- Michael Neugent had been living and protesting at the State House before it was cleared.
- The day a Channel 10 story on Neugent ran, state police arrested him on a bench warrant.
- A protest is planned at 3 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall.
PROVIDENCE − After being arrested multiple times for refusing to leave encampments near the Rhode Island State House, where he was protesting, and after years of living in tents and being the subject of complaints by local radio hosts, Michael Neugent is ready to sleep in his own private room.
The arrest that broke Neugent's will to keep fighting the system, to keep protesting, to keep living on the streets, happened on Friday, Sept. 29, as he stood in a neon yellow rain jacket on the sidewalk on the Orms Street bridge, across from his encampment.
Neugent told officers to just arrest him, holding out his wrists in front of him, as captured by independent journalist Steve Ahlquist in a video.
Officers were trying to get Neugent to abandon his post on the sidewalk and his encampment, with its sign stuck to a tree near his tent declaring "home sweet home." When he refused, they arrested him.
On Tuesday, outreach worker Amy Santiago, with Better Lives Rhode Island, met up with Neugent at the Providence Public Safety Complex after he was released from jail, having made a nolo contendere plea to the trespassing charge.
"Michael is finally ready to come in, after there's been so much trouble going on, and he's been harassed before," Santiago said.
'He's lost in the world'
Despite assurances in the "notice to vacate" issued by the city's police chief, Col. Oscar Perez, that Neugent's property would be stored at the North Burial Ground, workers with the Department of Transportation threw away all of his possessions, including his backpack, which had a copy of his birth certificate, his identification card, his bus pass, his medical cards and his writings, according to Santiago.
"I don't have words," Santiago said. "They threw out everything, except for the bike."
After Santiago gave him a sleeping bag, Neugent is now back to wandering Providence's streets.
"He is lost in the world," she said.
Santiago is waiting for the Coordinated Entry System, which handles shelter placement in the state, to call her back about whether there is a motel room for Neugent. Being on the streets for four years with medical conditions, Neugent ranks high, but there is very little shelter space available in the state.
"If you could have seen his face when they told us," she said. "He is broken. He is broken."
She is trying to get Neugent into a motel shelter bed because she said he does not do well in congregate living situations and will not go back to Harrington Hall, the state's largest shelter, with 112 beds. Sometimes she hears back in hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks.
If the state doesn't have a bed for Neugent, Santiago said, she will find him somewhere to pitch his tent away from prying eyes so he won't be harassed.
"It took years to get him to agree to come in, and now there's no place to put him," she said.
Neugent says he has been conducting a political protest
Less than a week ago, Neugent said he had no intention of leaving his Orms Street spot – despite being given the "notice to vacate" – because it had a view of the State House.
For years, he said, he's been conducting a political protest. He was the first person to set up a tent on the State House steps last year before Judge David Cruise ruled that Gov. Dan McKee's administration could evict the encampment, which had grown to dozens of tents on the State House grounds. Before the case was heard, Neugent was arrested on charges of trespassing on the State House grounds and drug possession.
Shortly after the encampment was cleared, Neugent was released from jail.
Neugent next set up camp on a semicircular patch of grass and trees on Orms Street with a line of sight to the State House, between the end of the Department of Health parking lot and Interstate 95. Since he was protesting, he wanted to be able to see the seat of power in the state.
Neugent's belief that he is the messiah drives his political protest, which he said also aimed to draw attention to the general lack of help for those experiencing homelessness in Rhode Island.
"Why should a man have to be living in a tent?" he said. "Why do we have to live in tents? Because we don't conform."
Now, all evidence of his protest, of his existence, has been thrown away.
Neugent charged with trespassing on the sidewalk
Providence police Sgt. Brian Murphy charged Neugent with trespassing, as he was standing on the sidewalk with signs protesting corporate bailouts and other issues, including homelessness. Murphy also charged Neugent with obstruction.
Murphy wrote in the police report that Neugent impeded Department of Transportation workers from clearing his encampment on Orms Street by standing on the sidewalk.
The "notice to vacate" Perez issued does not say who owns the property Neugent was on, or whom it was directed at, even though the police know him by name. Instead, it was addressed "To Whom It May Concern."
City officials asked McKee's office for clearance to remove Neugent, and for confirmation that the state had not "granted permission for anyone to occupy" the land on Orms Street, McKee's executive counsel, Claire Richards, wrote in a letter.
Patinkin:In the shadow of RI State House, Michael Neugent stands with his tent and his message.
City has offered Neugent shelter and services
Josh Estrella, spokesperson for Mayor Brett Smiley's office, said the city opted to have Neugent removed from his Orms Street encampment because of "legitimate concern" over his living in a tent "for a prolonged period of time."
"The decision to provide Neugent connections to shelter and other supports is part of the city's process to help individuals move out of encampments and be provided care," Estrella wrote.
Neugent was given two days' notice to leave, rather than the 30 days housed people are given in an eviction, because providers have "been interacting with Neugent for the last several months, repeatedly offering him services and shelter and notifying him that he could not stay on the premises long-term," Estrella said.
Was Michael Neugent targeted?
On Sept. 7, the same day WJAR-TV Channel 10, ran a story on Neugent and neighbors, who were not named in the story, complaining about him, including comment from McKee's office that the Department of Transportation would clear his tent, Neugent said state police officers came to his tent and arrested him on a bench warrant in another case. He was promptly released on a surety bond.
In a radio interview the following day, host Gene Valicenti asked McKee about Neugent.
"We escorted him off the site yesterday; the court released him and put him back on the streets. So, I mean, what are we going to do?" McKee said as Valicenti laughed.
Later in the interview, McKee said he would deal with "that issue" just as he did last year when Neugent set up his tent at the State House.
McKee said the trash Neugent was generating was a problem, that it was "not a good look" and that people do not have the right to sleep on street corners because it is a safety hazard. He said Neugent was "exceeding his rights," and that while people can sit on the street corner during the day, everything changes at night.
"Do they have a right to sleep there and to litter ... and no, that was established by the courts last year that they don't have the right to be in front of the State House creating a safety hazard," McKee said to Valicenti.
In prior interviews, Neugent said he bagged all his trash whenever he could, but he had nowhere to dispose of it, and city and state officials refused to remove the bagged trash.
McKee's spokesman Matt Sheaff did not respond to initial requests for comment on Neugent's arrest in early September. He forwarded questions on Monday to Housing Department spokesman Joey Lindstrom, who wrote in an email that Neugent was offered shelter and that "numerous concerned community members" complained about trash and the perceived safety of the intersection.
Santiago said it's concerning that city officials cite trash as a major concern when they also refuse to provide any form of trash pickup to unsheltered people.
Advocates plan Wednesday protest at City Hall
Six advocacy groups are planning a protest at 3 p.m. Wednesday at Providence City Hall to demand that the city stop raiding homeless encampments without providing "acceptable alternative housing or shelter."
"The mayor has previously done little to nothing to provide additional shelter beds for the hundreds of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in his city," Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project Director Eric Hirsch wrote in a news release. "He has failed to erect or even effectively plan for rapidly deployable shelters, and is instead sending police to raid encampments."
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Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite atwcowperthwaite@providencejournal.comor follow him on Twitter@WheelerReporter.
