PROVIDENCE — After more than 100 days of operating as a makeshift emergency homeless shelter in the closed building of the American Lithuanian Citizens Beneficial Club on Smith Street, the organizers of “Operation Hunker Down” have agreed to close it.
On Tuesday evening, Providence Fire Captain Derek Silva made a surprise visit to the building to ensure it was up to code and occupancy levels were being enforced. He discovered the logs had not been filled by volunteers over the weekend, David Gerard O’Connor, who operated the shelter, told The Globe.
O’Connor, who had traveled out of state this week, was not present for the inspection. Although the shelter has been operating for over 100 days, they have received no support from the city or state, and it has acknowledged that it may have to close.
“We are all exhausted. Volunteers got sick just trying to help,” O’Connor said. Although Silva was helpful and O’Connor tried to limit the shelter’s hours to ease the burden on volunteers, people kept breaking in, he said, making it difficult to operate.
“When Silva showed up last night and pointed out our issues, it reaffirmed to me that we can’t continue to do this,” O’Connor said. “Volunteers did not complete the fire log over the weekend. Other beds have been laid. So all the work we did to be compliant just wasn’t working.
“If we can’t do the basic things then they’re right, then we can’t give people the love they need,” he said.
“I’m exhausted. My own life has been disrupted doing this,” O’Connor said. In closing, “I feel like I’m being sold. I feel like I’m the person I But on the other hand, I know it was the right decision.
Operation Hunker Down, opened in January, when O’Connor, a 2014 Providence College graduate who lives nearby, invited five homeless people to sleep on mattresses in the old building one freezing night . Less than a month later, 35 to 45 people were staying there, as previously reported by the Boston Globe Rhode Island.
At the time, O’Connor sought advice from the Providence police and worked closely with the local fire marshal to ensure the old social club building was up to code. A handful of volunteers, some of them close to homelessness themselves, helped keep the place running.
But nearly three months later, on March 30, the state fire commission told the shelter it had 72 hours to reduce its capacity to 16 people. There were over 40 people staying there the day they received the order.
O’Connor managed to meet the new lower capacity limit, and said donations and a grant from the Mae Organization helped him relocate six homeless people from the shelter to a nearby Airbnb until early May. A couple lives in O’Connor’s home and someone from the shelter has been taken in by a close neighbour.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Team
Since the shelter opened, O’Connor said he has served more than 100 homeless people. He said more than 40 people have gone through drug treatment and other programs.
“It’s hard to even think about that, honestly. The last 100 days have been focused on this big thought that I’m trying to figure out,” O’Connor said. “But I’ve seen so many individual improvements in people. I keep trying to think about that aspect.
“Everyone is getting kicked out today. Nobody is sleeping there tonight. But when I looked at the list of individuals; they have other places they can go,” O’Connor said Wednesday after – noon. “They just need to make this decision for them.”
The Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness is seeking to relocate all who remain in the shelter.
O’Connor is a private citizen who did not work in housing before Operation Hunker Down opened. Many of the volunteers he worked with had no housing experience either, he said, but took on the issue of homelessness. He said he hoped the state, which he said had provided him with no resources, would “step up” and rethink how to tackle the problem.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Team
“I’m just discouraged by this whole experience. I’m sincerely considering temporarily leaving Rhode Island. It’s such a small state. We should be able to figure that out,” O’Connor said. While house of hope sent a doctor and other outreach workers to the shelter, he said, this state has “no innovation to solve problems and does not move resources quickly in an emergency.”
“Some say that private citizens should not take this matter in their own hands. They’re right. But I don’t really see the government intervening here,” O’Connor said. “We can’t just drop people off at Butler [Hospital], detox for three days, then bring them back to where they were. I’ve seen it time and time again here. The state and other agencies kept telling us “you’re wrong”. But it’s not like they ever offered resources on how to do it right.
“No one should sleep outside. I still believe in it deeply,” he said. “This should be an opportunity for all of us [in Rhode Island] to level up, level up and figure that out. We need to go beyond shelters. We need to solve this housing crisis.
Alexa Gagosz can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.
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