everything not to get to this point, [but] I wasn’t able to continue to cover payroll.”
The nonprofit also gets about $45,000 annually in consolidated homeless funds from the state Office of Housing and Community Development, she noted. A new grant period hasn’t started yet, so funds have not been awarded, but if the nonprofit is working actively on a reorganization plan, she said, it may qualify for continued funding.
Macreading and the board went through a strategic planning process five years ago but with recent turnover, that plan hasn’t been updated, she said.

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