Woonsocket has cut its unsheltered homeless population by about 85% since 2023, city officials announced, with local accounts describing a drop from nearly 120 people without a safe place to sleep to just a dozen as of the last verifiable count in May. The news comes alongside a sobering counterpoint: roughly half of the city's renters are still cost-burdened, and officials say the underlying affordability crisis that drives homelessness in Woonsocket is far from solved.
A Steep Decline, But Not a Solution
The figures were detailed in a rinewstoday.com report on an October 6 update from the Woonsocket Community Partnerships Task Force on Housing and Homelessness, which noted the city has reduced the number of unsheltered homeless by about 85% since 2023. A separate account from The Valley Breeze put a finer point on it, describing the population as reduced from almost 120 two years ago to a dozen as of May, the last verifiable count. Margaux Morisseau, the city's human services director, made clear the progress hasn't solved homelessness in Woonsocket, and that people are still sleeping outside.
Task Force co-chair Bruce Daigle has cautioned that the city's homelessness figures are rounded up to the nearest 10 and represent averages over time, since the population is constantly shifting. Daigle also warned that some currently sheltered residents remain tenuously housed and could quickly become homeless again if their circumstances change. Adding another wrinkle, officials have noted that the closure of some encampments has made unsheltered people more visible throughout the city, even as overall numbers have fallen.
The Affordability Squeeze Behind the Numbers
Even with fewer people sleeping outside, Woonsocket's housing math remains brutal for many residents. About half of all renters in the city are cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30% of their gross annual income in rent, according to the same rinewstoday.com report. Only one in four can afford rent without cutting other essential needs, and renters' median income is far lower than what's needed to rent an average-priced two-bedroom apartment, per Daigle.
Homeownership offers little relief. Less than one in five city residents earns enough to purchase an average-priced home in Woonsocket, and more than one quarter of homeowners are cost-burdened by mortgages they can't afford, which can lead to foreclosure, the task force update found. Despite that strain, the city's housing stock is comparatively affordable by state standards: 17% of Woonsocket housing qualifies as affordable, a rate the report says is 70% above the state's 10% mandate. NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley added another 55 affordable units to its Millrace District apartments this year, part of the city's broader construction push.
Shelters, a Rapid-Response Team and New Beds
The city's expanded safety net includes the Dignity Bus, which provides 20 emergency beds on a nightly basis at Holy Family Church and offers year-round security and protection from the weather, according to communitycareri.org. A 42-bed winter shelter at 356 Clinton Street, housed in a former CVS call center, opened in January, as reported by a separate Valley Breeze article on the city's Department of Human Services. Open Doors also opened a location at 181 Cumberland St. in November 2025, partnering with the city's homelessness efforts to create 75 shelter beds paired with support programs, along with new education and job training programs.
More capacity is coming. The Diocese of Providence and the city plan to rehab the Holy Family rectory as an overnight shelter, adding 20 more beds beginning in December, according to the rinewstoday.com report. Meanwhile, a rapid-response team of about 30 social service, public safety and education professionals — known as the Situation Table — has assisted more than 200 city residents since its inception in April 2025, per the Valley Breeze editorial on the city's human services hub. Half of the eight goals and 40 recommendations in the task force's action plan have either been implemented or are in process, the same editorial notes.
Root Causes Still Complicate Recovery
Daigle has pointed to deeper structural issues fueling the crisis, noting Woonsocket has some of Rhode Island's highest rates of domestic violence, opioid addiction and child abuse. He's also said mental-health and substance-use issues are as much a result of being homeless as they are a cause, and that residents have been directly impacted by federal cuts to relief and assistance programs. The task force, which consisted of 22 residents and experts when it issued its original 15-page report and eight-point action plan in 2024, says it plans to promote state action on substance-use issues, ensure people with severe mental illness receive appropriate levels of care, and expand state funding and incentives for new housing.
Woonsocket's struggles reflect a statewide pattern. Rhode Island's overall homeless count dropped just 2.8% between 2024 and 2025, falling to 2,373 individuals from 2,442, according to the Brown Daily Herald. That same report found more than 1,000 households remain on the state's prioritization list for rapid rehousing or permanent supportive housing, while housing openings averaged just 19 per month in 2024. Woonsocket, Pawtucket and Providence had the highest concentrations of homelessness in the state in 2025, continuing a trend documented by Rhode Island Current, which found those same three cities had the highest rates of unsheltered people in the state's 2024 count.
The scale of the statewide challenge is stark: Rhode Island saw a 394% increase in unsheltered homelessness between 2020 and 2024, according to Crossroads Rhode Island, which operates six housing-focused emergency shelters statewide. A lack of affordable housing remains a leading driver, as higher-than-average market rents collide with stagnant wages across the state, per reporting from thepublicsradio.org. For Woonsocket families still facing difficulty affording rent, and homeowners straining to keep up with mortgages, the city's gains are real — but, as officials themselves acknowledge, there is still considerable work ahead.
