Editor’s Note: This is the final installment of a two-part series examining how city policy, law enforcement and lack of political will have affected the city of Cranston’s growing homeless population.

The homeless are dying.

Businesses are begging for help from city officials.

And the city’s new subcommittee on homelessness won’t hold its first public discussion until later this month.

The Body

Last week, police found a body near a bike path in Cranston.

The middle-aged man, recently released from a nearby prison, died outside, on the ground.

“The deceased male found yesterday near the bike path in Cranston was positively identified as David Rios, age 46, formerly of Westerly,” confirmed Cranston’s police chief, Col. Michael J. Winquist.

According to Winquist, Rios had been released from the ACI on Oct. 23, about a week earlier, “and was believed to be homeless.”

“The medical examiner ruled out foul play,” Winquist said. “Toxicology results are pending.”

In April, Westerly police arrested Rios, then 45, “of no given address,” on an outstanding Rhode Island Superior Court bench warrant. They charged him with failing to update his sex offender registration. Then, in June, he again faced similar charges in Westerly.

“David Rios’s death is a tragic reminder that homeless encampments are not solutions, but signs of a failing system,” said Cranston Citywide City Councilor Nicole Renzulli (the council’s Republican minority leader). “While his cause of death is unknown, we do know these camps leave people vulnerable to crime, drug use, harsh weather and the crushing weight of hopelessness.”

“The number of encampments [remains] relatively stagnant,” Winquist said last week.

The Politics

In August, the Cranston mayor’s office and city police enacted and stuck to a policy of clearing homeless encampments from city land in response to resident complaints and a rise in illegal activity (public sex and open-air drug use, primarily).

First, Mayor Kenneth Hopkins’s staff approached the City Council with an idea. They wanted to give police the legal clearance to break up problem encampments on city land, using civil enforcement mechanisms rather than criminal. Instantly, the initiative became a political hot potato. Hopkins’s critics accused him of attempting to “criminalize homelessness.”

In open session, Cranston police representatives urged the City Council to pass an ordinance aimed at providing the civil enforcement tool. The City Council ordinance committee voted it down (technically, they continued it for three months, into the final weeks of fall).

“We were seeking the ordinance as an alternative to making an arrest,” Winquist told the Cranston Herald at the time. “Unfortunately, the ordinance failed passage. If we receive a complaint of an encampment on public or private property and the occupants refuse to leave after being offered social services and temporary shelter, they will be arrested for trespassing. As I testified at the meeting, arresting unhoused persons is a last resort. Still, we also must protect and serve all residents, including those who oppose the encampments and wish to use public spaces free from health and safety concerns. I am happy to work with the mayor’s office and the council to discuss revising the proposed ordinance.”

Hopkins quickly responded with an executive order, an end-run around City Council. Outcry ensued – members of the public, the Rhode Island ACLU and the mayor’s political opponents (both his Primary and eventual General Election opponents) all criticized the move.

“This executive order was issued less than one week after the Cranston City Council’s ordinance committee voted to continue an ordinance submitted by the mayor that I consider cruel and inhumane,” City Councilman Robert Ferri said in a statement released in August by his mayoral campaign. “The ordinance allows Cranston police to remove homeless encampments and destroy the possessions of the inhabitants.”

Ferri did not reply to recent requests for comment for this story (all statements attributed to Ferri in this story are from a statement he provided the Cranston Herald in August).

The RI ACLU issued a statement: “… the mayor’s unilateral issuance of this executive order relies on city Charter provisions that involve his duty to enforce the laws, not enact them on his own. His attempt to completely bypass the City Council process is a dangerous misuse of executive authority. We will be examining what actions affected individuals and groups may be able to take to address this extremely troubling overstepping of executive powers and inhumane response to the plight of people experiencing homelessness.”

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU did not reply to a request for comment for this story.

“After deliberation and input from the public, the committee voted to ‘continue’ discussion on this ordinance for three months to the ordinance committee meeting in November,” Hopkins’s Chief of Staff Anthony C. Moretti said in August. “As a result of the non-action of the ordinance committee, along with the immediate public health and safety concerns for the children and all residents of Cranston, the mayor was compelled to take action by issuing his executive order.”

Ferri defended the committee’s decision to delay.

“When the committee heard the mayor’s ordinance … 14 constituents testified against it, and the committee had a very long discussion on the matter,” Ferri argued. “All city councilors agreed that there needs to be a positive solution to the problem of homeless encampments in Cranston, and punishing these people (which the ordinance as written would do) would not help the situation at all. Passing the ordinance was clearly not the answer. It was resolved in the meeting that we would bring in experts and possibly rewrite the ordinance to protect all involved.”

Moretti countered Ferri’s argument.

“The mayor wishes to make it abundantly clear that he is in no way attempting to punish any person that is homeless,” Moretti responded. “He has deep compassion for them and has been working with state officials to find suitable housing for these unfortunate people. He does differentiate, however, in that his fundamental responsibility is to provide for and protect the health and safety of the residents of Cranston.”

Ferri and Hopkins both went on to run fiery campaigns leading up to this Tuesday’s General Election. The camp issue bubbled to the surface several times.

Back in August, Ferri conceded that there just weren’t enough services to go around for the homeless residents taking refuge within the city’s rare wooded oases.

“The challenge is that currently in Rhode Island there is nowhere for many homeless people to go,” Ferri wrote. “The state is about 700 shelter beds short of the need amongst [the Ocean State’s] homeless population. If we break up an encampment, and move them from one spot, they are only going to show up in another (likely in Cranston) because there is nowhere for many of these folks to go currently.”

Moretti said that “the spirit of the mayor’s ordinance [was] to protect the public as well as the inhabitants of encampments.”

“It was presented at the meeting that encampments are often contaminated with, in part, remains of drugs, including fentanyl, human feces, drug paraphernalia, used syringes, unsafe propane tanks and prostitution,” Moretti argued. “These conditions are clearly unsafe to the inhabitants and deny city residents the enjoyment of city properties.”

Spreading Problem

The encampments, however, had already spread to state land – bike paths, for example – and private land. Meanwhile, the police officers tasked with maintaining civil order continued a protocol that included connecting homeless men and women with government services.

“As far as the current encampment situation … in the city,” Cranston police Capt. Justin Dutra said last week, “we are still fairly status quo. As soon as one encampment vacates, it is quickly reoccupied.”

And when the homeless are swept off city land, they tend to settle on state-owned property, avoiding the reach of city law enforcement, according to police. And the state seems to have little interest in taking a proactive approach to growing encampments in urban core areas.

“Unfortunately, we have little ability to address the encampments on state property, which seem to be the camps providing the largest health and safety issues,” Dutra said just days before the discovery of Rios’s body. “Two of those encampments on state property have been the subject of several meetings this week with the property owner and new tenants of the Trolly Barn property located at 777 Cranston St.”

Dutra said police have also met with “the owners of Seasons, Washville and Sonic,” who have all “expressed much concern over the encampment under Route 10 and under Cranston Street on either side of their new development.”

“Their concerns range from public sex and drug use, public urination and defecation, rats and trash … I have explained to them that without the cooperation of the state, there is little we can do to remove and clean these sites,” Dutra explained. “Speaking of the executive order, it has set a clear policy and process in place to address the camps erected on city property. On three occasions, I have given notice of the order and all three camps vacated on their own with no resistance. The order gives us something official to act on and display to potential violators which has been successful.”

Bike Paths?

In August, the Cranston Herald told the story of Robert Acevedo and Lindsay Godfrey, a couple living along a bike path underneath a Cranston bridge. They had housing vouchers but were unable to navigate the complicated system of state social services.

Dutra and SVU Detective Mike Iacone worked with the pair. The struggling couple also met with Councilwoman Renzulli. Less than a month later, their vouchers were redeemed, they were living indoors, and the Washington Secondary Bike Path was cleared of the debris that they had gathered (including buckets of feces and urine, piles of trash and a carpet of tainted hypodermic needles).

“The couple under Route 10 have not returned to the encampment and are still believed to be in the Motel 6 on Jefferson Boulevard awaiting (permanent) housing,” Dutra said.

“I’m relieved that a couple I met at a Cranston encampment months ago is still in temporary housing,” Renzulli said. “That’s progress, but not enough.”

Police report some victories utilizing the mayor’s executive order.

“The mayor's executive order has helped manage city-owned sites, but the State of Rhode Island must step up to address the numerous problematic encampments on state property in our city,” Renzulli insists. “They also need to develop comprehensive reentry programs to prevent homelessness after prison. Real compassion means creating genuine paths to safety and stability, not accepting encampments as an answer.”

Next to Walmart

In August, Dutra and Iacone led the way into the woods next to the Walmart shopping complex off Plainfield Pike.

Fierce mosquitoes buried into any available flesh, born from buckets of filth lining a 50-yard path deep into private land and ending on a swath of state property bordering the Interstate 295 off-ramp.

A man had been living in this section of woods for more than a year, according to police. More than 20 packed Walmart shopping carts stand as sentries lining the entrance to the campsite. Each cart overflows with gathered debris. Piles of clothing, some with the tags still attached, have been caked with mud and half-buried in leaves.

“The Independence Way location is clear of encampments on the private property, but the one gentleman who relocated to [the I-295] off-ramp remains, and his encampment has grown and continues to create complaints,” Dutra said.

The squatter has attached surveillance cameras to some of the trees that serve as his home’s weight-bearing timber. He wasn’t home when the Cranston Herald visited with Dutra and Iacone. Later that day, however, he was stopping motorists to ask for change at the Walmart parking lot exit.

“As the winter season approaches, we will monitor the camps and work with occupants to relocate in times of potential inclement weather,” Dutra said. “But these relocations to shelter properties are voluntary and subject to shelter rule compliance by the clients.”

State officials admitted they were aware of the encampment.

“RIDOT is aware of this encampment and has informed R.I. Housing,” according to Charles St. Martin, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation’s chief of public affairs. “As we’ve mentioned, our agency does not relocate homeless persons. Our role is to send in maintenance crews and a hazardous materials cleanup contractor to clean up any hazardous materials and regular trash, only after we have received assurances that the persons in question have been removed from the site and their personal belongings have been removed. We suggest you reach out to R.I. Housing and the Cranston police for more information.”

The Herald reached out R.I. Housing. That agency referred all questions to the Rhode Island Department of Housing. A spokesperson for that agency did not reply to a request for comment.

It’s Getting Cold

The Herald asked Col. Winquist if Cranston police had any encounter with Rios prior to his death.

“Captain Dutra and no other officers had previous contact with Rios,” Winquist said.

The discovery of Rios’s body was a stark reminder that harsher weather is on its way. This is New England, after all. And the local police who have been interacting with the city’s homeless speak of the situation with a growing sense of urgency.

“The mayor’s executive order has been helpful to Captain Dutra and the outreach team conveying that camping overnight on city property is prohibited,” Winquist told the Herald last week. “The persons they encounter have voluntarily vacated encampments in a timelier manner rather than having officers issue no-trespass orders and return in some cases on multiple occasions.”

Dutra and his fellow officers have been doing their best to connect the homeless men and women they encounter with the very limited host of services available.

“The approach of offering temporary shelter, mental health and addiction treatment along with other social services continues despite most people we interact with rejecting assistance,” Winquist explained. “As we head into the colder months, we will conduct periodic checks of known camp sites to reinforce the message that temporary shelter is available with the objective of protecting them from the elements.”

Next Steps

The City Council’s newly formed sub-committee will likely meet for the first time on Thursday,Nov. 14.

Each sitting Cranston city councilor was asked to comment on this story. Only Renzulli and Ward 3 City Councilman John Donegan responded.

“Homelessness comes at the intersection of many issues,” Donegan said earlier this week. “But, first and foremost, it is a human issue that deserves compassionate solutions. Housing is a human right, and simply put, we need more housing.”

Back in August, Ferri shared more detailed thoughts on the issue.

“Based on my conversations with homelessness experts, we need to offer services to them and identify a place for them to go,” Ferri wrote. “Most people that are homeless do not choose to be. They are often people with the most barriers to success (e.g. poverty, mental-health issues, etc.). They need help and services. Cranston simply can't make this someone else's problem anymore. We are the second largest city in Rhode Island, and we need to do our part.”

No measures or solutions were suggested or pitched in public sessions throughout the months of September and October.

“In Cranston, we have not built a single unit of affordable housing in over 13 years,” Ferri said in August. “I believe that instead of creating a law to displace the homeless, why don't we bring experts to the table and work with them to deal with this problem in a way that may actually solve the problem? Let's not kick people who have the least while they’re down.”

Renzulli retains some optimism that city officials may be able to collaborate and find solutions. But, as she prepares to leave the City Council (she did not run for reelection), she offered some parting advice.

“As we form this new sub-committee and engage providers, it is critical that we address this gap in communication and service delivery,” Renzulli warned. “These individuals are already in challenging situations, with no safety nets — no family, no stable networks to lean on. The result is people suffering in deplorable conditions that they themselves don’t want to be in, but it is not clear how to get out of.”

The cycle is vicious.

Renzulli and several sitting councilors took Dutra up on an invitation to visit homeless camps throughout the city. The visits made a deep impression on Renzulli.

“One encounter that stood out to me was with a woman who was scrubbing the ground with bleach,” Renzulli recalled. “She told me that when she arrived, the area was filthy, and she was determined to create a cleaner environment despite the circumstances.”

According to the approved resolution, the sub-committee will “be comprised of one representative of the (mayor’s) administration, one representative from the police department, one representative from the fire department, one representative of CCAP Behavioral Health, one minority member of council and one majority member of council serving as the chair of the subcommittee.” The newly formed sub-committee “will make its best effort” to present a report to the ordinance committee, pitching “potential solutions.” The end goal, according to the resolution, will be the ultimate “balancing [of] public safety and respectful treatment of the homeless.”

No potential timeline has been provided.

Council President Jessica Marino, the resolution’s sponsor, did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

Meanwhile, the temperature’s dropping and one man has died so far this year on the streets of Cranston.

“We need to address this,” Renzulli said. “There’s trash everywhere — feces, rats, and more alarmingly, discarded needles. I learned that the caps from these needles, scattered throughout, can contain traces of fentanyl, which could be dangerous — even lethal — if touched by anyone, including a child passing by. This situation is a serious public health and safety concern, and it’s one that deeply affected me … We cannot ignore it any longer, and it’s imperative that we act to clean it up and connect these people with the resources they need. What I saw was emotionally overwhelming, and I couldn't stay silent and not bring this topic back up after that experience.”