More pressure on cost-burdened Rhode Islanders, more calls for housing

Housing advocates and state and local officials who gathered Thursday in the community room of a new 176-unit Providence apartment building for formerly homeless adults called the development a sign of progress after decades of underinvestment.

The Summer Street Apartments, which opened last year, is also a reminder of how much more housing the state needs to address a crisis.

“Too many residents are struggling to find a home that they can afford,” Melina Lodge, executive director of the Housing Network of Rhode Island, told the crowd gathered for a rally in support of state and city bond measures meant to build more homes.

A new fact book by HousingWorks RI to be released at a breakfast event Friday morning at the Marriott Providence Downtown underscored Lodge’s assessment.

For the third consecutive year, the policy research group based at Roger Williams University found no municipality had a home affordable to a household earning the state’s median homeowner income. For the second straight year, no community had an average two-bedroom apartment affordable to a household earning the median renter income.

“The trends of recent years have not subsided: sale and rental costs have continued to rise and more residents have fallen into the ‘cost burdened’ category,” the executive summary to the 82-page report states. 

About one-third of Rhode Island households — 148,766 in all — spend more than 30% of their income on housing, a common measure of housing affordability, according to the fact book 

For a household earning Rhode Island’s median income of $87,796, 30% of earnings on housing and utilities works out to $2,195 a month, according to HousingWorks RI. The median renter household earns $50,251 a year, the report found.

Driving the affordability gap is the growing divide between Rhode Islanders’ wages and housing costs. Since 2018, wages have risen less than 30%, while housing costs have climbed more than 60%, according to the fact book.

The widening gap between wages and housing costs is part of a broader squeeze on household budgets. A September report from United Way of Rhode Island found that 43% of households were living in poverty or struggling to afford basic necessities such as rent, a finding that echoed an April state housing snapshot.

HousingWorks RI found that 78% of the state’s 20 fastest-growing occupations — including bakers, cooks and welders — don’t pay enough to afford an average two-bedroom apartment. Of those 20 occupations, only financial managers make enough to afford a median-priced home in Rhode Island. Rhode Island’s business climate, which is dominated by small and micro-businesses, routinely ranks as one of the worst in the country.

Kyle Bennett, chief policy and impact officer at United Way of Rhode Island, said larger employers may be able to raise starting pay and pass some of those costs on to consumers. But smaller, family-run businesses have less flexibility to increase wages.

“The majority of employees are technically family members or our neighbors,” Bennett said in an interview. “They don’t necessarily have pay.”

HousingWorks RI Executive Director Brenda Clement also pointed to tariffs on Canadian lumber as one factor driving up home prices.

“Most of a project is wood framing,” she said. “There’s so much in the housing space that we don’t control.”

Permits up for multifamily buildings, ADUs

HousingWorks’ report did find some positive trends.

The state issued permits for 3,778 housing units in 2025, up 34% from the previous year. Permits for buildings with at least two units rose 60% to 2,698, while permits for accessory dwelling units — smaller homes built on the same property as an existing house — increased 76% to 287.

But Clement said permits don’t guarantee that homes will get built, or that the finished units will be affordable. That’s where she and other officials said public investment can help. 

Rhode Island voters will decide in November whether to approve a $120 million statewide housing bond.

At least $25 million would go toward housing intended for homeownership, while up to $10 million could support public housing development. Question 2 would fund the construction and preservation of affordable housing through new development, renovations, property purchases and infrastructure improvements. 

Local Question 6 asks Providence voters to authorize a $25 million bond to build affordable multi-family housing through the Providence Housing Trust Fund.

Housing Secretary Deborah Goddard told reporters Thursday the bonds would help keep housing development moving in both Providence and the rest of the state.

“We can’t take our foot off the gas at this point,” Goddard said.

Repeated borrowing to fund affordable housing has drawn criticism. The Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council found that, as of April, $52.2 million from the 2024 housing bond had financed 200 rental units, at an average development cost of more than $512,000 per unit.

Goddard pushed back on using the average development cost to judge the bonds, saying the state’s subsidy per unit is much lower. She also argued that some projects deliver benefits beyond housing, such as cleaning up contaminated land and providing onsite services to help residents remain stably housed.

“We are providing the services these people need to stay in their homes and thrive,” Goddard said.

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Courtesy of Rhode Island Current