Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center Executive Director Heather Hole Strout shows off the sprinkler valve room where a surprise pipe leak on Monday morning, Jan. 20, 2025, made a carefully scheduled repair job take longer. ‘You roll with it, because stuff happens every day,’ Strout says. The center was closed for MLK Day. (Janine L. Weisman/Rhode Island Current)
Here’s one way of looking at the broken pipe that interrupted Heather Hole Strout’s Monday morning: Thank goodness for small blessings.
Because on any other winter day, a plumbing emergency would have meant chaos for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Newport where the schedule must run like clockwork.
On other winter days, a community room that serves as an overnight shelter for people who would otherwise sleep outside in the cold closes at 7 a.m., leaving just 30 minutes for a dedicated staff member to clean the room before the free hot breakfast program begins promptly at 7:30.
But the center was closed Monday for the holiday honoring the community center’s namesake and so another site hosted the overnight shelter. With the breakfast program not happening, MLK staff had planned for a plumber to come back to fix a patched pipe in the boiler room, a repair that required shutting off water for four hours. When the water was turned back on however, another pipe burst in the adjacent sprinkler valve room off an after school activities room.
“You roll with it, because stuff happens every day,” said Strout, the center’s executive director. “Whether it’s building problems or challenges with people or trying to help somebody that you can’t help the way you wish you could help them, it’s what my day is every day. It’s my job.”
The state and federal holiday meant more stress for those who are living outdoors in Newport. The city’s public library was closed. So was the Seaman’s Church Institute on Market Square. Both serve as daytime warming centers.
Approximately 62% of lawmakers in the Rhode Island General Assembly are calling on Gov. Dan McKee to declare a state of emergency this winter for the homeless population. So far, McKee has resisted, saying an emergency declaration would not automatically make more federal funding available to provide homelessness services.
McKee activates emergency winter shelters ahead of polar vortex
The Newport campus of the Community College of Rhode Island was open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. to provide a warm place for people in need. There were four people in the building around 3 p.m. Two Newport firefighters took turns so one was posted on site during the day, a Newport Fire Department dispatcher confirmed. Although the site is state property, it was not included on a list of emergency winter hubs on the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency website. It was not listed as a municipal site either. The municipal section listed the Newport Public Library as closed for the holiday but gave no indication that the Seaman’s Church was closed for the day.
On Jan. 6, the state mistakenly listed the MLK Center among its 24/7 warming shelters. Strout only found out when she saw it on the news and scrambled to call the governor’s office to make a correction. The center is neither open 24/7 nor state funded. Gov. Dan McKee’s office sent out an updated news release before noon the following day.
The overnight warming center is organized and run through a partnership the MLK Center has with CODAC, the nonprofit addiction treatment and recovery services provider, and Newport Mental Health. Funding to keep the overnight program running through March comes from a combination of sources, including in-kind donations from all three organizations, as well as grants, says Kristan McClintock, marketing and communications manager for Newport Mental Health.
“We got an apology from the Department of Housing office for the mistake of putting that out there,” Strout said. “We still don’t really understand how it happened, but it happened.”
But the word was out for 18 hours. And as Strout feared, more people were coming to Newport seeking shelter, making it difficult to provide it for those already here.
“We did see a pretty large influx of people coming down from the northern part of the state down here,” Strout said. “So we’ve been at close to capacity or even a little over capacity on some nights since that happened. And I’m a little worried about what’s going to happen in the coming days.”
The corrected Jan. 7 release from the governor’s office stated: “While the MLK Community Center is available for the Aquidneck Island community during this cold weather episode, it is not serving as a state emergency hub, as previously reported. The center was erroneously included in that category due to a miscommunication among Newport-area parties.”
You roll with it, because stuff happens every day.
– Heather Hole Strout, executive director, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Newport
Strout disputes that the miscommunication originated among Newport officials and agencies. The governor’s office and the Rhode Island Department of Housing did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Maximum capacity: 25 people
Up to 25 people are allowed to come inside and stay overnight in the MLK Center’s community room. Each is provided with a mat to put on the floor and a blanket. Tables covered by blue vinyl tablecothes and chairs stay where they are and people find their own space to spread out. Only those 18 and older are allowed in. Many prefer a space against the wall where they are less exposed, Strout said.
Doors open at 7 p.m. Lights dim at 9 p.m. Two employees of CODAC remain on site overnight.
A 55-year-old man named Mike, who is recovering from a broken arm from a fall, has been spending his nights at the MLK Center. He has been in Newport off and on since the early 1990s and says he doesn’t actually sleep while he’s at the overnight shelter.
“You’ve got a mat that’s 1-inch thick and one blanket,” he said while sitting on the wall on Broadway in front of the Newport police station Monday afternoon. The temperature was 25 degrees but felt like 10.
Mike said the staff start waking people up at 5:30 a.m. so they can have enough time to wash up in the MLK Center’s restrooms and leave by 7. People can come back inside for hot breakfast at 7:30.
“Some of them are drunk. Some of them are high,” Mike said of the others who stay overnight. “The staff are nice.”
For the rest of the afternoon, Mike will have to roll with it. In a few hours, he plans to return to the MLK Center and wait for the doors to open. He wants to get there early enough to ensure he will have a space on the floor.
Before the lights dim, he can see the three dozen signs on one wall in the community room made by children enrolled in the MLK Center’s afterschool program. Painted in bright colors are the words like“RESPECT” and “Kind” and “HUG” and “Love” They were made especially for the holiday to mark King’s birthday.
Tuesday will be a regular day and Mike and others will have more options for finding a warm place to be. The forecast calls for a high of 23 degrees in Newport.
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