The City of Woonsocket plans to buy a $150,000 bus retrofitted with beds for people who are homeless after Rhode Island’s deal to buy the “Dignity Bus” from a Florida-based nonprofit fell through.
The Woonsocket City Council unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday to enter into a contract with The Source, a Christian-based nonprofit, for a 1998 charter-style bus with about 300,000 miles on it that has been converted into a mobile shelter with bunk-style sleeping cubicles and privacy curtains.
The nonprofit operates two other converted buses serving as homeless shelters in Vero Beach, Fla., and is working on deals with agencies in Michigan, California and Canada,
Anthony Zorbaugh, executive director of The Source, said in text messages. The retrofitting work to convert the buses into mobile shelters, he said, was performed by people who were formerly homeless.
The concept of a mobile shelter is appealing to Woonsocket officials, who have been reluctant to open more permanent shelters or build additional affordable housing in the city. Nearly 16% of the housing in Woonsocket qualifies as low-to-moderate income, one of the highest in the state. But as in other communities, the number of people living on the streets has climbed.
Woonsocket spent about $140,000 over the last two years to rent 15 motel rooms for six months to house people in the city who are homeless. The motel vouchers were paid for with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds that the federal government provided to municipalities impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
City Council Vice President Valerie Gonzalez said she was vacationing in Florida earlier this month when she heard the news, first reported by ConvergenceRI, that the state’s deal to purchase the bus had fallen through. Discussions between The Source and the state, initiated more than six months ago, collapsed after the state required that the nonprofit bring the bus to Rhode Island and that the bus pass a state inspection before the purchase closed, according to WJAR/ Channel 10.
“This is not gonna be [a bus] that’s driving around,” Gonzalez said. The bus passed inspection in Florida, she said, and is sufficiently road-worthy that the owners plan to drive it to Rhode Island once the sale is complete.
Even if the city needs to invest $50,000 “to make sure it passes inspection” in Rhode Island, the cost ultimately will be less than the cost of continuing to pay for motels for the city’s homeless people during the winter months, Woonsocket City Council Vice Gonzalez said. “This is $150,000 for 20 beds, not 15. And we can use it all year round.”
Each bunk-style sleeping cubicle has its own electrical outlet and privacy curtain. The bus built for Rhode Island also has an electric fireplace, Zorbaugh said, T.V. and security cameras, as well as a bathroom.
The Holy Family Church in Woonsocket has offered to host the bus in its back parking lot, Gonzalez said. The church has already paid to retrofit its electrical panels and sewer connections, she said, to connect with the bus.
The nonprofit Community Care Alliance has agreed to be the social service provider for bus’s clients, Benedict F. Lessing, Jr., the organization’s president and chief executive officer, said in an email. The Rhode Island Foundation will provide $90,000 to staff the bus for the first six months, Chris Barnett, a foundation spokesman said. The offer, he said, is contingent on the purchase of the bus, presumably by the city, and execution of an agreement with Community Care Alliance to manage it.
Woonsocket has agreed to pay 50% of the cost up-front, she said, to deliver the bus to Rhode Island. The council is expected to vote on the purchase at its next meeting. If all goes as planned, she said, the bus could arrive in Rhode Island at the end of next month or early July.
This story has been updated.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the amount of funding the Rhode Island Foundation has committed to the project.
Health Reporter Lynn Arditi can be reached at larditi@thepublicsradio.org
Follow her on Twitter @LynnArditi
