- House Speaker Joe Shekarchi, thanks so much for joining us.

- It's my pleasure, Steph.

Always enjoy sitting down with you.

- We continue to have a significant housing crisis here in Rhode Island.

There's not enough units.

Rents are going up.

According to the most recent Zillow report, it costs more than $2,000 to rent an apartment in Providence.

And the city, the Providence market's experiencing the highest year-over-year increases in the country.

What is your plan to address housing in the upcoming session?

- Well, it has been a front and center issue since I became speaker, and it's gonna continue to focus on our efforts to do that.

We have three ongoing commissions right now, the Affordability Commission, the Land Use Commission.

We're gonna see what ideas that those commissions produce and turn them into legislation, hopefully pass them.

It's not going away.

We are last in the country, last in the country, Steph, regarding building permits and new housing production.

The package is intended, which goes into effect in January, less than 30 days from today, is all about production, production and production.

We need more housing.

That's the only way you're gonna address this issue is to create more supply.

- It seems like local zoning is one of the biggest barriers to more production.

Does the state need to take a heavier hand here?

- It may have to.

Not right now.

We're gonna continue to hopefully work with the League of Cities & Towns, they have so far proven to be a good partner, we're gonna continue to do so.

But we're not afraid to take more drastic measures or more drastic action if needed.

But we're not there yet.

And I'm continue that the dialogue and the education.

And I'm hopeful that people will understand, when I say people, local cities and towns will understand, this is a crisis that is not going away.

That we have to do things differently.

It's been 30 years since we've updated any land use regulations and it's been 30 years of a housing crisis and it's only gonna get worse.

And I'm gonna tell you that I personally fear as interest rates start to go down, that prices are gonna continue to rise, if not significantly rise, creating a bigger problem in our state.

- I know you're saying we're not there yet, but what would drastic measures look like?

- We have to wait and see, but we have to, all zoning comes from the state.

Cities and towns have no constitutional right to zoning.

It's given to them by the state of Rhode Island.

So we can look at that and modify that.

We can pass more stringent laws, we can do a lot of different things.

General Assembly has under our state constitution a lot of authority to do that.

But that would be done in a very public process working with our partners in the Senate and the governor's office as well.

This is a problem that touches everybody in every community and every community needs to step up and do their part.

- Do you have any specific legislation you plan to introduce?

- We're gonna continue to push ADUs.

That's accessory dwelling units, granny flat.

That's the number one priority for ARP.

It's a very significant piece of legislation.

The house passed it last year.

We're gonna pass it again early this year.

I look forward to getting it over to the Senate and working with our partners in the Senate to get that over the goal line this year.

That has proven to be a significant tool that is being used around the country in other communities and cities and towns and states and it has had success.

And what that is, Steph, so people understand What's an ADU that don't understand.

It's basically an in-law apartment.

It's something that exists right now.

We have a lot of multi-family dwellings in Providence.

We have a lot of multi-family dwellings.

This just makes what we already do in Rhode Island easier to get done.

People who are afraid of this, who oppose this, do not understand it.

I've heard the arguments that it's gonna create more Airbnbs and that's not true because it's specifically written in the legislation is a prohibitation of that.

So you cannot turn an an ADU into a Airbnb.

So people who are posing this haven't read the legislation, don't wanna read the legislation, don't understand, maybe don't wanna understand it, but it is something that is very important for ARP and it's very important for the housing crisis in Rhode Island.

- What's stopping people from building these units now?

- Nothing is stopping them other than a lot of red tape and regulation and expense.

- How much money are you willing to put in to the housing crisis?

'Cause we know in Massachusetts, Governor Healey proposed a $4 billion housing package.

Of course, that still has to go through the legislature there.

Rhode Island Housing Secretary Stefan Pryor is proposing a $100 million bond in his budget proposal.

Is that enough?

- It really depends on what we can afford in the state of Rhode Island.

You could take any issue and people always say we need more money.

So we need to look at what we're doing, what are the outcomes, what's effective, and what we can afford.

But I think that what's been proposed is generally in line of what we need at the moment for this year.

- I wanna ask you about rent control, which is always a thorny topic.

We hear about dramatic rent increases, especially in the last couple years.

At what point should the state restrict how much rent can be increased year over year?

- Well, you are asking the state to, you know, basically regulate a private contract between a landlord and a tenant.

We've made some changes around that.

We've got a little bit of application fees and we looked at it.

I will tell you that I've talked to Mayor Smiley about this in Providence which has the most number of apartments.

He's adamantly opposed.

He said it doesn't work.

If you look around other particular communities, it hasn't had a lot of success.

While it sounds good and it feels good, it has sometimes the opposite effect of limiting the number of units.

So you actually, you have less units and you have more of a demand.

The way to solve that problem regarding rent control is to create more units.

If you create more units, then you have competition and prices will come down.

Prices for rent will come down and prices for purchase will come down as well.

- So you're not interested in regulating what the rents can be, but you believe building more units, they will naturally come down.

- Absolutely.

That's the answer.

- Back in September, "Rhode Island PBS Weekly" reported on a crisis in the early intervention system for infants and toddlers with developmental delays, hundreds are waiting months, or even more than a year, for state services in violation of federal law.

While state officials have directed American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA funds to early intervention providers, it hasn't been enough to clear the backlog.

The program is run out of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, EOHHS, which is proposing a Medicaid rate increase to try and help.

I know child advocates have been lobbying you for more funding.

What is your plan here?

- Well let's go back to say what we did with the ARPA money.

We made significant investments.

The CARES Act money was a significant investment in ARPA money.

We passed $22 million the first day of January about two years ago as well.

We commenced a rate study to see if we need to do that.

Those results are in, they've given to the governor.

We're waiting for the governor's budget.

We'll listen to what he asked to say.

We're gonna have a public hearing and a process and we'll listen to all the advocates and we'll make adjustments as we can, as we need and as we can afford.

- The advocates say that the rate increase proposed by EOHHS is good, but it's not enough.

This is a imminent crisis.

I mean, will you go farther than what the governor proposes?

- If, after we go through a public process and vetting, yes, that's our jobs, the general assembly, is to listen to this and listen to what the governor has to say.

I don't wanna predispose, 'cause I don't know what the governor's gonna propose, but I wanna point out that money in and of itself isn't always the answer.

That we've made significant investments across the board.

We have a labor shortage in every part of state government.

It's not just teachers.

It's in the nursing home system, it's our doctors, it's our nurses.

We have a labor shortage everywhere and we need to do this.

And when we talk about raising rates, we're talking about increasing tax dollars.

And I understand that education is critical, it's important, but we've done that and we're gonna continue to do that here in Rhode Island.

But we have to also be cognizant of what we can afford.

- Public school enrollment continues to drop significantly.

- Significantly across the state.

And that's a trend over the last many, many years.

- And this could be problematic because state aid is tied to enrollment among other factors in the formula.

Are there any changes that you're looking at for school funding?

- We have increased funding year-over-year overall so we are increasing funding in less and less population, school age population.

That means the cost per pupil, as far as state aid, has gone up significantly.

And unfortunately, I don't see a lot of results.

So we need to look at this.

I don't think money in and of itself is the answer.

- What is your top priority when it comes to education that you think will come up this session?

- We'll just continue to fund it adequately to make sure that we do the right thing around it.

Certainly early intervention we're looking at, certainly about, you know, teachers and school, making sure that we get more people into the system and absenteeism as well.

You know, we need to find solutions or ideas to get people back into school.

- Shekarchi said lawmakers will once again consider reforming the Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights.

A controversial police accountability law that critics say protects officers accused of wrongdoing, including by leaving major disciplinary decisions up to a panel of fellow officers.

This is something that seems to be a top priority at the start of the session for the past few years, but then doesn't make it over the finish line because all of the sides can't agree.

Is this a top priority this session?

- Yes it is.

And I expect the house will act on it very soon because we've worked on it all summer long.

I think this is the year.