RI to pay consulting firm $339K for new state affordable housing plan
PROVIDENCE - Get ready for another big report, or two, on how to make homes more affordable in Rhode Island.
The state Department of Housing Thursday announced that it intends to hire Abt Associates, an international consulting firm, to draw up a statewide housing plan to guide policy decisions and new investments.
Abt will be paid $339,316 under an initial six-month contract, Housing Department spokesman Joey Lindstrom said Thursday.
Housing Secretary Stefan Pryor, who announced the hiring at a legislative study commission meeting on housing, said while an initial draft should be done in the winter, the firm could be working for the state beyond six months, updating the plan, providing more data and adding new elements well into late 2024.
The goal of writing a statewide housing plan was part of creating the standalone state housing department in 2021 and last year, but it has not been as easy to execute as some expected
More: Unions, public housing agencies want to see state build affordable units
Former Housing Secretary Josh Saal was criticized for not starting work on the plan earlier in his tenure and was replaced by Pryor before he could hire a consultant for the work.
Last year the Rhode Island Foundation hired Boston Consulting Group to study the state's housing needs as the Department of Housing got up and running.
"These plans will shine a light on what’s working, what needs to change, and what solutions can take us forward," Pryor said in a news release on the hiring of Abt.
The Housing Department is in the process of hiring 21 new positions authorized by lawmakers in this year's state budget, but that doesn't mean the state can do the work in-house.
"We are still a very small team, stretched," Pryor said when asked why the state is relying on consultants to do this planning work. "The other reason is that there is expertise resident in firms such as Abt regarding housing specific analytics. It would be very hard to replicate that. They do work on housing across the country, indeed across the world. They have databases that would take us years to replicate."
More: Will a new $1 million report on RI's lack of housing lead to change?
Rep. June Speakman, chair of the affordable housing study commission, asked Pryor: "When we open the plan, we will know how many housing units we need in Rhode Island? For what income classes? What kinds of units? Where is the best place to put them? How to pay for them and how long it is going to take to get them?"
"Approximately, yes," he said.
Abt employs several people with extensive knowledge of Rhode Island, including team leader Kimberly Burnett, who previously worked with the Housing Resources Commission developing a strategic housing plan covering 2006 to 2010, according to the news release. Former Rhode Island Housing CEO Barbara Fields "is a consultant to Abt Associates who will play a part-time advisory role on the project," according to Jeffrey Lubell of Abt.
In other news coming out of the affording housing study commission, United Way of Rhode Island President Cortney Nicolato said calls from tenants to an emergency eviction hotline had tripled in the first week of this month after a rent relief program expired at the end of August.
The rental program was a short term successor to the emergency eviction program that helped keep struggling tenants in their apartments during the COVID pandemic.
Rhode Island Housing Chief Strategy Officer Christine Hunsinger said the more recent rent relief program began in mid June and was paid for with $4.5 million in unused federal COVID rental assistance money. (The original pandemic rental assistance program ended in September 2022.)
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI will pay consultants $339,000 for affordable housing plan
