Three floors of the former Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket are tentatively scheduled to reopen next month as a 120-bed homeless shelter after a two-year hiatus.
OpenDoors RI, a Providence nonprofit that helps formerly incarcerated people and those struggling with addiction, announced plans last week to move people now living at the Motel 6 on Jefferson Boulevard in Warwick to the former hospital site near Prospect Street.
The nonprofit will receive $3.1 million from the state to manage the site, Rhode Island Department of Housing spokesperson Emily Marshall confirmed Monday.
Care New England closed the hospital in 2017 and Memorial Real Estate Group, LLC acquired it in 2021. It served as a shelter managed by Providence nonprofit Amos House between 2021 and November 2022 until a sprinkler malfunction flooded the building, making the building uninhabitable and a target for vandalism. The damage displaced 30 families who were being sheltered there at the time.
Marshall said repairs have since been made by the property’s owner, Memorial Real Estate Group, LLC. The group is owned by Michael Mota, whom the Boston Globe reported is being sued by several creditors and vendors due to alleged unpaid debts.
Mota did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
The state paid OpenDoors about $938,000 to date under its current one-year contract to operate the Motel 6 shelter, Marshall said.
OpenDoors Co-Executive Director Nick Horton said the hospital has more space for providing residents with services including housing and benefits application assistance, job training, and addiction recovery.
“There’s just not a lot of common room in a motel,” Horton said in an interview Monday.
The state contracted OpenDoors in May of 2023 to run a shelter in a wing of Motel 6 for people relocated out of the Cranston Street Armory in Providence. The state closed the armory after it was used for five months as a shelter to pursue plans to expand shelter space across the state.
Opening the Motel 6 shelter was a controversial move at the time. Mayor Frank Picozzi expressed concerns that additional people would strain the police and fire departments.
But there haven’t been any complaints from the city since then, Horton said.“We worked hard in Warwick to be a good neighbor,” he said. “Our residents even pick up trash on a regular basis.”
Picozzi’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the shelter move.
The new shelter will open after passing health and safety inspections from the city of Pawtucket, Horton said.
Final plans for a shelter have not been shared with the city as of Monday, city spokesperson Grace Voll said in an email.
She said Mayor Donald Grebien and City Council President Terrence Mercer, whose district includes the former hospital, plan to meet with Acting Housing Secretary Deborah Goddard and her team within the next week to get a better understanding of what the project will entail.
“The mayor has and will continue to be a supporter of creating affordable housing in Pawtucket, as well as ending the homelessness crisis,” Voll said.
This article was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
