Ex-nursing home now homeless shelter
PROVIDENCE — After months of back and forth, the state has begun moving homeless families into a recently shuttered nursing home.
The Charlesgate Nursing Center, located on Randall Street in Providence, had announced in April that it would close this summer, and recently closed after nearly 50 years in business. The owners cited challenges in the health care industry including staffing shortages and the lack of state funding.
On June 30, 21 families moved into the shelter from extended-stay hotels. Amos House, a homeless service provider, will staff the facility, now called simply “Charlesgate.” Residents will receive wrap-around case management services that connect households to essential benefits as well as support with housing searches, job training, child care, health care, and transportation.
Amos House will eventually operate 57 rooms of the facility, which had 120 beds when it operated as a nursing home. It’s unclear how many people will stay there, since the number of rooms in use will depend on the size of the families that move in, said Joseph Lindstrom, a spokesman for the state’s housing department.
The Department of Housing is currently leasing the property from Davenport Associates, but Housing Secretary Stefan Pryor said the department is exploring the “feasibility” of acquiring the property, which could “result in greater cost efficiency over the long term.”
Amos House has leased the property from Davenport Associates for a year and the state will pay its $72,000 monthly rent, according to Lindstrom.
“We are actively working to expand our shelter system, and this property will enable us to serve more Rhode Island families going forward,” said Pryor in a statement. “We continue to identify properties that may be suitable for shelter — and for permanent housing — across the state.”
The state had been using the former Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket as a temporary shelter for homeless families, paying $60,000 a month in rent, until a sprinkler leak in mid-November 2022 forced Amos House to move families out. Though Rhode Island businessman Michael A. Mota, who said he represented the building’s owners, offered to renovate the property so it could quickly be used as a shelter again, Amos House and the housing department never entered into a contract with him.
After months of discussion, concerns about the true ownership of the building, and questions about how the property could legally be used, in mid-April state housing officials and Amos House Executive Director Eileen Hayes decided against moving families back into the old hospital.
The announcement about Charlesgate comes as the Housing Department and Housing Resources Commission made $9.4 million available to service providers in Rhode Island through a Request for Proposals June 30.
This annual RFP is typically released in February or March, but the funding can be used to operate emergency shelters, conduct homeless outreach, provide case management services, make rent payments through rapid rehousing programs, or pursue other related projects.
The funds will be awarded through a competitive process with applications due by Aug. 3 for most projects.