Colby O’Brien, the new executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness, seen outside the organization’s office on the fourth floor of CIC Providence. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)

After five months without a permanent leader, the Providence-based nonprofit tasked with collecting and analyzing the data on Rhode Island’s unhoused population has a new executive director, its third one in as many years.

Colby O’Brien, 31, has only been on the job for a month leading the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness, and he has his work cut out for him restoring its voice as a leading advocate for solving homelessness in the state. He is eager to take it on.

“I leave places better than I found them — that’s always been my approach throughout my career,” O’Brien said in his first public interview since taking over on Jan. 20.

Established in 1988 as the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, the Providence-based nonprofit’s mission is to pursue comprehensive and cooperative solutions to prevent and end homelessness. 

With an annual budget of $4 million and a staff of 15, the coalition’s primary role is to collect the data that informs policymakers on how to best address homelessness. The most important way data on Rhode Island’s homeless population is gathered is through the annual Point in Time count, a federally mandated census that creates a snapshot of how many people are homeless on a winter’s night. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) uses the census data to determine federal funding for states and organizations to manage their homelessness response.

The date of the count varies from state to state — HUD’s only requirement is that it be done within the last 10 days of January. This year’s census took place on Jan. 27, one week after O’Brien started work. He said results are expected to be submitted to HUD in late spring.

The morning after this year’s count, a 48-year-old man was found dead under a blanket on Washington Street in Providence after night temperatures dipped as low as 7 degrees. On Feb. 11, a 75-year-old woman and her 49-year-old son were found dead in a car in The Miriam Hospital parking lot in Providence.

“There’s no room for anyone losing their life freezing or roasting in the street,” O’Brien said.

Setbacks, they’ve had a few

Those three deaths this winter speak volumes about access to warming centers and shelters in Rhode Island. But the coalition’s leadership turnover has meant the coalition has been quiet for much of the past year. 

Its last executive director, Kim Simmons, stepped down in September after a little more than two years on the job. Simmons was hired permanently in March 2024 after initially taking the role on an interim basis. in 2023 following the departure of Caitlin Frumerie, who left after six years leading the coalition. 

A month after Simmons left, the state Executive Office of Housing shut down the hotline run by the coalition that was used for shelter referrals. Instead, those seeking shelter must now go through the state’s new regional access points, walk-in centers across Rhode Island set up to connect people with housing and other services.

Secretary of Housing Deborah Goddard took issue with the integrity of the data collected by the Point in Time Count volunteers who continued using the shelter referral hotline to see who may have been outside after the initial count was done — a practice allowed during the pandemic but no more. HUD guidance prohibits any counting method that “does not involve some direct interaction with homeless persons to determine their demographic and other characteristics on the night of the count.”

The state housing office took over the lead role of coordinating volunteers in Point in Time Count, a responsibility handled by the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness for the past 16 years.

The coalition remains in charge of the state’s portion of the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) — the database that tracks where people are staying in shelters or not and for how long  — through the end of 2028 under an agreement approved by the state’s Continuum of Care board on Nov. 6.

In a statement Wednesday, Goddard congratulated O’Brien on his new role leading the coalition.

“His leadership comes at a critical time, and we look forward to working with him and his team to address homelessness in Rhode Island,” she said. 

O’Brien said he hopes the organization’s reset will help further provide faith to the state.

“Being good stewards of the data and doing what’s right by the stakeholders is really important,” he said. “As the coalition, the lead for HMIS, that’s our job at the end of the day.”

O’Brien doesn’t intend to dwell on those recent setbacks. Instead, he sees an opportunity for the coalition to redefine itself and reclaim the lead in tackling homelessness across Rhode Island.

“I’d like to see us back to being a lead in advocacy on the ground — really lifting the voices of the constituents who are housing unstable or homeless as well,” he said. “At the end of the day — they’re the ones who are really in the situation.”

O’Brien’s entire professional career has centered around helping people, spending the last decade in leadership positions at social service organizations either in his home state of New York or Massachusetts.

“Ever since I got out of college, I started working in human services,” O’Brien said.

Before joining the coalition, O’Brien worked for the Fitchburg, Massachusetts-based social service agency Making Opportunity Count as its vice president of programs. Among his responsibilities included overseeing an expansion of the Massachusetts Emergency Assistance Shelter Program, scaling operations to support more than 630 beds around the Boston and Worcester metro areas.

“Colby’s deep experience in housing and homelessness services, combined with his commitment to strong organizational infrastructure and partnership, makes him an exceptional leader for this moment,” Susan Gunter, president of the board of directors for the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness, said in a statement. “We are confident that his leadership will strengthen the Coalition’s impact and position the organization for long-term sustainability.”  

I’d like to see us back to being a lead in advocacy on the ground — really lifting the voices of the constituents who are housing unstable or homeless as well. At the end of the day — they’re the ones who are really in the situation.

– Colby O’Brien, new executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness

O’Brien intends to champion policies that follow the “Housing First” model, which prioritizes providing immediate housing without preconditions, such as sobriety or treatment programs, to stabilize the lives of residents. 

The housing first approach has come under the crosshairs of the Trump administration, which has tried to shift more federal funding to programs that tie housing to accountability.

“The policy coming out of Washington isn’t supportive of what we need on the ground here in Rhode Island,” O’Brien said. “In two years, they’re gonna have hundreds of individuals who can no longer afford their situation, and they’re gonna be back on the streets.”

But to become Rhode Island’s top advocate, O’Brien said it’s crucial that the coalition collaborate more with other care providers and nonprofits dedicated to reducing homelessness across Rhode Island. He spent much of his first five weeks learning the landscape and meeting with other nonprofit leaders.

Melina Lodge, executive director of the Housing Network of Rhode Island, which advocates for nonprofit housing developers, met O’Brien for about an hour the day before her group unveiled its 2026 legislative priorities at the State House. 

Lodge found O’Brien enthusiastic to find solutions to homelessness.

“Half the battle in this work is showing up to do the job like you believe you can,” she said. “Everything else is out of your control to some degree but you need good momentum to move the work forward.”

Lodge said the coalition adds an important perspective, especially since it’s the only organization that has the raw data to back up what other providers are seeing at the individual level. 

“The work they’re doing is irreplaceable at the end of the day,” Lodge said. “We need them to be doing that and to be secure enough that there’s no discontinuation in that data collection.”

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX