Newport’s housing woes put strain on municipal workers

At 8 a.m., just before the first class of the day, students poured into the hallway at Thompson Middle School. Their voices buzzed and bounced off the ceiling and floor as they talked about the girls’ basketball team’s big win then slammed their lockers and headed to class. Eighth-grade social studies teacher Katie Behan stood outside room 321 and greeted her students.

“Morning, Julia,” she said. “Morning, Daisy … Buenas dìas, Justin.”

Behan’s family goes back generations in Newport. She spent her childhood here. After going away to school and teaching in Vermont and New Hampshire, she returned to make a life in her hometown. She started following Newport City Council meetings, volunteered on local political campaigns and got involved with the school committee.

“I want to live here and develop deeper roots here,” Behan said. “On Halloween, my trick-or-treaters were former students that I got to see or future students that I would have in a few years. And they would get so excited when I opened the door; and, I’d hear, ‘Oh, my God Miss Behan.’”

A first-year teacher in Newport makes about $44,000 a year. Behan now earns $66,000. For three years, she was able to afford an apartment in Newport with a roommate. But when their landlord nearly doubled the rent to $4,000 a month, she was forced to find a cheaper place to live in Middletown. 

Behan’s situation is pretty common. Of the 242 teachers in the Newport School District, just 25% live in Newport. According to HousingWorksRI, a person or family needs to earn $70,000 a year to reasonably afford the average monthly rental price of a two-bedroom apartment: $1,800. Many one-bedroom rentals in the city cost that much. And that’s if you can find one.

“I’m invested in what’s happening in Newport. But Newport has not invested in me or people like me, people who want to work in Newport and live in Newport,” Behan said.

The lack of affordable housing for municipal workers like Behan is not unique to Newport. It’s a statewide and nationwide problem. But Newport has challenges other communities don’t. 

It’s one of the top five most unaffordable places to purchase a home in Rhode Island. Buyers and renters are strained by short-term rentals and vacation homes. One study found the city had the largest surge in second-home sales in the entire country last year. Right now, Newport is trying to hire a new city manager and is willing to pay the person $200,000 a year. But, according to analysis by HousingWorksRI, even that’s not enough to affordably buy the median priced home, which exceeds $800,000.

“This idea of a bygone era, the Gilded Age, when millionaires from New York lived in Newport for a month or two out of the year. I don’t see much difference between then and now,” Behan said. “But, in a lot of cases, they’re not buying mansions, they’re buying single family homes, single, middle-class, starter homes, and it’s just their vacation home.”

Fire Chief Humphrey “Harp” Donnelly IV joined the department in 1998. He says 25 years ago nearly all 90 members of the fire department lived in Newport. That meant people were nearby when an emergency call came in. 

The station had an audible alarm called the “boop” that alerted firefighters to respond to an emergency. But about a decade ago, the department stopped using it.

“It wasn’t worth the expense of using it as an alerting system because there wasn’t anybody that was here that would come to the fire and help, not as many,” Donnelly said.

There are nearly 100 firefighters on staff now. More than half of them commute, some from as far as neighboring states. And a big part of the reason they can’t live closer is the cost of housing.

Donnelly says the department has had to adapt. They rely more on mutual aid agreements so firefighters in other towns can respond to emergencies in Newport. 

The Newport Police Department is also feeling the effects of the housing crisis. Newport Police Chief Ryan Duffy calls the situation “an uphill battle.”

When he started back in 2000, about a third of the police officers lived in Newport or on Aquidneck Island. Now, only about 10% do. The police department is currently short-staffed and expects to be down nine officers by the busy summer tourist season. 

Newport competes for new officers with the other 38 municipalities in the state, and Duffy says other towns have an edge on Newport because of housing. 

“We’re finding that they’re having more success in areas that are more affordable. If they want to be a police officer and they can pick up that job 15 minutes away from their home that they can afford, versus 40 minutes, it’s a factor that they weigh,” Duffy said.

Newport intends to prioritize housing for middle-income workers this year. In 2022, the city council revised a zoning ordinance, cracking down on unregistered short-term rentals. The city also greenlit two former schools for redevelopment as housing. One, the Calvert, opened in 2021 and is now home to 34 units. The other, the Coggeshall School, is in the proposal phase.

Newport is working with a RI Housing consultant to assess the city’s housing stock and develop strategies to address its affordability challenges. The results will be shared at a meeting at 5 p.m. at Newport City Hall.

The post Newport’s housing woes put strain on municipal workers appeared first on TPR: The Public's Radio.