On a crisp October morning, Amanda Hedger walks through West Warwick's Riverpoint village. A tall woman with blue eyes and curly hair streaked with gray, Hedger has been experiencing homelessness in and around the town since 2008.
The 41-year-old is a kind of elder among people experiencing homelessness in the area. Hedger has poor memory and cannot work because of a brain disease and other health problems. But she speaks proudly of nurturing other homeless people over the years: teaching them how to winterize their tents, bringing cases of water and supplies to others in need, and helping elderly and disabled people survive life outside.
“When you first become homeless… it feels like you are just on a camping trip. But it doesn’t last more than 30 days,” said Hedger.
“You get this pit in your stomach. You wake up, and you want to go home,” she adds, her voice breaking. “And that’s utter devastation. This is what you’ve got. These four little nylon walls is all you’ve got in the world. Plus whatever’s on your back.”
It’s not an uncommon experience in the area. Roughly 40-60 people sleep outside in West Warwick, according to Katie Shappy, director of Transitional Services at Westbay Community Action, a local nonprofit that provides services to people experiencing homelessness and others in Kent County.
That figure doesn’t include people couch surfing, sleeping in their cars, or those not in contact with an outreach organization, she explains. “I’m sure there’s more than we know,” Shappy added.
In Kent County, the homeless population is growing. Outreach workers for Thrive Behavioral Health, a nonprofit that provides mental healthcare, housing services, and other programs in Kent County, have seen their caseload double over the past year, to approximately 130 people.
But despite this growth, Kent County has no year-round walk-in homeless shelters. And in West Warwick, camping on public property was banned in 2024.
“You see people talking about, ’Not in my city, not in my neighborhood.’ And it's like, but then where? You know, where are people expected to go?” said Kim French, an outreach worker at Thrive Behavioral Health.
Impact of a ban
Amanda Hedger and her husband were among many camping in West Warwick when the ban began. They were forced to evacuate their campsite in January of 2025 and have been camping in Warwick ever since.
The policy scattered the town’s homeless residents to neighboring towns like Coventry, Warwick, Cranston and Providence, according to multiple sources. It’s proven a problem for outreach workers at Thrive Behavioral Health, who say people are camping in more distant isolated areas. It makes it harder to find and stay in touch with their clients.
That work–connecting people with the homeless services system–is essential to helping people find a home, Andrea Smith, executive director of Help The Homeless RI, explained. By working with case managers and outreach workers, people can get health insurance, food assistance, and register as homeless with the state so they can be added to housing waitlists.
Efforts in West Warwick
Despite the camping ban, many efforts aim to improve housing and help the homeless population in West Warwick.
Many people return to town by bus or on foot to access healthcare at Thundermist Health Center and Anchor Recovery, as well as case management and mental healthcare at Thrive Behavioral Health. They also return to Shower to Empower for showers and to receive meals from local churches, volunteer groups and the town’s health equity zone.
For the past few winters, the town and a number of community partners operated a warming center with cots and food at the West Warwick Civic Center. Last winter, which was especially cold, the town opened the shelter for 36 nights and about 5 days. The center generally opened when temperatures dipped below 20 degrees.
“The community came together and always brought us amazing home-cooked meals,” said Amanda Hedger, who used the warming center multiple times last winter. “It was kind of different. It was amazing. And they didn't have just thin (no) nonsense blankets. They had good warm blankets and actual pillows.”
Still, there were many cold nights that she believed the shelter should have been open.
“I think as a community, we are trying to do as much as we can, as often as we can to assist people who need housing,” said Fire Chief Jeffrey Varone, who coordinates the shelter.
The shelter is funded by state funds from the Rhode Island Department of Housing and requires significant overtime from town staff and behavioral health staff, as well as volunteer hours, he explained.
Varone plans to run the shelter again this year, but is in the process of applying for funding. The amount of funding they receive will determine how many nights they can afford to keep the shelter open this winter, Varone explained.
In addition, last February, a transitional housing program opened up in a hotel in town for people struggling with substance use disorders. The program is funded by opioid settlement funds. The shelter offers housing, case management, and harm reduction/recovery services for 24 people for a year. Many of the people currently housed in the program were recruited from West Warwick’s warming center. The plan is to house people, teach them life skills, and move them into more stable housing, Katie Shappy, who runs the program, explained.
But many homeless people, because they don’t have issues with drugs, don’t qualify for their program.
“What about everybody else?” said Shappy. There are 100 people on the waitlist, she says, the majority of whom are people from Kent County.
There is also a permanent supportive housing project at 183 Washington Street in West Warwick slated to break ground later this month. The building will offer 30 units of permanent supportive housing.
Originally, the Women’s Development Corporation, which is leading the project, had planned to use the existing building on the property as a housing navigation center, with shelter beds, until the construction began, explained Meg Remson, project manager of the town’s Health Equity Zone. But the plan was rejected by Arctic’s zoning authority.
In addition, the town has multiple market-rate housing projects in the pipeline – about a thousand units in various stages of development, West Warwick’s town planner, Marilyn Shellman, estimated.
But for longtime West Warwick resident Ronnie Lavash, 50, the need for affordable housing can't wait.
Lavash moved to West Warwick as a child and graduated from West Warwick High School in 1995. He works part-time in moving and construction jobs but has struggled for years to afford housing.
“They charge so much,” Lavash said.
He says he's been quoted $2,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, while even apartments in poor condition can cost $1,100.
In recent years, Lavash has moved between rented rooms, staying with family and sleeping outside.
Why not go to Providence for shelter?
The closest shelter for men to Kent County is Harrington Hall in Cranston, and for women and men, Crossroads in Providence.
But Michael, a 47-year-old from Narragansett camping in Kent County, wouldn’t consider those shelters safe.
“Everybody's given the similar stories about getting stuff stolen out of your pockets while you're sleeping,” he said. “I'd rather sleep in the woods by myself.”
It’s a common feeling among the area’s homeless population, Sherry Holmes, an outreach volunteer for Help the Homeless, said. Many of the people she works with are from West Warwick, and feel safer in a place they know people, Holmes explained.
Plus, with reduced bus service in West Warwick due to RIPTA cuts, getting to shelters in Providence, which can run out of beds, is a difficult gamble, Katie Shappy explained.
“It can require multiple bus lines… you have to navigate a whole system. If you don’t have a phone, it’s nearly impossible,” Shappy said.
“How are you supposed to get there?” she added. “Even when there are options available, transportation is an issue.”
For Ronnie Lavash, the uncertainty continues even with a roof over his head. He's currently renting a room in a shared West Warwick apartment for $550 a month, but has only paid through October.
“I only paid for this month. So November, I don’t know where I’m gonna be,” he said.
