Renters face housing crunch in latest HousingWorks RI report
By Christopher Shea, Rhode Island Current
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| Since taking control of the Charlestown Planning Commission, CCA founder and de facto leader Ruth Platner has made it almost impossible to build family housing |
Last year marked the first time no community in Rhode Island was affordable to a household earning under $100,000 a year. And now this year is the first time the median renter cannot afford an average two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the state.
That’s one of the many bleak takeaways of the latest housing factbook released Friday by HousingWorks RI, the housing policy research group based at Roger Williams University. This year’s report determined that the lowest income to affordably rent the average-priced two-bedroom apartment, including utilities, is $60,320.
The average renter in Rhode Island earned an annual income of $48,434 in 2024, according to the 84-page report.
Simply put, “Rhode Islanders continued to face a challenging housing market,” the factbook says.
Among the many major factors leading to the smallest state’s affordability crisis: There just aren’t enough places for people to live.
A healthy rental market typically has a vacancy rate of 5 to 8%, according to the factbook. Data from the Federal Reserve notes a statewide rental vacancy rate of 2.6% in 2024.
It’s somewhat better in the Providence metropolitan area, which had a 3.2% rental vacancy rate, according to the factbook.
“We have not hit that number in at least six plus years,” Brenda Clement, executive director for HousingWorks RI, said in an interview Thursday.
State officials have encouraged new home construction over the past couple of years by adopting new laws that have eased zoning restrictions, streamlined permitting, and allowed accessory dwelling units. But Clement said it’s ultimately up to local leaders to get on board.
“What you build, where you build, and how you build are all at the local level,” she said.
But not every town wants to have dense, multifamily developments.
The town of Johnston is battling in court to stop a proposed 252-unit apartment complex after Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr., a Democrat, tried to use eminent domain to seize the site for a public safety complex. The Westerly Planning Board nixed a plan to construct 2,300 homes at Winnapaug Country Club — a decision recently upheld by a Superior Court judge.
Many leaders who oppose large projects instead favor single family homes, which the HousingWorks report contends furthers the “continuation of inefficient land use in Rhode Island.”
“While large homes on expansive lots may seem to generate the most revenue for a municipality’s tax base, single family homes in Rhode Island are less valuable, per acre of land,” the report states.
That focus on single family homes has made it so most towns continue to fail meeting the state’s 10% affordable housing target set in the 1991 Low and Moderate Income Housing law. Eight municipalities — Burrillville, Central Falls, East Providence, Newport, Pawtucket, Providence, West Warwick, and Woonsocket — met the goal for 2025. It’s double what HousingWorks reported last year, but that’s only because the legislature updated the definition of what constitutes an affordable home.
The law passed in 2024 added any homes where Section 8 federal housing vouchers were used, as well as mobile homes, to the group of properties that qualify as legally “affordable.”
To get towns on board, Clement suggests the state withhold any extra infrastructure funding unless they commit to more construction. It’s a similar plan House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi floated when unveiling the chamber’s 2025 housing package last February.
Clement suggests towns take a look to the past to figure out its future. A prime example, she said, are former mill villages which consisted of a job center surrounded by homes for varying economic classes along a robust transit line.
“Reconnecting all of that together is what can hopefully come about,” she said.
But a lot of uncertainty remains whether the state will have the federal funding necessary to get more homes built. Still, Clement remains optimistic that local leaders will work to get new affordable homes open in the coming years.
“We just have to keep on pushing where we can push,” she said. “The end result is worth it — nothing works right in your life if you don’t have a decent place to get up from every day and to go back to every night.”
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