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…