Seventy-eight percent of Rhode Islanders say their communities do not have enough homes that average people can afford, according to a recent poll by advocacy group Neighbors Welcome Rhode Island.

The organization held a press conference Tuesday to present survey results on housing polices and strategies to get more homes built.

The survey found Rhode Islanders support the policy changes that Neighbors Welcome RI has been advocating for, says the part-time organizer of the group, John Flaherty.

Neighbors Welcome RI is a grassroots network of neighbors calling for more home construction to remedy the state’s housing shortage. It is part of a national network known as Welcoming Neighbors Network (WNN).

Flaherty said Neighbors Welcome RI is focused on advocating for policies that will produce more homes of all types, and on establishing pro-housing organizations at the local level.  

He points out that when housing developments are proposed in communities, reaction tends to come only from residents who are against them.

Neighbors Welcome RI supports mixed-use zoning, a way of encouraging commercial and residential uses together. According to Flaherty, on Thursday, a new bill requiring municipalities to designate a portion of commercial land to accommodate mixed uses will be heard.

"We support it because it is a common-sense way to allow for private investment in so many Main Street-type districts across the state that need investments and that local zoning doesn't allow for," Flaherty said.  

Neighbor Welcome RI was launched two years ago by a group concerned about the housing crisis in their communities who came together to work on it, says Vice President Kristina Brown.

The organization has a volunteer board of four directors, including Brown. She says their focus is for Rhode Islanders to have access to housing across their lifespan.

She says the lack of housing for entire lifespans – from rental units to starter homes to homes for seniors – is because of the low vacancy rate and lack of supply in the state.

According to Brown, the policies Neighbor Welcome RI focuses on support the construction of new housing and for commercial zones to accommodate housing.

“We just want to make sure that people who want to live here can live here or [who want to] stay in the state, can stay here,” Brown said.

Brown lives in Cranston and serves on the Cranston Housing Commission. She says the city is one of the areas that needs to be considering growth in housing.

Brown recalls looking for a new home. After being a tenant for a long time, she said, there weren’t a lot of choices.

It took her three years to find a house, and during that time she was putting bids in repeatedly – a symptom of the lack of supply, she says.

“People are bidding on the same houses, and bidding wars are causing the price of housing to increase,” Brown said. “Many households have to settle for a home that is more expensive and in worse condition.”

Brown speaks from experience. She bought her home, built in the 1920s, at a high price from an older couple who had raised their kids there and were now moving to Virginia to downsize.

She realized the house had not been updated for some time.

“If we're not building enough new housing to ease the supply-and-demand issue, the housing that exists, no matter how run-down it is, will continue to cost more, and cost more to maintain, which exacerbates the housing cost burden,” Brown said.

Brown says the housing stock that is really needed is something she calls the “missing middle,” which refers to having a diverse range of housing types, such as duplexes, single-family and rental units, providing options to increase housing diversity and affordability.

Brown says that, according to data from the Housing Works RI 2024 fact book, households need an annual income of $143,000 to own even “affordable” houses in Cranston.

According to the same fact book, the median household income in Cranston in 2024 was about $83,000.

It [is] estimated that Rhode Island needs to build about 24,000 units to get to a healthy vacancy rate in the housing stock,” Brown said. “That’s the goal, to be able to have people moving throughout their lifespan into appropriate types of housing.”

As Neighbors Welcome RI continues to advocate for housing across the state, it is always looking for new members. With a database of more than several hundred people engaged in the work they do, they are looking to hold their first membership meeting on Wednesday, March 26.

Flaherty says everyone is welcome and that the mission right now is to activate people to engage in their communities.

"There needs to be more voices advocating for the building of homes, because this is a problem that has been decades in the making,” Flaherty said. And while we won’t get out of it from the flip of a switch, I think the data shows that this has risen to a big problem for the average Rhode Islander. And we have to take that concern and put action behind it to address the problem."

The survey, conducted by YouGov Blue, surveyed 602 registered voters in the state between Feb. 21 and March 5, with a margin of error of +/- 4.8%. Neighbors Welcome RI says more than half of respondents (57%) identified housing costs as the most important issue facing the state today.