Governor's Office: Housing for families in need

Right now, there are many housing-insecure Rhode Islanders that need a safe place to stay. Homelessness is always devastating, but all the more so during a global pandemic. My team has been working around the clock to provide support to our most vulnerable during this time.

One of the ways we're doing that is by providing rental assistance to as many housing-insecure Rhode Islanders as we can.Unfortunately, despite the fact that a majority of their rent is guaranteed by the state each month, Rhode Islanders with housing vouchers often struggle to find landlords who are willing to rent to them. That's always wrong, but it's especially dangerous now.

Earlier this week, we launched the Housing Now! campaign in partnership with the United Way and the Rhode Island Realtor's Association.We are challenging Rhode Island landlords to pledge at least 100 rental units by July 1.To support this initiative, we're going to provide financial incentives to landlords that rent units to households experiencing homelessness. United Way is facilitating this program and will help match renters and landlords, so all landlords need to do is call 211 today.

This is a real opportunity for landlords to do the right thing and help their fellow Rhode Islanders, but also get some economic security during these unprecedented times.

I also want to take a moment to address testing.Right now, Rhode Island runs more COVID-19 tests per capita than any other state.The main focus of our testing strategy has been—and will continue to be—testing people with symptoms. But it's also important that we test people who are asymptomatic—especially because they may have the virus and not be exhibiting symptoms yet.

We have the capacity to run 900 of these asymptomatic tests a day, but we've only been averaging about half of that so far. I'm not satisfied with those numbers. We need to get more people tested so we can get better information about this virus and how it's affecting our communities.Today, I'm announcing that we're expanding our asymptomatic testing program to include restaurant workers and bus drivers.

If you fall into one of these categories, you can get tested by going to portal.ri.gov or by calling the Department of Health Monday-Friday at 222-8022.To be clear, this is for people without symptoms. If you have symptoms, you should call your primary care physician or community health center and get tested as soon as possible.

As you probably know by now, our congressional delegation has worked hard to secure $1.25 billion of CARES Act funding for Rhode Island. We've asked for your trust over the last few months as we adopt new measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.As a public official, my job is to earn that trust by keeping our government transparent.That's why I am committed to making sure you have full access to the records of what our CARES Act funding is spent on and who is receiving it.

Today, I'm proud to announce our new CARES Act transparency portal, www.transparency.ri.gov/covid-19. This website will be updated monthly so all Rhode Islanders can see exactly how these emergency funds are being spent. I encourage you to take a look and, if you have something you want to share, use the button at the bottom of the page to give us your feedback.

We're all in this together.

-Gina Raimondo

Governor

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