“She Brings a Steady Hand”: How Sabina Matos is Making Her Mark on RI
Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos is the first person of color and second woman to hold the title.
“I look at Sabina and I see a woman of color who’s not necessarily going to be welcome and accepted,” says Ward 11 Councilwoman Mary Kay Harris. “It’s very hard for women in Providence — even white women — to occupy the space that men have always had. That’s not everyone. We do have some men who value and appreciate us. A woman with an opinion is not always a comfortable place in politics, but Sabina doesn’t believe in drama.”
Matos is guided by a slim self-help book called The Four Agreements. Published in 1997, author Don Miguel Ruiz offers simple rules for living: always keep your word; don’t take anything personally; don’t make assumptions; and do your best.
“Everybody has an opinion of how I should be doing my job — that’s constant for me: ‘You’re not tough enough. You shouldn’t let people get away with that, you need to have a heavy hand. You should not be working with him because he did this or that,’ ” Matos says. “What has worked for me is to take the higher road.”
The lieutenant governor’s position is a Rorschach test; the holders have imprinted their own interpretation on a job some believe shouldn’t exist. Second in the line of succession, the lieutenant governor has eighteen statutory duties, chairing commissions, serving on boards, and making appointments to commissions and boards. That leaves a lot of space for issue advocacy.
As an independent elected official, the lieutenant governor can be promoted as a member of the executive’s team, with a high-profile portfolio. (Think Elizabeth Roberts and health care policy during Governor Lincoln Chafee’s term.) Or, if the chemistry between the two doesn’t exist, he or she can become political wallpaper. (Think McKee and Raimondo.) Matos, as the governor’s affirmative choice, has an advantage and she intends to use it to promote affordable housing — one of her priorities since her days as a board member of the Olneyville Housing Corporation (now One Neighborhood Builders).
“She really thinks in terms of looking at the power of place in transforming people and neighborhoods,” says Raymond Neirinckx of the RI Housing Resources Commission. He met Matos in 2005 when she was a project manager for New Roots Providence, which helps social welfare groups expand their services to the community.
And not just housing, he says. “She recognizes the importance of the social environment: strong schools, the library. You can’t just do housing alone; you have to see value to lifting a neighborhood.”
Matos says she was besieged with stories of people struggling to find permanent housing during her state tour. As a first step, she held a virtual housing summit in August.
“We’ve never had a strategy to build affordable housing,” she says. “We can’t grow our economy without it, and we’re going to make that happen.”
In the aftermath of the enthusiastic reaction to her appointment, going all the way back to the Dominican Republic, there’s pressure — as an Afro-Latina, as an immigrant success story and as a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2022 — to execute her duties mistake-free. It still isn’t easy being Sabina Matos.
“I didn’t realize how big an impact it was going to be,” she says. “I have to make sure I do a super good job.”
Ellen Liberman is an award-winning journalist who has commented on politics and reported on government affairs for more than two decades.
