By WPRO News
Governor Dan McKee on Monday continued to doubt homeless advocates who claim there are some 80 encampments of homeless individuals around Rhode Island, and said that he spent time on Saturday scouring the state looking for campsites without success.
“We’re trying to do our best to shelter people who are currently homeless in front of the State House and around the state. And yet, there are activists and advocates that are going to court to do the complete opposite to try to keep the homeless homeless,” McKee told reporters at the conclusion of an unrelated event at the State House on Monday. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
McKee acknowledged Monday that there was no effort ahead of a court hearing scheduled for Wednesday to resolve a “John Doe” lawsuit seeking to block the administration’s planned eviction of a number of homeless people who have been camping for weeks in tents outside of the State House.
“I was out, actually on Saturday with staff, trying to find encampments that were pointed out as being active and they weren’t active. And so, we’re going to have to find where people are,” McKee said.
“It is a real number, and the street outreach workers, the people who are on the ground who do this work every day are the ones who know where the encampments are,” said Margaux Morisseau, Deputy Director of the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness.
“We have offered an invitation to the governor through his staff to drive him around and show him where the encampments are with the people who actually know where they are,” Morisseau told WPRO’s Dan Yorke.
A Superior Court judge has set a hearing on Wednesday morning in the bid by advocates to block the planned removal of the months-long tent city from State House grounds.
