City leaders in the spotlight: What to know about Providence Council President Rachel Miller
PROVIDENCE – Twenty years before Rachel Miller won the City Council presidency, she was an emerging labor organizer new to Rhode Island and discovering Providence's 'lifeblood' in the city's working-class and immigrant communities.
Today, Miller credits much of her political drive to the movements she joined early in her career and the understanding she gained that standing up for individual rights is intertwined with the fight to expand everyone's rights.
Although people may not be as familiar with the City Council president as they are with Mayor Brett Smiley, Miller is an influential figure in the city whose leadership has helped steward much of the progressive policy flooding Providence. Rather than grabbing news headlines or attacking opponents on the campaign trail, Miller used a low-profile approach to win unanimous support for the council presidency in 2023.
However, now more than two years into her four-year term, both Providence and the United States are facing unprecedented challenges and political volatility. Miller believes that local engagement matters now more than ever.
'This is a huge moment for local elected officials to make sure that we are doing everything in our power to support our city, to support our residents, to protect them and to stand up for basic constitutional rights,' she said.
Miller was raised in Long Island and comes from a family with Irish and Eastern European roots.
'Growing up in my house, it was never just about us,' she said. 'It was always about what was happening with our neighbors, how we were supporting one another and how we had each other's backs. It was very much those strong immigrant and faith traditions that my parents held.'
In the mid-1990s, she left to study at the College of the Holy Cross – a Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts. Being a LGBTQ+ student on the Catholic campus had its difficulties, and after witnessing a few incidents of intolerance, Miller and other students from that community banded together to form the college's first LGBTQ+ student organization. As young people who grew up witnessing the AIDS epidemic, advocating for LGBTQ+ rights had a different backdrop for them than for many activists who came later, she said.
At the same time, Miller was taking a required class on religious studies, which mandated that students work or volunteer for a community organization. She got involved with Jobs With Justice, a nonprofit that promotes workers' rights. Those two simultaneous experiences were eye-opening, said Miller.
She moved to Washington, D.C., after graduating and continued to work for Jobs With Justice. In 2003, she accepted a position to lead the organization's Rhode Island branch.
'Like so many who've come before and after, I completely fell in love with the city,' Miller said.
One of her first gigs involved helping janitors who worked night shifts in downtown Providence to unionize, due to the wage theft, sexual harassment and xenophobia that many workers encountered. It was a stark contrast with the sunny crowd of office workers who milled about during the daytime.
'That's one Providence, and then there was this other Providence that was working at night, being ignored and didn't have basic respect or rights on the job,' Miller said. 'I feel like the thing that you can thread throughout all of my time in Providence is that we're one community. We're one society.'
Currently, she works for the nonprofit Building Futures, which helps connect workers with apprenticeship programs. After hours, she takes her mantle as City Council president, because being a councilor is a part-time role.
Since joining the City Council in 2019, Miller has been vocal about addressing Providence's housing problems. Recent reports named the city as the least affordable metro area in the United States and found that for every 100 extremely low-income Rhode Islanders, there are only 47 affordable and available rental units.
The housing shortage, coupled with rising rent prices and property values (and, as a consequence, higher property taxes) is a burden for many renters, homeowners and even city councilors.
Representing Ward 13, which spans Federal Hill and much of the West End, Miller previously shared her concerns with The Providence Journal that if she ever had to abandon her rental apartment on Willow Street, she'd likely end up priced out of the neighborhood.
'It would be extremely difficult to find a place to live in the neighborhood that would be affordable for me,' she said.
Every 10 years, the city releases a Comprehensive Plan outlining community issues and solutions to help guide urban planning, and the city passed its latest iteration in November.
Miller contributed inclusionary zoning goals to the plan, which she described as the idea that as the city develops, it must develop with affordability in mind. The plan changed zoning regulations to allow accessory dwelling units, which means people can convert their garages or basements into separate rental units, and it also identified incentives for developers to construct more affordable housing.
'I'm so proud of the way this council shepherded through the Comprehensive Plan. It sets the stage for the level of housing development that we really need. That we've needed for more than a decade,' Miller said.
According to Miller, there was always a community engagement requirement for the planning period of a Comprehensive Plan, but last year was the first time they took it seriously, and thousands of people were involved.
'People would say something at a hearing and then we would follow up with them and say, 'Hey, how we can put that into policy?'' she said.
Earlier in May, the City Council passed an ordinance that limits online buyers from making bulk purchases of property titles that were seized after owners failed to pay taxes. It'll help stop out-of-state real estate giants from buying up people's homes with the click of a button, Miller argued.
She believes things are looking up for the city as more and more people speak out about the high costs of living. She intends to spend the second half of her term supporting groups like One Neighborhood Builders and other community land trusts that have a unique approach to helping lower-income residents own homes and build wealth.
In addition to being a hiker, a cellist and a former punk-rocker, Miller is also a socialist. Nearly a decade ago, she helped found a state chapter of the Working Families Party, which has made a name for itself by endorsing and furthering leftist candidates and legislation in the General Assembly.
'This country is in a place of overwhelming abundance, and the way that plays out with harsh disparities between the rich and poor – it doesn't make any sense,' she said. 'Call it socialist or not.'
The City Council turned heads in January when two members temporarily converted the council chambers into a warming center while the city's homeless shelters were overwhelmed. Miller thinks radical action has always, and will continue to be, the impetus for political change.
'It was the coldest winter we've had in many, many years. There were more people living on the street than we've had ever, so something had to be done. I was proud to support the councilors who moved that forward,' she said.
Smiley criticized the move, and it's one of several areas where the city's leadership has clashed. However, even when it comes to a topic like rent stabilization – which the Miller supports and the mayor opposes – Miller said that the two are committed to talking.
'I tend to be of the mind that disagreement makes us smarter. It makes us really understand the opinions that we hold, interrogate them, change them and it lets you be like, 'Oh … Is this thing that I believe in, correct?'' she said.
Miller plans to run for reelection next year, but for now she said she's focused on the matters at hand.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Who is Providence City Council President Rachel Miller? Everything to know.
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