Rhode Island's Hidden Homeless

This episode dives into the often overlooked dimension of homelessness—doubling up—and its profound impact on housing insecurity. Molly Richard, Assistant Professor of Public Health at the University of Rhode Island, sheds light on how hidden homelessness skews data, affects policy, and requires targeted solutions.

In this episode:

• What doubling up is and how it differs from traditional definitions of homelessness.
• The challenges in measuring hidden homelessness and the true scale of the crisis.
• How current federal policies exclude doubling up, impacting eligibility for aid.
• The connection between economic factors like unemployment and rent costs with doubling up.
• The importance of broad, multi-pronged strategies to prevent and respond to hidden homelessness.
• The role of housing affordability, rapid policy innovation, and community-based approaches.
• Why understanding and addressing doubling up is critical to reducing overall homelessness.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction to hidden homelessness and the concept of doubling up

00:27 - Defining doubling up and how it fits into broader homelessness issues

01:24 - The measurement and reporting challenges of doubling up phenomena

02:49 - The real number of doubled-up households and its implication on state figures

03:43 - Impact of federal definitions on homelessness aid eligibility

04:55 - The financial human cost and policy gaps caused by exclusion of doubling up

05:34 - How community data and census estimates reveal the scale of doubling up

06:41 - The connection between structural economic conditions and doubling up

07:39 - Factors influencing who doubles up and regional differences in service access

09:51 - How previous living situations predict future homelessness and prevention opportunities

10:28 - The four-prong strategy for tackling hidden homelessness

11:20 - The importance of flexible, local response systems beyond federal definitions

12:46 - The essential role of affordable housing, economic stability, and innovation

13:35 - The broader economic context influencing housing insecurity and solutions from policymakers

15:37 - Emerging housing solutions like modular homes and zoning considerations

17:07 - Balancing quality and rapid construction in addressing the housing crisis

18:13 - The danger of ignoring hidden homelessness in policy and public perception

19:24 - How research should inform policy to prevent crises before they escalate

20:26 - The significance of early intervention and data tracking for long-term impact

21:02 - The influence of cultural conversations, including pop culture, on understanding homelessness

21:58 - Building on community dialogue to address housing as a spectrum of need

22:03 - Closing thoughts and the importance of expertise in policymaking

Resources & Links:

• Journal of Urban Affairs - Community Level Predictors of Doubling Up
• US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
• Rhode Island Housing Data & Analysis
• Population and Housing Census Data
• Echo Village Modular Housing Pilot (Note: Placeholder link)

Connect with Molly Richard:

• University of Rhode Island - Professor Molly Richard

Notable Quote:

"Addressing hidden homelessness requires understanding the spectrum of living situations—because when we ignore the unseen, we underestimate the true scale of the crisis."

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Transcript

Bill Bartholomew 0:00

Counting the overlooked hidden homeless, that's our discussion today. And it's something that University of Rhode Island College of Health Sciences Assistant Professor of Public Health, Molly Richard, has been digging into. Professor, thanks so much for your time today.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Thanks for having me, Bill.

Bill Bartholomew 0:15

Hidden homelessness. There's a lot of ways to take that. When we talk about it today, though, we're kind of looking at from an academic research standpoint, a very specific term known as doubling up, that I think is foundational to our conversation today. Explain what doubling up is and how that ties into the broader notion of the hidden homeless.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah. So doubled up homelessness refers to staying temporarily with friends or family or other people because of economic hardship or just inability to obtain housing of your own. So we have different definitions of homelessness at the policy level, service systems, and some federal agencies include doubling up in their definition of homelessness. So we can talk about that, like the Department of Education. And so that's where that definition that I just said comes from the Department of Education. And so you might hear some variations on that, but that's the general idea. So you're staying with other people because you can't have, you can't figure out, you know, keeping a roof on your own head, and you're trying to um avoid uh entering shelters or living outside.

Bill Bartholomew 1:24

So this would be like somebody couch surfing or a mother and child that are sleeping in a single room at their someone's grandparents, their mother or grandmother's house or something like that. Or the scenario that we see a lot of times where multiple adults, multiple families even are under one roof in one apartment or geez, one room at times. There's there's a gap here in how we measure homelessness because of this these situations and many others. Is that basically the finding?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, definitely. And it's something that people who are, you know, advocates for affordable housing and homelessness and housing insecurity have talked about for a long time. It's been um something that researchers have also looked at, but just the ability to measure that when kind of the whole idea is that folks are trying to uh find a place to stay that they're not, you know, seen and that they can um remain stable have been kind of a methodological issue. But all the different cases that you described, so whether it's like a young adult couch surfing, going friends to friend's house, um, so they can, you know, stay at the same school or a family, you know, all sleeping in a room in another relative's house, all of those situations kind of are under that umbrella of doubling up.

Bill Bartholomew 2:39

Do we know how this is on a local level impacting the numbers that we get? We just had our case in point um, or I'm sorry, our point-in-time study released shows the number of unhoused people in the state. And look, we've been covering on the podcast, on the radio, this issue for so many years now that every winter the same thing is true. The real number is probably not what our actual real-time number shows in terms of the advocates and organizations. It's probably a lot higher. This feeds that notion. Do you have any idea what that number really looks like?

SPEAKER_00 3:16

That's a good question, Bill. I think first the point in time count itself is generally seen as an underestimate of sheltered and unsheltered homelessness. So for those who are living outside or um in an encampment, that's what we refer to as unsheltered homelessness. And then sheltered homelessness is, you know, you're staying in an emergency cell shelter or another um kind of homeless service program, transitional housing, all of those folks are counted in the point-in-time count. Um, but we also know that there are people living outside, especially people living in their cars or in places where um, you know, they're just not seen in the one night or one week um effort. That is a really awesome effort by all the volunteers, but not everybody is going to be counted. And there's some great research across the country that has kind of tested that in different ways. Um, but then yeah, of course, that's also not going to include anyone who is doubled up because it's guided by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's definition of homelessness. And that only includes sheltered and unsheltered. So even if we kind of had like a running list of everybody who was couch surfing, they wouldn't be in that count. Um, and so we do have some other ways of looking at it. Um, but generally when you see that point-in-time number, that's not going to include anybody in that situation.

Bill Bartholomew 4:31

And there's a real problem that comes from this, besides just that which you highlight, which on just a human level, you go, wow, that number is much bigger, and there's a lot more various levels of suffering happening in this space that might be accounted for. There's an actual real-time financial problem, which is that you just mentioned HUD excludes doubling up from their definition of homeless. And that an ineligibility for a lot of people when it comes to significant federal homelessness assistance programs. So that problem exists. How big a problem is this? I mean, it seems like this can be.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

I realize, you know, I went into all my thoughts and feelings about how we define it in the conception, but I didn't give you that number when you actually asked me, right? So I would say, you know, the most recent point in time count was around 2300, right? I think um, you know, and then we have um school data on doubled up homelessness that is also, I think it's around 1200. I can look it up, um, you can put it in the notes or something, but it's like a little bit over a thousand for doubled up students. Um, so you could kind of think about adding that. And then um, the way that I've estimated doubled up homelessness is using uh Census Bureau data. Um, some community partners are in IR say, how okay, we have these household level surveys. How can we try to get at those who are staying with others probably because they have nowhere else to go? So we kind of looked at poverty, household relationships, and overcrowding. And so in Rhode Island for 2024, um, we could guess or estimate that almost 10,000 people um were living in a doubled up situation on any given time. So it's kind of like the point-in-time count, but it's more like any given time across the year, like the average characteristics. And so that's what um that data would show. And again, it's kind of our best way to um enumerate something that is pretty hard to capture.

Bill Bartholomew 6:33

That's an incredible number. When you really think about that in context of what goes out over the air, I'll say at times the number that we sort of references. Oh, there's about 1,500 people at most at any point in time who are on the streets. Okay, maybe. But when you expand that to 10,000 and consider doubling up as a form of homelessness, as it is, uh, that is a shocking number. So it it leads to a couple of things. One, uh questions about causation. I read an article that you published in the Journal of Urban Affairs on community level predictors of doubling up. And yes, there's a lot in there, but one of the key takeaways is that as you have high unemployment and high rent or high cost of living in general, that's going to increase doubling up. That makes sense. But there's more to it than just that. What are your findings in terms of the causation beyond just the general causes of homelessness that that increase doubling up the amount of people who are doubling up on any given day?

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Yeah. So I will say I think that those general kind of understood structural causes of homelessness and housing insecurity, so uh cost of rent, um uh economic stability around like the gap between people's incomes and the social safety net and the cost of housing are those key structural drivers. And so, you know, in that article, I looked at median rent, I looked at um access to TANF, so public assistance. Um, sometimes it was related depending on the specific group you're looking at. But generally, research around homelessness and uh housing insecurity doubling up, we all of that is gonna be pointing to those structural conditions. Um, but when it comes to kind of thinking about, okay, where might we see more doubling up versus other forms of homelessness or housing insecurity? Um, one thing to think about is just, you know, what is the access and to shelter? What does the service system look like? And that might differ geographically, that might differ city to city, and also access in the sense of for certain people, they might feel like they have the ability to access shelter because they speak speak the language of the shelter there. But for others, um, they might not. We also see, for example, like I'm working on a project in LA, um looking at double-depth homelessness, interviewing people. And for many uh Latin folks in the population, you know, they're they're avoiding shelter and they're avoiding being seen unsheltered because of fear of immigration enforcement and ICE. And so kind of trying to get ahead of it to say, hey, if you see numbers of Latino homelessness going down in the shelters, that doesn't mean housing insecurity is not an issue. It just means it's manifesting in a different way. Um, so there's all these reasons why folks may try to, you know, basically stay with whoever they can to avoid shelter or other forms of homelessness. Um, but the point of kind of shining a light on that is to say, hey, when we think about the broad spectrum of homelessness and housing insecurity, we should be thinking about it this way in terms of the scale of resources and the scale of response. And also, if we ever want to actually, you know, prevent and end homelessness, we want to think about the inflow into our shelters and into the uh experiences people have um living outside. And so a lot of research will show that, you know, the last living situation people had who are unsheltered or sheltered was a doubled-up situation. So um maybe half of them looking at different studies, right? And so if we want to, you know, move upstream and prevent homelessness and kind of really think about it either from a public health frame uh prevention framework or just this idea of um it actually can be kind of cost effective to intervene a little bit earlier for people and try to prevent them from having these traumatic experiences, um, better understanding how to address unstable double-dub situations can help with that, I think.

Bill Bartholomew 10:22

What are some of the the well you identify a four-prong strategy, if you will, sort of wraparound in this issue as a whole. What what are the what are the solutions you propose to addressing this in terms of real-time reaction? Because a lot of it has to do with less, hey, we're gonna prevent doubling up, but also, or I should say more so, we're gonna identify doubling up as part of the broader problem that we were confronting.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah. So in that uh short research brief, I kind of tried to just organize some of the ways that we can think about response because there's no silver bullet. Like you and others who have been covering homelessness and housing insecurity know that there's not just one thing Rhode Island can do to fix the situation we're in, or that the nation can do to uh tackle the housing crisis. Um, but I thought about it in the sense of, okay, we can think about homelessness response. So, how are people getting the services when they need they need when they feel, you know, like that their situation is one of homelessness. And so some people in these situations may or may not feel that way. Um, it's just a lot of variation. But what are where's the access and how can people get uh support that they need? And so some local jurisdictions will expand their specific definition of homelessness. So even if HUD's gonna define it a certain way, hey, if we have our own service system, like funded by the city or state in little pieces, and Rhode Island sometimes, you know, we're still figuring out how we're gonna do that in some ways. Um, we could have a different definition. And then homelessness prevention. And so there's not a lot of um consistent federal funding for homelessness prevention, but when there is funding for that, so much of it does go to those who are doubled up. And so, like for example, there's um a housing stability pilot that we've had in the state for a little bit that's doing a really great job to try to keep people in their housing. And often those are either folks who are doubled up for a little bit and to get back into housing or um to kind of prevent them from having to be in that situation. And then just the broader housing affordability and availability. Again, I'm saying, you know, these are big things, these are big buckets. This wasn't, yeah, bill one, bill two, bill three, bill four. Um uh, but uh, you know, really broad areas. And so uh we could talk more about those uh ways to tackle the housing affordability and availability if you want to, but I know uh you've done that in other places, and I'm happy to say a little bit about it, um, and then economic stability because you can't afford housing if you don't have any income. So yeah.

Bill Bartholomew 12:49

I couldn't agree more. I don't think we can have any serious discussion about housing or affordability without talking about things like you just raised. And I'm extraordinarily interested, and I'm sure the audience is as well to hear your take on what is the fundamental issue, not only to the unhoused crisis, but to a lot of the major issues we face in the state. People can't afford to be here. Let's be real. This is crazy. Give me a break. And never mind if the bird that's by the way, that's working people are having a hard time. So now extrapol, take that a step back and imagine someone whose income is either fixed or doesn't exist at all. Um what a struggle. What do you see? What are you seeing and hearing and thinking about in terms of solutions?

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Well, you know, I'll disclose I am new to Rhode Island. I'm here for a couple of years. Um, and I grew up in the Boston area, and before that, I was in Nashville. And it was really sad and hard to see just how quickly those cities were changing and how people were displaced based on the decisions that state and city policymakers were making in terms of here's how we want to see us grow, and here's how we want to see development. Um, I think Nashville is a bit of a you know better example and sort of that rapid kind of change. Um, and so being here, it's been so cool to just see how much attention and energy there is around wanting to do something different and wanting to prevent that from happening 10 years down the line, you know. Um, and so I will say that there's just such a cool slate of policies around building more housing, preserving the affordable housing we have, adapting it, um, trying to regulate rent and stabilize that as an emergency break, you know, given the fact that we are already in a crisis. Um, and I think that thinking about doubling up is another way to sort of visualize that. I think when we only we can't see the pain that people are in um related to the housing crisis and the cost of rent, it's easy to just say, let's build housing and then it'll get better. Um, but it won't for many, many years, if that's the only way that we approach it. Um so that's some of my thoughts on it.

Bill Bartholomew 15:09

Well, that's you know, that's an it's such an important framework right now, right? It's the basic one, which is a Keynesian approach versus a supply side approach. And there's people are stuck in their their camps on this. But I would think of the California governor's race, where a recent New York Times produced forum on the housing crisis talked about something that I thought was really interesting that we haven't heard a lot about here, which is modular homes. Yeah, we've heard about the the shelters off 146 there at the um oh my god, I can't believe I can't remember the name of the Echo Village. Echo Village, exactly. The uh uh the um what's the the the facility? Thank you. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Yeah, yeah.

Bill Bartholomew 15:54

And we've heard about that. But now yesterday we're recording this on May 27th, the morning of May 26th, East Providence Mayor De Silva introduced something that I saw all the time when I was living in Brooklyn. It was kind of a hipster move, you know, in a way, flex or something. But now shipping container houses and modular homes coming to Rhode Island. What I am fearful of is a reduction in standards and qualities and locations, whether we're moving zoning around or doing things that are wacky, we're not. I just worry about the idea of, well, we need to build more housing, so let's just build a bunch of garbage housing for people, stuff them in there. That's not a solution either. And so you're totally right. It's it's it's a spectrum of it.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

I agree with that. I think that um it is it's nice to distinguish between, you know, some of those kinds of housing that we see as stable versus, you know, sort of long-term versus the things like the Echo Village shelters, because I think people have found those to be um a really safe and positive experience for when you compare them to the congregate shelters that people are forced to be in when they have nowhere else to go. And so I think having that as an option for people as a bridge to permanent housing is is really great. And we can um put some of our effort into that. But yeah, we aren't trying to uh it's not a technocratic fix to just create these little um I I think what we're doing in East Providence is great across the board, just building more housing and they're being really creative with different things. And I haven't seen the details of what you're talking about, but generally on the same page around, we want to have high quality conditions um across in so many, so many domains of what of what that means. Um and there's no quick way to get there with everything. But um, I don't know. I think in a small state, we do have the like we're you know, there's some strength in that. We can put our arms around the problem. Even though 10,000 is a big number. Um when I was looking at it in other places, like we're talking about LA, it's like 200,000. So um yeah, I think I think we can we can do that. Um yeah.

Bill Bartholomew 18:09

Yeah, it does seem like it's a manageable problem at a certain level where when you look at scale, it's possible. Bottom line though, is your work now focusing on something that literally is is just not just it is either not discussed in general or it is discussed in sort of an afterthought in a lot of the conversations that I've heard about the unhoused in Rhode Island, where it's almost like, okay, good, someone's got a shelter, they're on a couch, they're at their grandmother's house, they're whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah.

Bill Bartholomew 18:38

We can triage and say, great, they're stable. Now let's focus on the people who are literally out in the cold and then just move on. And then it starts to get warm and all of that, and then oh, good, the World Cup's here and it's speech, get your Dells out, next thing you know, it's it just gets left behind. And so your work is truly, truly so essential to this conversation and such a welcome introduction in this moment. Um, I know you've been working on this for a while, but to me, this was new. And uh, you know, what do you I guess last question what do you hope this stud that your work, your body of work and it getting re in into a wider ecosystem right now, how do you hope that influences the conversation on a policy level when it comes to well, you've already outlined your solutions, so to speak, but um if the governor hears this or any of the candidates or anybody hears this in state government, what do you want them to take away?

SPEAKER_00 19:32

I think that um I'm hopeful that it can be part of a broader conversation on homelessness prevention. Um I think that, you know, of course, that part of that is having, you know, reliable pathways out of shelter so that if people do need um support, they can go and have a crisis response. Um but just looking, you know, at where we're at, if we don't kind of try to go upstream a little bit, um, we're never going to be able to make a dent on the issue. Um so whether that's continuing to fund some of those pilot programs for people or be a little bit more creative, um, small things just like tracking the data of who calls and they're diverted from shelter to a doubled up situation because people will call and they'll say, Hey, are there any shelter beds available? No, sorry, can you try again to like, are you sure you can't stay, you know, with the folks that you stayed with before? Um, okay, yeah, I can think I can stay for one more week. Um, and you're not really getting a lot of information about them, but then, you know, what happens down the line? Can we look at that a little bit? Um, so I have more ideas I'd be uh happy to share with more people about it and and have some more conversations. Um, the last thing I'll ask you, because I uh, you know, I want this to be something that everybody can be thinking about, even if they haven't yet. And um, there's actually a cool route into that. I don't know, Bill, have you watched The Real Housewives right now?

Bill Bartholomew 20:56

You know, I have not seen however I am I am saving it up.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Okay, save it up, but just so you know, and for folks who are listening, if you want to see an interesting conversation about how we define homelessness, um, it came up a lot the last three episodes. Um, so if you're asking yourself, you know, was Alicia experiencing homelessness? She was doubled up and they kind of talk about it for a long time, about what that looks like for her. And so I'm only saying that for viewers who are listening to this and thinking, you know, this is a sort of niche issue that doesn't affect everybody. Um, but I also see people who have been following Real Housewives talking about it in their kind of forums, being like, what is homelessness? How do we define it? Yeah, like, well, if she was in school, she would have been eligible for resources because she was doubled up and she was in her parents' basement or grandparents' basement. And so um it was, I don't know. I'm just hopeful that we can actually build on that and build on some other awesome conversations we're having around how we can really think about housing and security as a spectrum and all the ways that we can address it and support each other.

Bill Bartholomew 22:00

That's a great idea. We'll seek that clip out. Hopefully, Bravo doesn't us if we play it. But in any case, Molly Richards.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Blame me.

Bill Bartholomew 22:08

Exactly. Send uh send that direct bet to the University of Rhode Island public.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Yeah, you can.

Bill Bartholomew 22:14

Exactly. Yeah. Molly, thanks so much for your time. This is great work. And uh let's keep in touch on this. I'd love to continue this discussion, especially as we get into really the thick of candidate season. And it's it's such an important issue that is it really demands expertise. And I understand that that gubernatorial candidates or the governor himself may not have be expert in this on a day-to-day basis, but boy, um, they should be as close to the the source as possible, which would be people like you in terms of getting their information.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Thanks, Bill. I appreciate you having me and focusing on these issues.