Eric Hirsch

Rhode Island’s new housing secretary turns to Commerce playbook to stimulate housing production

BY: - November 27, 2023

Stefan Pryor built a name for himself in Rhode Island by negotiating major deals with private developers, lured in by public subsidies. So it’s no surprise that Pryor’s second act as state housing secretary features a reprise of many of the corporate incentive programs he led as former head of Rhode Island Commerce Corp.  Nowhere […]

Could tiny house villages be the answer to solving Rhode Island’s homelessness crisis?

BY: - August 15, 2023

Where do Rhode Island’s unhoused go for shelter? That was the question on everyone’s mind after an encampment for the unhoused off Charles Street in Providence was cleared Monday, Aug. 7. The answer, according to Eric Hirsh, is everywhere. “If you harass people enough, they scatter,” said Hirsch, a professor of sociology at Providence College […]