“Industry wants us to believe the sky will fall if there’s reform,” said Council President Rachel Miller. “But for working families, the sky is already falling…” “In front of you is an ordinance that will protect residents,” said Providence City Council President Rachel Miller (Ward 13), speaking from the floor of the council chamber. “It […]
Abuse is an experience that many individuals have unfortunately lived through, but it is a topic that doesn’t get the coverage it deserves. There is a stigma, along with the plethora of other emotions a victim faces which could lead them to hide their experience from loved ones, live in denial or be in constant […]
“We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives!” –Plan 9 from Outer Space, 1957 What does the future hold for Little Rhody in the next few years? We broke down our guesses to mirror the sections in a normal Motif […]
I live in North Kingstown, and a friend of mine, a retired police officer, rented the downstairs half of a house down the street from me. At least he did until last year when his landlord told him the rent wasn’t nearly as high as the market would bear, and raised it again. When my […]
It should be abundantly clear to anybody who has read my work over the last years of published pieces here at Motif: I love the city of Providence. Everything about it to me exudes quiet charm, limitless narratives, and alluring architecture, all set to the soundtrack of an artsy yet brutalistic urban landscape. This admiration […]
“Are you choking on the vomit of consumerist ‘gay pride?’— Darling spit that shit out — Gay shame is the answer.” So reads a hand-written flyer produced by the Gay Shame movement in San Francisco in the 2000s, according to author and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on FoundSF.org, a San Francisco digital history archive I […]
It is believed by outreach workers that by the time any members of the Providence Police Department arrived at the two unhoused encampments cruelly evicted by Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, the encampments were empty. All that remained was the trash that Mayor Smiley refused to provide receptacles for, and whatever possessions those being evicted were […]
It appeared to be a straightforward solution initially. With a persistent homelessness crisis and a shortage of affordable housing, Rhode Island devised a plan to swiftly set up tiny pallet shelters as temporary relief for individuals living without housing in Providence. The state purchased 45 of these basic 64-square-foot shelters from a company that constructs […]
In 1937, the federal government entered the world of public housing when FDR signed the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act into law. The law established the US Housing Authority, which created a federally funded public housing program that provided $500 million in loans for low-cost housing projects across the US to help house America’s most financially poor. […]