A public health crisis in downtown Spokane.

Around every corner, homelessness, crime and open drug use are on display.

What's harder to see, however, is the work happening between the city, county and many other government and community organizations to solve the problem.

From housing to policing to drug treatment, there are no shortages of opinions on this matter.

So let's talk about the problems and the solutions.

Next on at issue.

Can we fix downtown?

Hello, and thank you for joining us for At Issue.

I'm Dana Haynes, KSP PBS is pleased to premiere this new public affairs program dedicated to in-depth reporting and important conversations about topics that impact you.

Today, we are digging deeper into homelessness and public safety in our region, particularly in downtown Spokane.

We have a large panel joining us today to talk more about the issues.

Let's welcome.

Assistant Chief Steve Wohl from the Spokane Police Department.

Spokane City Council member Paul Dillon, Spokane County commissioner Amber Waldref Dawn Kinder, the director of neighborhood housing and Human services for the city of Spokane.

Spokane City Council member Jonathan Bingle Joe Ader, CEO of Family Promise of Spokane.

And Gavin Cooley, the director of strategic initiatives at Spokane Business Association.

Thank you all for joining us.

And we do want to mention that we expected Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown to join us today, but she did decline at the last minute.

All right.

To get a sense of how the public feels about homelessness, housing and public safety in Spokane, we want to share the results of a recent survey conducted by Greater Spokane Incorporated for the pulse.

GSC polled 600 registered voters in the city and county.

First, let's take a look at a snapshot of the top concerns.

When asked, what are the issues facing Spokane that you are most frustrated or concerned about?

51% of voters overall and 59% in city limits cited homelessness as their top concern.

40% cited crime, drugs and public safety as their top concern.

58% overall believe addressing homeless encampments would have a significant impact on the quality of life, and 52% overall said the same about property crime.

Those numbers are a point higher for people living within city limits, and a whopping 93% of those polled agreed that downtown Spokane cannot fully recover until homelessness and public safety problems are addressed.

All right.

Time now to get into our discussion.

And we're going to start with Council Member Paul Dillon.

What's your reaction when you see numbers like that?

Yeah, I think it affirms, obviously how a lot of folks are feeling in the city and county.

I don't disagree with the top priorities.

Those are very clearly, outlined.

I think some of the challenges and I've said this before, there's some aspects of this that I do take with a grain of salt from how many are, inside the city or, do come, downtown.

But, you know, I don't want to minimize, a lot of the, the challenges that we do face downtown and those feelings, at the same time, you know, unfortunately, I've, I've seen, surveys like this be, weaponized in a way that I think can sometimes make the challenges bigger than they actually are downtown, which can cause, a decent, dis investing divestment from downtown.

When we want people to come downtown, we want, we need people to come to restaurants and to to shop and enjoy downtown.

We all want the same things.

We want to clean and safe city.

I know there's some disagreements with how they they get there, how we get there.

But the priorities there are very clearly, outlined.

And, I do agree with them.

Okay.

Commissioner, as a represe the level of, you know, of, of discontent is the same in the county.

Did that surprise you at all to see those numbers?

No, I don't think it it surprised me because the, everyone frequents many parts of our county.

People live in the valley.

They live north.

They work downtown, or vice versa.

So really, the Spokane region is a region, and we all, can benefit from the the positives.

And we all are impacted by maybe some of the negatives.

So I guess I wasn't surprised.

I think your original data points were county wide.

You know, what are the top issues that people think we need to address.

And homelessness, homelessness is being is an issue that's faced by people all over the county.

And yes, it may be more visible downtown, but we know a lot of homelessness, especially family homelessness, is hidden.

And it's, folks doubled up, tripled up.

It's impacting our youth.

It's impacting our families.

Our seniors are starting to struggle with the cost of housing.

So really, it's a housing crisis, countywide.

And so I guess I'm not surprised that the numbers of people who are concerned and, and want to see, us as a region identifying ways to house people more quickly or keep people housed.

Okay.

Thank you, Joe, to you as a service provider.

Do you there's a, you know, kind of that perception.

Oh, nothing's going, nothing's happening.

Which is why we're doing this show, because there's a lot happening.

But as a service provider, how does that perception or that sentiment affect you and what you're doing in your locations?

Yeah, there's there's massive, problems with the perception of homelessness versus the reality of homelessness.

And those are two different things.

And for a long time, not just in Spokane, but everywhere around the country, there is a lot of, policy decisions made off of perception rather than actual data on what works and what doesn't and how those things should work together.

And so, it does impact the work that we do as providers.

Pretty, pretty extensively in, in, in the work that we have to do.

And I think, some of the things that that, commissioner mentioned, are really important in this bigger picture of, you know, we think of homelessness downtown.

But that's not where homelessness starts.

That's where homelessness ends.

Homelessness starts sometimes at birth.

We had 30 newborns in our shelters this past year.

It starts in elementary schools.

It continues a cycle.

If you don't interrupt that cycle and provide housing interventions early on.

And then we see long term impacts of those things.

And so I think the perception issue is a big issue that we need to address in our community.

As a whole and realize like, this isn't just a downtown thing.

This is a every every part of our community has struggles with this.

Just some are more visible than others.

And it's a really important thing that we address as a, as a community as a whole.

Thank you.

We do know work is happening as you're hearing the panel talk about today.

And we're going to talk a lot about that.

As a matter of fact, just a few weeks ago, the city announced a new comprehensive homelessness strategy includes three initiatives.

The first is called Home Starts Here, which focuses on four pillars health care, outreach and navigation, multidisciplinary engagement, and economic security.

The goal is to address the multiple complex factors that contribute to housing instability and homelessness.

The second initiative is a new weather agreement that, in part, would change the requirements for shelter activation from a simple temperature measure to an index measure, taking into account things like humidity and wind chill.

And the third is a proposal to consolidate the existing laws that enforce unlawful camping and public right of way violations into a new engagement and enforcement ordinance.

All right.

With that, the the home and home starts here is an acronym for those four pillars I mentioned.

Health care, outreach, navigation, multidisciplinary engagement and economic security.

There's a lot there.

But Dawn, can you explain the main goal for each of those pillars and how they work together to address what we're talking about?

Housing instability.

Yeah.

So I think we're trying to create a framework that the city can operate under, acknowledging that homelessness is a very complex topic.

I think Joe alluded earlier to the fact that there's no one way or one reason that makes a family or an individual experience homelessness.

We know that access to things like health care are critical to stabilizing somebody.

We know that shifting and coordinating better amongst outreach services is going to be essential, as we continue to work towards longer term success.

The multidisciplinary piece, I think, is attempting to really acknowledge that there is a role for code enforcement and first responders to play.

You've seen in the last year some expansions and reinvestment in the CARES program, the BSU, the do a lot of our co responder teams to public safety.

We know that they play a part in the solution as well.

And on the economic side we know that Spokane's average median income has increased.

We need to have better paying jobs so that families can't afford the the rising costs of rent.

And we know that it takes addressing all four of those components to really be successful in stabilizing somebody.

Unfortunately, this is a very complicated problem.

And if we don't attack it from all angles, we're not going to see long term success.

And creating a framework for the city to operate under gives us better direction and guidance on how we utilize resources collaboratively with the county and others to really make meaningful change.

I think this new framework also includes rental assistance, eviction prevention, and apprenticeship training.

How would those then be funded through the already funded interventions of the City of Spokane, passes funds from the state and federal government to support.

So we do fund those things currently.

I think, you know, one opportunity that this, kind of discussion today will provide is for us to highlight a lot of the work that most of the community is not aware about because they're focused, again, on perception versus a lot of the work happening.

So we spend a substantial amount of money every month on eviction prevention, which gets to Joe's point earlier about actually getting upstream on the challenge.

Our diversion programs are quite successful and diverting people away from homelessness through landlord tenant relationships.

And a lot of mitigation and damages when necessary.

So I think those those are all funded things currently that we're trying to really draw attention to and make sure people understand.

That's also part of this response.

We talked we've heard this word already, the chronically homeless.

Council Member Dillon, this is for you.

You know, people say we don't do enough to get those chronically homeless, those people we're seeing downtown or what have you.

Off the streets.

Again, this is going back to that broader question of of informing the public of what?

What do you tell the people?

Say we're not just we're just not doing enough.

We've got this framework in place now.

What does this all mean?

Yeah, I think it's important.

To really make sure that we're both talking not just about response, but also prevention.

And for the folks that are that one.

Rent payment away, they are that they're their car breaking down.

They're that one place away from being unhoused.

And I think that, when we look at, again, the data, we're looking at if we change how we talk about homelessness, too, because how we talk about homelessness, so much matters.

It's not just people experiencing homelessness, it's people who can't afford rent.

And so a lot of these interventions, eviction prevention funds, you know, rental assistance really are an important lifeline, to making sure that there is not, we're not crossing, that, that step.

And so, really, I think, part of the home strategy is how we pull all these elements together.

We educate and inform the public and also, you know, make sure that, people know that they're able to access these resources and, they can really be the difference between being, unhoused, versus not.

We'll talk a lot more about this topic throughout this show, but, the new strategy that, has been talked about, it's been widely covered in the media.

At the beginning of Mayor Brown's administration last year, the city launched a new scattered site model for sheltering, also called specialized sites.

On this first question is for you on that matter.

Is it still part of the overall strategy?

And it works into this new framework we're talking about with these new initiatives?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

They're complementary.

I think the idea around scattered sites was always to provide kind of tailored care in smaller settings to create better outcomes.

Again, it was a counterpart to congregate shelter, not a dismissal of the important work congregate shelter also provides.

But I think the home strategy is inclusive of that and how we really create tailored services that still address really deep outreach and navigation in the community, connections to health care providers coming on site.

It's it's all embedded in that same strategy.

Was it something you borrowed from something you saw someplace else?

Where did this idea come from?

For the scattered sites?

I think we do some additional research.

When Mayor Brown started, one of the recommendations from the transition committee was to do kind of a shelter audit.

And we brought a staff member on board who did some of that work.

Did a lot of public engagement and presented those findings to council, I believe, for the book and others.

And some of the recommendation in there was to consider smaller sites, shelters.

That was a lot of provider feedback and acknowledging the importance of relationship to create change and how hard that can be to do in a large setting.

So there was, you know, a lot of public engagement.

And there also are other communities who do scattered site shelters.

Each community kind of has its own flavor.

But I think we feel really confident about where, where we are today with that model and what we can continue to accomplish going forward.

So a little bit of both, a little bit of community feedback and a little bit of research on what's working in other places too.

On this question is also for you, but maybe Joe wants to jump in on this one.

You know, a lot of people would say, oh, not in my neighborhood.

I don't want one of those in my neighborhood.

But but kind of explain, you know, the benefits of having these smaller, more specialized places within the neighborhood.

And people are quietly coming and going right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'd love to talk about how.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So family promise we we piloted this initiative on accident.

I mean, it was a it was an outgrowth of, in response to Covid, where we had some shelters that were operating out of churches that the churches closed.

And what do we do?

And so we moved to this smaller neighborhood site model, and we saw incredible outcomes from that.

We saw 95% of our families leaving to permanent housing out of those smaller sites with no negative neighborhood impacts.

Most of the neighborhoods, actually, we haven't had a complaint at our scattered sites.

And we've we've run five over the past five years.

In three years, we haven't heard a single neighbor complaint, or even a comment about the most of the neighbors don't even realize that.

That that house is there in their in their neighborhood.

And and you can see, even with the statistics from just the change in the city model, you know, third quarter of last year where the congregate shelters were more dominant to, to this quarter, where the scattered sites, the exits to permanent out of our emergency shelters.

Third quarter last year was 9%.

It's now 21%.

So there's a there's a movement towards these smaller sites and actually getting results on ending homelessness rather than just the let's make the suffering less to actually let's end the suffering and move from homelessness to housed.

And this is one component of that.

There's a whole lot that goes into that.

But I think the the smaller set models work well.

But there's a lot of fear when you hear homeless and you hear your neighborhood.

That's the truth.

So I'll just add to that.

So I had a scattered site about a block from my house.

I know someone out there is going to say Council Member Dillon.

How would you like you know, this scenario house.

Well it was fine.

You know, the folks that were running it went door to door.

They talked with neighbors.

And I think being having that transparent, open communication was really helpful.

Look, this isn't scary.

Come on in.

Having an open house, was really beneficial.

And help build trust and also, I think to Dan's point, the evidence based approach around scatter science more cost effective rather than the larger congregate, shelters.

Not as many issues associated, but also, being able to navigate people, to services and housing and do referrals and really think more, kind of upstream.

So I see it as a win win.

And then, to some of the neighborhood concerns, I mean, part of the package is the Good Neighbor agreement, looking at public siting, making sure that it is, equitable.

And there is good open communication between, neighborhoods, neighbor councils.

The city's really been going that direction with a few of our sites, and we've seen really positive results.

Council Member Bingle, what are you hearing from your voters and what do you think about this idea?

What I in the scattered sites, it's important to understand.

First off, I am very proud of Joe and family promise.

They do fantastic work.

You know, glad that they're in my district.

But there is a big difference between a family scattered site shelter and a specialized, facility that's dealing with folks with severe mental illness or severe, severe substance use disorder.

And so I think that that's part of the conversation that we have to have where it's, you know, families who have motivations to, you know, be working to, to get their kids out of homelessness is different than, a young man struggling with substance use disorder or a young man who has severe schizophrenia or something like that.

There are differences in these, in these shelters.

And I think we sort of talk about them as if they're all the same, as if the impact is the same, not that their use is the same, but their impact is different depending on the population that's being served.

And I think that that's an important part of the conversation.

And in my district, you know, the district I represent, you know, there was a, facility that was going to go into one of my neighborhoods, right into the Chief Gary Park neighborhood.

Now, Chief Gary Park is a neighborhood of 6000 people, and they already have five, five organizations doing work in that one neighborhood.

And then we were going to put another addiction service in there.

And so the people that I represent are typically like, you know, we're happy to share the burden, but we don't want to bear the burden.

And that's what I hope, comes out of this is that, and it's not because my district matters any less or anything like that.

It's just that in in my district, we have, lesser property values.

And so they tend to be more affordable for, folks who are doing this sort of work.

And so what I'm hoping comes out of this is that it does become a citywide burden, rather than something that has been more pushed into, into areas that I represent.

All right.

I would just add to I think hearing that feedback from Council clear at the beginning, we do most of the district with the most scattered sites is district three.

So we are working intentionally with those operators to find locations to try and make sure that that is spread out.

Because we do we do value that feedback and understand that impact.

All right.

One of those specialized shelter sites is the navigation center we visited to get a look inside at the work being done.

There.

I came here not knowing what I was going to do or where I was going in life.

Hope for the unhoused population.

Tucked away in an unassuming location, this shelter, located just west of downtown Spokane on the edge of Browns Edition, offers more than just a place to sleep.

When people are coming in, they're engaging in services where assessing their needs.

We're helping them triage into detox or inpatient if they need that.

And then we're also looking at beds that would best fit them.

And then when they get there, they can they can stabilize there.

They can have the supports and wraparound services that they need.

They're wraparound services are at the center of the city of Spokane's new shelter strategy.

Last October, the city closed the large Trent Resource and Assistance Center, also called track, and shifted gears to a new scattered site model.

Instead of focusing on one large shelter location, the city has been opening several smaller, specialized shelters.

Lane Pavey is the executive director of Revive Counseling Spokane, the service provider for one of those shelters, the Navigation Center.

The big shelters overwhelm neighborhood, and people do not feel safe coming into them when they are just a number in a bed in a short staffed place.

You're going to get assaulted in the middle of night.

You're going to get robbed.

There's no way to manage the population when you have that many people in a congregate shelter.

These smaller shelters are just engaging people in a more personalized way.

We're building community.

People build trust amongst each other.

They can sleep at night, and we all know them by name.

This is what really it takes to to get people moving forward and believing in themselves and creating that access to opportunity in the community.

The Center's personalized support is having an impact on the clients.

I just came over here on a whim and, amazing folks here let me come in and, make me feel at home.

And until I got my bed date and inpatient and then went inpatient, and obviously it's gotten into clean and sober housing and, I got a job, today, and, I'm able to be a person I feel like again, on top of three meals a day and a safe place to sleep.

The navigation center provides housing and employment support and helps clients attain detox, inpatient addiction treatment, or medical aid when needed.

Clients are also encouraged to join educational workshops, peer support groups and more.

I can't explain how much help save need help me since I've been here, as well as not even like with bus rides every now and then or take it personally and take their time out of their day to take it to an appointment and get my ID and stuff like that.

I've never felt so welcome from the day we came here for interview.

There hasn't been a single person that hasn't come up and said, welcome, this is do you need anything?

So it's great.

This is a good program.

Housing support is the top priority.

The navigation center has three dedicated housing specialists working with clients and housing partners.

Since October, the staff has helped 33 clients find permanent housing and eight find transitional housing.

And that speaks volumes to the, relationships that we have with our landlords who, like, actually want our clients, in their housing because they know when they come with a revised housing specialist, they have a liaison, they have someone who's going to support that person if they had some period of instability, if they're behind in rent, they know they can call someone.

The goal is to move clients into housing in 90 days.

And while the nature of this work doesn't always fit neatly into a tracking spreadsheet, Pavey says the compassionate case managers and support staff don't give up offering a lot of help.

With what little space and resources they have.

This is a bright, shiny place and people come in.

And when our staff is engaged in all of this that we're like, there's hope.

Good things are actually happening.

All of us, service providers and homeless services need a reminder of that all the time.

Every day.

Don't be scared to ask for help if you don't want to be homeless.

There's a way out.

I mean, I get it because I've been there.

And it's a hard decision to make.

But once you make that decision, there's help.

And, this place is definitely a rock to start on.

I think the word that stood out there was hope.

We heard that said a lot of times in that piece.

Dawn, your reaction to that, I mean, this scattered site model is just been into effect, you know, six months or a little over six months.

What's your response to seeing that piece?

I think, you know, as I've been in this field for 20 years, not unlike Joe, and this is this is the world that we know.

So I think, you know, it's not surprising to me to hear that.

I think when you're on the service provider end, this is the real story of how homelessness is being addressed in Spokane.

This is what it looks like when people are given resources and safe places to be to get help.

So it's, you know, of course, it's like the best thing you can possibly imagine for people who have been on the streets to be in these safe places.

And then, you know, several of those clients had former right resident here.

They've they've been housed, that is the goal.

And I think that's that's why we're in this work.

I didn't stumble in to this field or I, I care deeply about these issues.

We know what we're doing.

We're building out great programing with incredible partners.

And for the service providers in this space, day in, day out.

This is why we come back.

This is why we're here every day.

Working hard to make sure that more and more people have access to this program.

So it's it's the best news you can get.

Joe, your response to that?

Absolutely.

I think the key the key thing there is the relationship side.

You know, we talk about the homeless and we have this big broad brush.

But these are people like those people have names.

It reminds me of a story of when I was, when I was first, opened one of the shelters here, there was a little girl who was just learning how to write her name in the shelter, and, we got the family into housing.

She had never been housed.

And she's in kindergarten, so she's five at this time, and she comes in, to give me a thank you card and the thank you note when they were going into housing, it was just a sticky note, and it just said Julia.

Julia.

Julia.

Julia.

Julia.

Julia.

Julia.

Julia.

Because she only knew how to write her name.

She wanted to say more, but that's all she knew how to write in a.

And it reminds me of two things one, every number that we that we put up there.

Every statistic that's a person.

And, and that person has a name.

And then the second thing for the population that I serve, particularly the children, like they don't have a voice.

And so they can't say what they what they want to say.

And so I it's up to all of us.

And a lot of the homeless don't have a voice in our community, like they're not in this room right now.

And so we have to be the voice for them, in, in really provide the services that they need, not the things that we think that they need, but what they actually need.

So.

All right, the navigation center is open 24 seven.

I know one of the challenges right now is having more places that have daytime hours because oftentimes, the unhoused, if they're in a shelter at night, then they're back on the streets during the day until they go back in the evening.

What's the work being done, dawn, to kind of increase that day side.

Look for those wraparound services.

Yeah.

So we're in constant internal discussions about how do we add daytime navigation capacity.

Whether it's, you know, scattered sites or maybe even opening a center, that's just dayside navigation where people aren't sleeping on site, but they can come access services during the day.

To get into the pipeline to access those shelter beds or other services.

So we know there's a need there.

We're working hard to try and address that in particular for for men.

Right.

Women's Hearth is open for women during the day.

Our youth shelters are open during the day for youth.

Obviously Joe has programing for families where her family can't be at school for the day.

They've got a place to be.

So the main population that we're focusing on there is men who is the primary population that does not have a daytime space all the time.

Right now, transitioning into the area of, costs, it sounds like.

And from the numbers we've seen, that the scattered site model is way more cost effective than one larger or a couple larger type shelters.

Speak to that a little bit.

And what that looks like funding wise.

Yeah.

So I think part of what is really critical here is the church partnerships in particular that have been established, we've got incredible partnerships that have been out with faith based leaders who have raised their hands and said, we want to provide space, for these services and not, you know, we want to be paid rent, but not astronomical charges.

And that is a huge way for us to maintain lower overhead costs for our operators.

We also know that when you've got a staffing ratio of, you know, 20 clients to 5 or 6 staff at a time, our ability to exit people is far greater.

And it's that turnover that allows us to serve more people at a cheaper cost.

That's scalability.

Right?

If we've got 100 people in a large facility that we're paying extreme overhead costs on and we don't have the money, then to staff it appropriately, not only are we paying a lot of overhead, we're also not getting a lot of outcomes because there's not that relationship building that needs to happen.

So, it's it's partnerships, for sure, with Faith-Based communities and other centers that have opened their doors to us.

And that's really intentional staffing to say we have to prioritize the services that people need over other expenses and be really resourceful.

We get very, very limited dollars in this field.

I think there's some confusion.

People see the large budget number that my division has to operate with.

95% of that is state and federal money that comes with its own set of regulations and rules and expectations.

There's very limited local flexible funds.

And so we have to be very strategic.

And I think one thing we're very proud of in the last 15 months, is how intentional we've been about what our goal is, where to make sure that we can really maximize its impact, and ensure that we're giving as many services to as many people.

But the the big thing is reducing overhead and maximizing outcomes so that we can serve more people with fewer dollars.

Is there a number of scattered sites that the city wants to get to?

I think we're at is at eight eight right now, and that was the original goal.

I think we felt really good about being at eight sites currently.

We know there's additional services that need to come online.

I think one thing we're getting really intentional about, and I think Joe mentioned this earlier, is focusing on the data that we have.

So we just put out our longitudinal systems analysis, which is a HUD required report that data is very clear that our most, our best way to invest resources is in transitional housing, rapid rehousing plus and interventions kind of one step past emergency shelter.

And so we need housing stock.

Right.

So I think we're being really intentional now of how do we build pipelines for folks to exit shelter so that the shelter beds reopen for the next person in line?

Simply adding shelter beds will not solve this crisis.

We have to have a place for people in shelter to go to next.

And so maintaining what we have is critical.

Finding daytime navigation is critical, but we also know we really need to make investments in those, next steps for folks so that we can house them successfully, keep them house.

And then somebody coming onto the street has a shelter, by the way, and that's affordable housing that we're talking about, right.

It is in some form or another.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's a variety of styles of affordable housing that we know, we have a critical, critical need for in Spokane.

If we're going to get ahead of homelessness.

All right.

Can I jump in?

Just absolutely things I just have been really impressed with all the work it took to take the large congregate shelter at on Trent and then go to this scattered site model.

It's been a lot of hard work, and I've visited for at least four of the eight shelters, and I really believe that this is this model works well.

You can look at the data that Joe that you just talked about.

It's transitioning people to housing more successfully faster.

And so I know that the county appreciated getting that new, data report that you're just referred to.

And we using that information, you know, we have been looking at how we reallocate and prioritize different types of housing for our federal and state dollars that flow through the county.

And we're working really collaboratively with the city on this.

And, you know, we chose to put more into transitional housing.

Are we we're considering that this year compared to the past because of that data.

So we're getting better data, too.

And I want to just highlight that.

Joe's operation at Family Promise uses data like no other organization I've seen, because that tells you if you're actually making a difference, if you're actually housing people, and for how it went and for what cost.

And so that will help you make better decisions.

So the data coming out of the city is now helping all of us.

And we're all putting in that data, right?

Different providers are putting in the data.

So the quality is getting higher.

And we're being able to understand better just in the last year which strategies are working better than others.

So that's just really critical.

And the scattered site model, the other reason I really like it is it allows for the civic and religious community and church communities and regular people and volunteers to get involved in the solution.

Yeah, it's been a really amazing we're never going to solve these issues without the whole community coming together.

And that means the public sector, the private sector, church communities, everyone rolling up their sleeves together, that lowers the cost so that you can serve more people.

Good, good information there.

We're going to talk a little bit more about that as it relates to the success we're talking about.

You know, making Spokane a success story.

One of the towns that I know, not everybody's in agreement with this, but one of the towns it's heavily talked about is having success as it relates to, the homeless situation is Houston, Texas.

Their coalition for homeless reports more than 60% decrease in homelessness since 2011.

That program focuses on providing the wraparound services, but specifically housing.

That's the big one.

And as you guys are sitting here talking about affordable housing, Gavin, you traveled to Houston as part of Spokane's low income housing consortium, Housing and Help.

It was a video series.

What do you think Spokane could take from what you saw?

I think some of the things that are being echoed here.

I think Commissioner Waldref talked about collaboration and, the three term mayor there in East Parker that presided over that dramatic turnaround.

They have the lowest homelessness rate in the nation, about 89% lower than Spokane's when I last measure.

And that's the broader homeless population.

That is remarkable outcomes.

And she said at some point they're almost being overwhelmed by people like myself.

The mayor at that time in Spokane came down with her contingency New York, Boston, California cities and California.

Everybody headed for Houston because we kind of look for best practices.

And so we're headed down there.

And she said, invariably, they leave disappointed because they're looking for some secret sauce.

And, and she said, ultimately, we've found a way to collaborate and collaboration is so important, as the commissioner just said.

But it's a different kind of collaboration in her case.

And she was a very hard hitting mayor for three terms.

It was collaboration and with defined outcomes, a real steely edge to the outcomes she insisted on.

So it wasn't just getting together, talking about it was having an agreed upon strategic plan and very specific outcomes that you could measure to and timelines associated with those outcomes.

And so, you know, when we were talking about the ordinances earlier, I like the ordinance.

There's nothing you could disagree with with the proposed ordinances, but they're aspirational in all cases.

There is no do we need to increase median household income?

Absolutely.

We've been talking about that for decades.

How much?

By when, you know, because, you know, if you're a business owner downtown and you're struggling and say, a pipe breaks and you're opening in four hours, you don't say, you know, we're going to we're going to work on pipes.

You say, we're going to have that pipe fixed before for period, because they don't have the luxury of chatting about it or, you know, general collaboration.

And they have to have a defined outcome by a specific point in time.

And I think, you know, we have to hold two conflicting thoughts side by side where the stories we just talked about, whether it's Kansas Street Shelter, certainly, you know, if you go visit Joe and what he's doing at Family Promise, they'll walk out feeling kind of, emotional for several days because the stories are so heartfelt.

And yet you have to hold the other side of the equation with all those aspirational stories and things that are going right, and all the hard work that everybody here is doing, and realize that we have the top overdose death rate in America, that we have one of the top homelessness rates in America.

Whether it's the broader economic homelessness or whether it's the chronic homelessness with addiction and mental health issues, we have approximate, the estimates vary, but about a 30,000 home deficit.

So when we talk about a deficit like that and when we address that in an ordinance, it's important to say we're going to address that by this much by this date.

And so I think going back to the pulse survey, where 10% of people in our population and our voters, these are registered voters, are feeling hopeful about Spokane's optimistic about our future, 10%.

So 90% are feeling pessimistic.

And I don't think any of those 90% would disagree with any of the great things that are being described here.

I think they would feel the same positive emotion and even hope that you describe Dana, but they're also having this kind of intellectual dissonance where they're saying, but if I drive through downtown and and that's the topic tonight, I'm seeing something quite altogether different.

And so we have to somehow go to measurable outcomes by certain dates, to get, you know, the outcomes really matter.

So again, Houston collaborated like crazy.

There's no secret sauce there.

We've, visited them.

We've had a nice parker there.

Mayor here, Mandy Chapman Semple, who was the architect for that mayor.

We had here for almost a week, on commission with the Housing and Help series and, had a lot of recommendations.

We worked on it for about a year, and several people here were a big part of that.

And including Councilman Bingle and Commissioner Waldref And yet none of those things in my mind or ever implemented, even though we had eight jurisdictions coming together to agree on it.

Do we have joint ventures all along the way that represent great stories?

Yes, but there's a big difference between individual joint ventures, whether it's a scattered site model or any other positive initiative, and broadly coming together with shared strategic outcomes by specific dates that we can all look to and understand, like, wow, in six months, we're going to see this percentage decrease in chronic homelessness in downtown Spokane, and we're going to take do whatever it takes to get to that place, just like that restaurant owner would do for fixing the pipe by 4:00 when they're opening.

All right.

Thanks, Gavin.

Commissioner, you also went to Houston.

What's your takeaway?

Can Spokane use anything that you saw from their model?

You know, the biggest takeaway for me, and it was, a great visit.

And I got to meet with folks who are part of the nonprofit called coalition for the homeless.

And what they chose to do down in Houston was to pool all their dollars through one nonprofit entity.

And actually, that entity already existed.

And then it kind of evolved to, to be the main investor of the funds.

But what's interesting about Houston and what I think we need to move to here in Spokane, and I think we'll get there.

And we're, we're taking we're taking steps.

And actually, we just passed last night.

The county commission passed, an interlocal agreement.

We agreed to an interlocal with the city of Spokane and the city of Spokane Valley to collaborate in better ways around our homeless dollars and our homeless strategies and our homeless plans and reporting out outcomes to the community.

So I think we're moving in the right direction.

But, in Houston, the the, the nonprofit manages both millions of dollars of public funds and millions of dollars of private funds.

And so, just like I said before, to solve these issues in Spokane, when we have not enough housing stock, today, when we have challenges with, many in many different areas, the public dollars alone are not going to.

So that that to me, that's part of maybe it's not a secret sauce, but there's something there where you have an opportunity to match your public and your private dollars, get the business community involved, get our faith community involved, get individual donors involved.

There's a lot of donors giving to organized options like family promise, the the, the unique part of Houston's model is having all those dollars being used together to go out and double the amount that can be done in the community.

So how that evolves here in Spokane, I would really I want to see that happen.

I don't want to leave any dollar on the table so that that's to me, what was most interesting to my visit to Houston was seeing the private community step up and really match the federal, state and local dollars.

Go ahead.

Yeah, and I went to Houston with Mayor Woodward and her team.

And the funding did largely come from private donors.

Houston doesn't use $1 of their general fund on homelessness.

So I think that's an important distinction as well, because we in the city of Spokane, we spent $4 million out of our general fund on, on homelessness in a way that I don't think we should be doing that.

There are things that Houston did where the people who were giving them money, basically, they weren't the only decision makers, but they had a lot of say in what was going on.

And I think that's what we were trying to do for the last, you know, two years is as we were building the board, as we were building, the collaboration and everything like that, it was, it was, overwhelmingly not elected officials making those decisions, but it was actually folks who were participating in the work and giving the money and purchase, participating in those ways, able to drive it because business owners and elected officials have different, you know, metrics oftentimes.

Right.

Whereas, you know, I'm in office maybe for eight years.

And so, you know, something that happens in ten years doesn't really benefit me.

You know, I need it to, to happen much sooner.

Whereas I think business owners often are looking much more long term and are looking for, again, the the metrics and what is the return on investment.

And that's what we were trying to model after Houston, which was let's get the people who are really going to be focused on that, helping to make those decisions.

And unfortunately, that fell apart.

But, Houston did invest a ton into housing, and that was one of the ways they were they were able to get out of it.

And they were they did have good collaboration, with the community.

I will say, when it comes to collaboration here, one of the things that I'm often frustrated in is that, you know, I learned about the home initiative from the press conference, right.

And I learned about the these homeless ordinances, or this, this big package, you know, 30 minutes before, you know, the that press conference.

And so I think that if we're going to talk about collaboration, collaboration really starts, I think, with your with your own body.

And that's something that really needs to increase in the city.

Spokane is that when we talk about this issue and this is something that Brian Beggs and I, I thought did really well, which is like, listen, there's a lot of things that we're going to disagree on, but on this one, let's be unified in this and I don't see that trust currently, in a lot of respects.

And that makes it really difficult to bring a community together when it looks like representatives from, from part of the community are being excluded from the conversation.

It's really tough to tell people trust us and collaborate when trust isn't given.

Okay, go ahead, go ahead.

I think, one of the first, policy items I brought forth was to declare, an emergency on fentanyl.

And Councilmember Engle was a co-sponsor on that.

And so I think we can debate around collaboration.

It is happening happens in different ways.

And I think on the topic of housing in particular, we're pretty locked in.

Most votes of our council are seven zero.

On the topic of, you know, indicators for reaching that, that housing, we have the land capacity analysis, which does have affordable housing indicators in that with set goals, by year through 2046, but, to just the point about the policies, this is a first, draft.

It's the first iteration.

It's been herding committee.

And what Gavin just names, you know, something that we can certainly add.

And that's why I'm glad we're having this discussion.

But oftentimes when ordinances are introduced, they go through a lot of different iterations and community feedback.

And, it is going to be a while before we actually take a vote because part of that is having more of that, critical, feedback.

Can I just add one thing?

Yes.

And not on this element per se.

But I think one thing we have to keep in mind, and Commissioner Waldref I've mentioned this, but it's not a little bit of philanthropy bounding that that nonprofit in Houston gets its millions of dollars.

We don't have that philanthropy in Spokane.

That's not happening.

So I think having that kind of flexible philanthropic money is critical to to the success Houston has experienced.

And so comparing that to a community where that's not a relevant bucket of funds seems kind of problematic.

The other thing I would note, too, is that we've actually housed more people since 2012 than Houston has.

So Spokane's housed over 37,000 people since 2012.

That represents about 6% of our per capita, the same number that Houston is.

We house counts about 0.4 or 5%, right?

I haven't seen their backbone of their data, but if you just pull down their website and compare it to ours, we've housed more people.

We are doing great work and our regulatory environments are incredibly different here.

And the amount of money flowing in that we have flexibility to do unique programing with or develop housing with is markedly different.

So collaboration absolutely.

Can we do more?

Absolutely.

Can we operate like Houston?

We do not have the tools and the resources I have.

I would go on this that there is money on the sideline that has been set aside for when we as a region can come together with a plan and to be fair, we do not.

We definitely don't have Houston money.

Right.

But, but there is there are good big organizations, you know, big corporations here in the city of Spokane that are sitting on tens of millions of dollars that are waiting to invest.

And so it's not as if we don't have access to that.

And that was, again, as we were trying to, you know, build, an organization that all the different regions could, could agree to.

I think that's what those people are looking forward to.

And that's not to say that work isn't happening.

Now, you know, Dawn and many others, we just, again, we have this this is a that's coming forward that is, increasing, you know, how we're cooperating with organizations.

And I think that's that's really good.

And it's positive work that's coming out of the city, but could be better.

Yeah, I would just mention too, I mean, in the pulse survey, the like, 90% of people felt like the city of Spokane had enough financial resources to deal with the issues they were highlighting.

And I agree that we need more resources.

But in 17 years as a city CFO and raising our credit rating from near junk status to a during that time period, and a lot of initiatives, whether it's cleaning up the river, fixing streets, doing, you know, parks, you know, the it goes on and on, what it was accomplished during those 17 years, by a lot of people.

But the one thing I saw throughout my time as a CFO is that a lack of financial resources was never the impediment to getting things done.

Never once.

But what was the impediment in almost all cases, when things weren't getting done was a lack of collaboration.

So, you know, if you look at the schools and libraries, I'm sorry, the, schools and parks collaboration right now.

And you see, when they get together, they had 30 projects.

It couldn't you know, it's kind of like this, you know, where you end up with a lot more.

And the collaboration, we do need more funding.

And I agree with Don and others that we and, Commissioner Waldref we need more money.

But the money comes from collaboration.

And going across the entire.

We have all these independent silos like literally hundreds.

And when you have those silos and you somehow bring them together, you realize you actually do have the capability and resources you need.

But we haven't found a way to bring all those resources together.

The word collaboration brings me to actually our next discussion point, which is your crisis walks.

Can you explain what those are?

And it's in it's walks you do in the early morning hours with a variety of people.

Explain the purpose behind that and why, why you're doing it and how it's working.

Yeah.

Thanks, Dan of it start.

Well, we did our 86th consecutive walk at 5 a.m., seven days a week this morning.

And, you know, it started as a metaphor, and it follows closely on what we were just talking about with collaboration, because, you know, we started with a metaphor.

And I think that's kind of gotten lost, why we did that.

But the metaphor was and just based on the 17 years that the city is, you have a mayor's cabinet and 13 division heads and some other additional people, and most of those are what are called exempt, confidential.

They don't have union representation and they also don't have civil service.

In other words, a mayor can ask them to do almost anything, as long as it's, you know, purpose driven, along our goals and objectives at the city.

So the metaphor was the mayor could tomorrow ask her cabinet to meet at 4 a.m. out in front of City Hall, and they're going to go for a walk.

And having been parts of cabinets that were requested to do unusual things by different mayors, you'd be scratching your head, but you would show up at 4 a.m. and then you go for this walk, and maybe you do that a couple of days in a row.

And maybe on the third day, the mayor announces by the way, we're going to do this walk, you know, seven days a week, 4 a.m. until we do this walk for an hour, because each day it's an hour.

And we don't see a single person suffering and dying on our streets and sidewalks.

And so this gets back to the element of collaboration, because I guarantee by the second or third day, people like me, the financial guy, are going to be going up to speed.

Chief Hall in this case, who would be on that cabinet walk?

And I say, chief, what's it going to take to clear the sidewalks?

You know, we don't this forum thing isn't working for me.

And, he said, I don't have the horsepower, you know.

And so he'd be talking, to the sheriff, John Knowles, at the county.

And then pretty soon, other members of the cabinet would be talking to the city council, who can move a lot of dials.

And then the likewise the sheriff be talking to the commissioners, and pretty soon everybody's talking to everybody.

You've got, Spokane Regional Health District, you've got thousands of organizations.

Within about a month we'll be talking to one another.

And I suspect you would have daily meetings after action reports.

What worked yesterday?

What didn't?

Where are we missing collaboration.

Where is it working?

And you make adjustments every single day.

And my belief is that within about three months, you would have sobering beds springing up.

You would probably have to bring the state in as a declaration of emergency to suspend regulations essential to get sobering beds up and running.

The city and the county both have made some really outstanding contributions towards sobering beds.

But like the scattered sites, not nearly enough.

It takes about two years to get sobering beds online, quite often because of rules and regs.

But just like we see across the country, when you have a physical emergency that we're used to dealing with, like the Gray Fire, every comes together and you fight it intensely until that fire's out.

So that's what would have to happen here.

So you can work with the governor, suspend, those rules, regs, etc.

to get you where you're going.

You're working with the hospitals at that point.

You're working with the private sector because we do need those resources.

You might say, where do we have vacant commercial property?

We've got Geiger.

Also.

Where could we put 100 or 200 sobering beds?

Hospitals.

We need staffing.

Can you help us?

Well, if we help them with what's happening in their emergency rooms, and they're really losing a lot of money right now, they would be willingly pitching in.

That's how you create that private sector contribution is through win wins.

And so that's what the walks were about.

And so, you know, they very they were never designed to have a lot of people.

They were never I've heard a lot of critiques like, why aren't we serving, you know, actually we did serve coffee and donuts yesterday, but most often we don't.

And, why aren't we doing that all the time?

Why aren't we handing out literature?

But really, it's just being present to the situation, seeing what we have and trying to research and delve into policy that can address what we're seeing.

I will say one thing for sure.

We've learned during these walks of 95 days is I don't see anybody that should be in jail.

I just don't see it.

A couple people have commented that was a drug dealer I'm looking at.

I go, okay, but most of the drug dealers or when it appears to be that way, are probably feeding their own very awful addiction.

And this small scale, what I see is people with a medical condition, and that's where law enforcement comes in.

Now it's compassionate enforcement that is not like what we had with the war on drugs back in the day when addiction was treated much differently, was treated as a crime.

Now it's a medical condition and you approach that with compassion, but you also have compassionate enforcement.

If you can't go up to the individual on the street that smoking fentanyl, which we saw this morning openly in numerous places and we do every day, I drop off a son at Lewis and Clark every day at 8:00, and when I pull away from there, I pass along ministries and I see people openly using fentanyl a block away from Elsie.

As many vulnerable young teenagers are going to school.

But we can solve that problem, and we're going to have to solve that problem and come together to figure that out.

But that's what those walks are about.

And yes, we did fudge a little bit.

The forearm metaphor that I started with somehow moved out to 5 a.m.. Yeah.

And then I'll finish those.

I'll just mention that, as we call it.

I'm going to close out 100 days, and I'll keep doing it.

But I need to go visit 13 grandchildren in other parts of the country.

And so we'll close it out at 100 days.

But my last walks later this month as we close in on 100, will be through Seattle and Tacoma and Portland and Boise, our neighboring cities, and doing it at 5 a.m. there also just to get a baseline, because as we learned that or the top, you know, overdose death rate in the country or that we have one of the highest homelessness rates, it's important to compare policies and outcomes with these other neighbors of ours.

Does anybody else want to add to the crisis walks well or have been on one have not been and imagine it.

I also understand the crisis having not ever gone on a 4 a.m. walk.

It's not lost on me.

The urgency.

I do this work all day, every day.

I think if, you know, if this issue was as simple as a broken pipe would have solved it right?

But human problems and social problems are not like pipes.

So, of course, a business owner would have their pipe fixed by 4 p.m.. We're not going to house 100 people by 4 p.m..

It's just not the way that those problems work.

And we agree with the urgency.

The mayor and her part of our cabinet did do an urban plunge with Barry Barfield.

Many on her cabinet are very immersed in this space and familiar with it, with the work that's being done.

I think there's a lot of ways that we can make really positive momentum.

I think what has been, shared that is simply inaccurate is that there's that there's not that kind of collaboration happening.

I don't think we need a forum walk to convince us to talk to multi care, to talk to Providence.

We've met with both of them to talk about their emergency departments.

We opened Westminster as a scattered site focused on medical respite in partnership with Providence.

We've met with multiple other philanthropy organizations, are meeting regularly with the county staff, the Spokane City Valley staff.

We meet with philanthropy, we talk to the regional health district and all of our health care providers like Chaz.

We funded for street outreach on a regular basis.

So those things are happening.

And the idea that that they're not, I think is, is problematic for the public because it sends a very inaccurate message about what's being done.

And that has been frustrating.

And I would just like to add, and I don't want to make this a debate, because I really respect what Dawn does at the city.

And her background and and her professionalism and hard work.

What the citizens are saying is the highest overdose rate in America, and more housed people die in overdoses and unhoused a critical factor.

Yeah, absolutely.

But in the aggregate, that's what we're seeing.

We're also seeing one of the highest homelessness rates, whether it's chronic or the broader homelessness issue.

And so if it's all that hard work, it has to result in outcomes.

And yes, it's remarkably more complex.

And a pipe, which is a simple analogy, or even my 5 a.m. walks, which is a simple analogy, but it's going to take you have to reverse engineer off an outcome, and that outcome has to be why isn't our homelessness rate similar to Boise's, which is over 70% lower?

Why isn't it and a much lower overdose rate?

Or, you know, it has a similar politics?

I think people tend to think what is easily like North Idaho, but it's not.

They hadn't heard of fentanyl.

We asked you about fentanyl crisis in Boise and they said, So that's part of why.

Well, and they do what?

They were also very clear that they don't have I-90 or any major freeway running through their community.

So we went to Boise.

We met with them.

We had this conversation.

We met with our homeless service providers.

They had very real reasons as to why it looks different.

I'm not saying there's not incredible amounts of work we need to do here locally, but again, each community is not like the other.

So we have a financial crisis.

Boise does not.

We have I-90, which is a major thoroughfare, as the drug highway that starts with I-5 and C, and it does not go Tacoma on I-5 further upstream, there's not much lower overdose death rates than Spokane and been decreasing the last two years, even though Spokane's have gone up 49 and on track for another 40% increase currently.

And that's not because they peaked way earlier.

It's actually we've been on a five year run now of dramatic increases, even as they've been decreasing throughout that entire time.

So yet we hear about these things, but we're wondering, okay, if that's all true, why are other cities dealing with it on the Spokane just so uniquely situated, economically and geographically and otherwise?

We have this problem that's insurmountable and all you citizens should just ignore what you're seeing with your own eyes every day as you go downtown.

I don't think we should.

No one has had that.

So it's not insurmountable.

About three weeks ago, we had a joint meeting with, the mayor, city council, county commissioners, where we had a presentation from Sheriff Knowles, Chief Hall, and talked about how Spokane is a fentanyl trafficking.

Hub.

We're facing this opioid epidemic.

This oh, this overdose epidemic is costing our emergency services system a tremendous amount of money.

You think what we could do if we could reduce our call load for our firefighters and our police officers fully by a third from Southern California, up through tri cities, from Montana, where we're at, I mean, when they discovered really, I think the largest and only pill machine of its kind in the western United States, it was in Spokane.

And so we have to recognize that.

And there's been a lot of levers we've been pulling to get a handle on this, including which was on pause for a while from the federal government.

Prosecutor in the US Attorney's office to work with the city to investigate and charge, traffickers to stop it at the source, from from it coming in.

And so, we do have to recognize that.

Yes.

Like, this is not insurmountable.

But, there is the growth of challenges here that with our growth, it's not being commensurate to, I think, a lot of what we've seen, on the streets and trying to wrap our arms around that, and it feels like we're catching up.

But I do think there's a lot of good things on the horizon that we are going to start to see a reverse of the trend.

All right.

We're going to get back to the drug issue here in just a minute.

But we want to move on for just a second.

The Washington Supreme Court ruled in April that the city of Spokane's Prop one, which banned camping near schools, parks and child care centers, was invalid.

Voters approved the measure by a wide margin in 2023.

However, the court found the measure to be administrative rather than legislative, meaning it attempted to change how the existing policy is implemented rather than creating a new law.

Now, this finally brings us to, to our chief, who's been sitting there patiently.

Assistant chief.

Well, is this new proposal that we talked about at the top of the show?

Is that in response to the Supreme Court decision against prop one, where we're we're trying to get a handle on the new ordinance to streamline the enforcement of unauthorized camping and, right of way violations.

It's it's working through that, for sure.

But it was also started.

It was investigated prior to that.

So they started looking at ways.

We've got so many ordinances out there that deal with the same type of crimes and same type of, issues.

And so we're looking at a way where we can streamline that, have those, wraparound services that we've, that everybody have talked about here, how we can deal with those, through engagement and then, like Mr. Cooley said, through enforcement, if compassionate enforcement if we need to.

So, yes, this this is in, it has to deal with with that being overturned.

But it's a way that the city looked at.

How can we, streamline some of our ordinances, make it better for the officers, make it better for our citizens?

Better for our businesses.

We look at this as a way to try to get a win win where we can help folks that are in crisis, help business folks who are suffering and, want police to to interact with people and move them out of their areas.

If we can engage these folks and provide them with a wraparound services, provide outreach, that's our ultimate goal.

And that is kind of what this ordinance is doing, is working through some of those issues we were having.

So it's a new tool.

Is it the best tool right now in your tool chest as you come face to face with people who are unhoused out in the community?

It's hard to say.

Our best tool.

I think it's a tool.

The mayor has mentioned several times that we're always going to look and adapt.

If this is not the best tool, then we will adapt.

We'll have to look at other ways that we can address those problems, those issues.

But it's a tool that we think right now that we can then we can now come in and provide both education and engagement enforcement if we need to, all wrapped into one.

Ultimately, what we want to see happen is not to need police.

If we can get folks engaged and off that street, that sidewalk, that area, it's going to be that when when we discussed what are your police officers seeing as it relates to this?

You know, with this current ordinance of the current ordinances in place, is it easier to enforce one than the other?

Like what are they seeing day to day?

How are they using the ordinances and the laws we already have in place?

Yeah, there's so many of them out there that we have.

And like council member Dylan talked about is this hasn't been voted on yet.

So there's something they're still working through is we're working through as a city and as a county.

So the problem being is one officer may utilize a pedestrian interference, statute or ordinance, and another officer may use a sitting lie.

They, they kind of deal with the same type of, of elements of the crime or of the situation.

What we're trying to do is provide one ordinance where they can they know what the outcomes are going to be, what resources we have to to, provide the person committing either the crime or who is, having a crisis that we're trying to engage with talk a little bit about.

I think there is and correct me if my if I'm wrong, but with some of the laws that are in place now, they're enforceable when you have a bed available.

Is that correct?

Where officers need to see if there's a shelter bed available, and if so, then we can get this person into a shelter bed.

Is that part of this model that your officers are dealing with?

And if so, who's the person?

Is there somebody at a call center who's the person finding out where that bed is?

How does that all work?

Yeah, it currently there is.

So and some of the ordinances we have some we do have to see if there's a bed space available before we can, enforce or have an outcome there.

And so a lot of times officers will have to reach out through our radio.

We have sites that are up that they can we can find out pretty quick if there's bed space available.

This new ordinance, not only does it take that away, but it makes it citywide.

And we talked.

All of us have talked about the importance, the both the economic, all the importance of downtown Spokane.

What this does is it opens up citywide.

So if you live up in northeast Spokane, if you live up on the South Hill, you can have these.

They can be seen these same type of situations.

And we'll be able to deal with it, in the same way now versus just having specific laws or specific ordinances to downtown.

A lot of these crimes are misdemeanors.

I think the public has a perception what that means.

You know, it's just it's you're sighting them and then moving on with your day that it's not helping curb the issue.

What's your response to that?

Yeah, I can't always disagree.

So they are misdemeanors.

Our goal in these, and especially with the new ordinance, is to get them into engagement through, therapeutic court.

Through community court.

Our hope is to stop the cycle if we can get them, the medical help they need, if we can get them, the psychological need, the the housing need, those are the things that we got to do, because then we're not going to deal with them over and over on that revolving door.

That's the ultimate goal here, is we have to look at this as an epidemic, not just in Spokane, but other places where we've got people out here struggling and we've got to stop that.

And what's the best way to do that?

To engage them, to get them connected, to have those wraparound services and see them be successful and move into housing and then into permanent housing, because then they're not out there causing, an issue for the business owner or for themselves.

The pilot program, is supposed to expand at second and division, which is a trouble spot.

I think a lot of the public knows about that area as being a critical place where a lot of crime happens.

Talk about like, is that has that program been initiated and what are the results of that?

Yeah.

It has.

So it's the community outreach.

Response and engagement.

And we need time to look at all the data.

We can't just make, a decision on if it's successful or not.

In 30 days.

60 days.

We need time to look at that data, bring it in and decide how we best utilize our resources and put our resources to effect that.

So yes, we've expanded, from the the second and Division area that you talked about.

There's other areas in downtown, west downtown that we've, we've sent our officers to, we've kind of created almost, several precincts inside of our downtown precinct where we have officers dedicated to specific areas so they know the folks that are staying there on the streets.

They know the folks who are working there, so we can connect to them.

That's our ultimate goal is to, you know, make those those engagements with not only the folks who are suffering, but the business owners, so that when they're suffering, we have a response where we have connections, where we can reach out to our partners with the city to get those people connected to the open drug, drug use issue.

We heard Gavin talk about it.

We've heard a lot of people talk about it.

What what does this new idea, these new initiatives that haven't been passed that they still need to go before council?

Will that help you with this open drug use?

Can you change that?

Can we get that open drug use?

Off the streets?

Yeah.

Open drug use.

So that that law does not that has not changed that that is not a part of the camping ordinance.

My my colleagues here have talked a great length about the opioid problems and the issues, and it's so hard, to compare different cities and different agencies to each other.

It's hard to do the apples to apples when we're talking with Houston or with Boise, because the laws in Idaho are different than they are in Washington, and the different in Houston.

So in Houston, I've talked to several people.

I met with, Mayor Parker with with a group, they had different laws where they could, they could they could grab people and, and charge them with, like, a public intoxication and take them down certain areas.

Kind of a third site, we call it, where it's not just an Ed or the emergency department or jail, but it's a site where they can either get connected to, medical, to housing, to to different areas, to, psychological assistance.

They had that option.

We don't have that here.

I can't I can't just go take somebody.

Because they're they appear to be intoxicated.

There are things that we can do.

Mr. Cooley talked about how compassionate our officers are and using that enforcement.

Our guys are out there every day connecting with these folks, doing our own crisis walks.

Every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And we are making those connections with our city partners with, consisting care, these groups where we know we have somebody who's struggling and hurting, we now have connections to bring them in, get them those services so that we can do that wraparound, and then maybe take them to jail and provide the families there.

And that's ultimately the goal.

And so we are seeing, we're seeing the connections being made and seeing people leaving, certain areas and getting connected.

And that's what that's what our guys and our officers are doing.

They're very compassionate out there.

They do their jobs now in the core program.

Right.

I don't know that we've had another update on the numbers, but it's first month when it was implemented, 190 folks were engaged with and they were offered connection to services.

And of the 190, 13 took us up on on that offer.

So you're talking 7% of the people that we engaged with took us up on services.

That's just that they connected with them.

That's not that they followed through with them or they went any further.

And so when we have this conversation, it's always a difficult conversation to have, because when you talk about homelessness, you know, you've got ten different definitions at HUD.

You know, somebody can say it's a housing problem and you're totally right.

Somebody else can say it's an addiction and mental health problem.

And they're also totally right.

And so the difficult thing here is that it's not it's not homelessness that that people are frustrated with.

It's that I think people are being asked to be incredibly patient, in ways that I think is unfair to them because of the 13 who engaged.

You know, Chief Hall told us that he read a study that sometimes it takes 50 or 60 times for people to be engaged before it actually takes effect.

And so if you're talking 7% right times, 50 or 60 times for them to get engaged, you're asking a community to be incredibly patient.

And it's not a lack of care.

It's not a lack of wants, not lack of patients even.

It's just people are we keep talking about perception.

Perception is what people are saying, right?

So perception can't just be dismissed as if it's something that doesn't matter.

It absolutely matters because they're seeing it because it's affecting their kids, it's affecting their businesses, it's affecting their parks, it's affecting their work.

It's affecting everything that they're doing.

And it's the effects that are the things that people are starting to grow tired of.

And so as we're going through this conversation, I don't think it's a lack of services.

I don't think it's a lack of anything other than the folks that we are trying to engage with and, and, and offer opportunity to oftentimes that opportunity is not being taken.

All right.

Well, we want to take a little time to start to wrap up the discussion and talk about the impact that homelessness has on business visitation and overall economy of our cities core.

Back to the GSI Pulse survey.

For just a second.

Let's look at those topics.

89% of participants agree that a thriving downtown is critical to our region's economic health, and that they are worried about the future of downtown Spokane.

A smaller majority, 74% overall and 72% in the city limits, believe recent policy decisions by the city are causing local small businesses to close and move away.

Now, when it comes to visiting downtown about 60% of people say that they feel safe visiting during the day.

However, you can see nearly 80% say they do not feel safe to visit at night.

So what would make people visit downtown more often?

A reduction in crime and homelessness topped the list.

Requests for better entertainment, restaurants, cleaner streets and more parking also scored high.

Well, we did speak to a couple of local business owners, and while they are passionate about being part of a vibrant downtown business community, they did offer some insight into what they have to deal with.

For many small business owners, downtown is where it's at.

Well, when you think of any major, least successful business, or at least when I think of any majorly successful business, I'm so focused on the downtown, any city.

It's the epicenter, right?

It's always been downtown, so we really didn't want to leave downtown.

Barber shop owner Jake Rosenberg and restaurateur Zach Tilton are both passionate about serving their customers in the heart of Spokane.

For Tilton and his wife Nakia, it's also about continuing the legacy of a Spokane institution.

Domini sandwiches longtime owner Tom Domini retired at the end of last year, but fortunately for local sandwich lovers, the beloved lunch spot didn't stay closed for long.

My wife has always made sandwiches with Tom.

She was the one person that he said that he would let carry it on.

He was confident in the fact that she wouldn't change anything.

Yes, the sandwiches have been made the same since the inception 60 some odd years ago.

So you're going to have in this location the same sandwich you have on a first date 56 years ago.

To keep memory lane open, the Hiltons first had to find a new location when they announced they'd be opening just a couple blocks away.

Still downtown, it came with mixed reviews.

I mean, all you have to do is look at social media.

We announced where we were moving, we're staying downtown and a lot of people were super excited.

Oh, great.

You're staying downtown like the folks and get sandwiches, and then you get other people online, like, why are you downtown?

I never go downtown because the homeless people.

Tilton knows operating a business downtown comes with added challenges.

While he credits the building managers and Spokane police for keeping things clean and safe for their customers, staff do occasionally have to ask someone who is loitering to move on every once in a while.

The rest of the building, but they're like, hey, you know, we're open so you can't stay there.

Like, okay, okay.

And it's generally not a big deal, giving the team more time to focus on serving up their famous sandwiches piled high with meat and cheese.

We made a promise, and that's what we're going to do regardless of what's happening outside of our doors.

Less than a block to the north, the issues that come with homelessness are more visible outside solitude, solitude means separation, right?

It doesn't have to mean that you're alone when you walk through the door.

You're separated quite literally from everything else.

And especially with our downtowns getting you need to be a haircut, a good conversation, and a respite from the outside world is the vibe.

Owner Jake Rosenberg is fighting to protect.

But he says it's only gotten harder since he opened his barber shop in 2021.

All of a sudden, these people are like, I don't even want to be down here.

I don't want anything to do with this city.

Even with the help of building management, Rosenberg says he cleans trash, drug paraphernalia and human waste from his sidewalk daily.

And while he's committed to doing his part to keep downtown clean, he acknowledges that there are some situations that are just out of his control.

There's like ten people hanging out there laughing, drinking, smoking, doing all their stuff.

It's like 10 a.m. on a Tuesday.

You're in front of my barbershop vacationing with your drugs.

I'm not going to approach a large group.

We don't have the bandwidth to walk up to a group of 7 or 8 people.

Rosenberg says he has noticed and appreciates an increased police presence on his block.

He also recently took another step to protect his business and clients, installing a security gate to block overnight camping in his doorway.

I put my heart and soul into this place.

A lot of money, blood, sweat and tears.

So I don't want to leave.

But everything in life is change and if my hand is forced where I have to change.

If things don't get better soon, I don't think anybody, even as passionate as I am, needs to put up with what's happening on this level.

All right, well, let's wrap up our discussion today with a question for each of you.

We're going to pose the same question.

We're going to start with Joe.

What is the one action Spokane could be taking right now to get us back on track as it relates to the homeless crisis?

That's a good question.

I as we've been talking today, we've crossed over a lot of different areas.

And homelessness is an area that touches a lot of different things.

And I think one of the one of the big things to think about is, particularly we're talking about fentanyl in particular.

That's a scourge on our whole community.

It intersects with homelessness, but it's not a homelessness issue.

We can rehouse all the homeless and we still have the fentanyl issue.

And so those are big issues that need to be addressed.

And, you know, the last four folks that I've known that passed away from fentanyl overdose have all been housed, folks.

And so it's a big issue for our whole community, and it is something we need to address.

I think as far as the homelessness issue goes, I think the entire community needs to come together and say once and for all, like housing is a human right, and so what are we going to do to make that happen?

We have to decide if if it is a human right or not.

And if we want that for our community, and if we want that for a community, then the whole community needs to come together.

We need to build way more housing.

We need to reduce the amount of, restrictions on building so that we can get stuff done.

Which the city's been making progress for that, but it's still trying to get through planning.

I mean, I had six projects this year.

Five of them are still going on because it's hard to get through planning on anything.

Still.

And so I think as far as what can the normal citizen do one be engaged in this issue, be engaged, get to know folks that are experiencing homelessness, that have experienced homelessness, listen to what they say and then make a difference.

Do and action.

In in you know, I commend everybody here that is taking steps towards that.

But we need the entire community.

It's not something you can sit on the outside and just, you know, make a social media post about it is something that you have to get involved in.

And our whole community needs to be involved in to solve this issue.

Dawn, same question.

What's one thing we could do right now to get us back on track?

The one thing parties hard.

We've talked about so many topics today, and they're also interrelated.

I think to Joe's point, I think, you know, we have to build affordable housing at a much faster rate.

We have to have people willing to invest in that space, both private and public.

We're not going to get out of the homelessness piece of self if we do not have housing available that our residents can afford.

And right now it's a very real challenge.

So I think, on top of all of the collaboration and things we talked about today, we also we have to make very large strategic investments in housing.

So get involved.

Affordable housing.

Councilman, what what do you think?

Not going to reinvent the wheel here?

I think increasing our housing supply is so key.

Really moving from the sort of scarcity science, mindset that we have to abundance and looking at the corollary relationship between housing supply, affordability and homelessness.

But, to the point of engagement, I just want to thank you.

Thank you, everyone here.

This has been a really thoughtful, discussion, and I hope it was informative, for people watching.

And the reality is the truth needs champions.

So I hope people out there can be champions for truth.

Chief, what do you think I would say for the law enforcement piece, the executive side, that facility, that one facility where we can take somebody and take them down a path to the housed, to the medical, to the, the other sides that that where they're struggling.

If we could have that one facility where officers and people could bring in people in crisis and get them connected, provide them those wraparound services, that would be huge for Spokane.

Is that called sobering beds?

Is that what we're talking about?

So some some are for sobering, some some are for people who are just in crisis and not on drugs.

They're just they're just in crisis from a mental issue.

And so sobering doesn't encompass all of it.

But some one part of it is for sure sobering.

Good information Commissioner.

Well, I think Joe makes a good point.

And that when you're just looking at homelessness and to to the ideas around more housing, and I think we actually have a lot of opportunities to re utilize.

We're under utilizing our housing.

We even more housing in downtown Spokane.

There's lots of ideas around housing.

I think if there was one action I could take, though, as a county commissioner, in the next 3 to 6 months, that would be to focus in on the chronically homeless who do, have substance use disorders and use our dollars in the next three, six months to double the amount of sobering beds and, have more hours open, for treatment, for medically assisted treatment.

I think we could do that in the next 3 to 6 months.

And that would help folks who are experiencing those challenges who are also unhoused, or who are experiencing addiction, who are housed and who potentially could become unhoused without successful treatment.

So I think that could do a lot in our community to stabilize and, get folks out of crisis.

Council, I'll say as, speaking specifically to downtown and I represent downtown.

And as a business owner, I understand a lot of the things that, you know, were mentioned in those videos and, businesses already really hard.

You know, there's a lot of economic factors, but, not have enforcement of, you know, basic laws to to keep your business safe from your windows getting broken out and things like that makes it even more difficult.

That might be the thing that pushes somebody over the edge, as we saw with, you know, chef Chad White.

It was just like it's the straw that broke the camel's back.

And so I think the thing that we could do specifically for downtown is the enforcement of our laws against bad actors.

Not people, you know, just in crisis who, who we need to get some help.

But but against the bad actors.

Gavin, wrap it up.

Yeah, I really agree with all these ideas.

And I think the one thing I would think has to happen for all these things to happen is that emergency declaration.

And one of the questions is, is truly an emergency.

And if you look at all of the deaths from the last 50 years of natural disasters in which we muster all our resources to deal with those, if you add them all up for 50 years, it doesn't add up to the number of overdose deaths in just two years in Spokane.

If you look at the deaths nationally and you compare it to, over two years, that adds up to the deaths in the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the two Iraq wars and, Afghanistan all together.

Just two years.

If you take four years, it's more than the deaths in World War two.

I can't imagine a bigger disaster.

And when you add the commerce element into it, the loss of jobs, loss of commerce and everything else, there's just never been a disaster like this.

And so with that disaster, and we declared one last February, but it's a different kind of disaster response.

It's the kind of where you meet every Monday.

If Captain Wohl and his team, if you muster every morning at six, 5 or 6 a.m. and you have everybody in the room, it's probably going to be 100 or 200 people representing all of our institutions.

The Homelessness Response Network, all those organizations I mentioned earlier, you say what worked yesterday and say Captain Wall and his team went and picked up some people, you can say, and we had nowhere to go with them.

Well, you're going to have to again have that, state declaration beside you.

There's a book called abundance, and it talks about how you make things happen overnight instead of in four years.

And it usually happens when a bridge falls down on a major, highway interchange or something like that.

Instead of taking four years to build a bridge, you build it in a month.

And that's the kind of mindset we're going to have to have, and we're going to have to put measurable outcomes out there with specific dates that we reverse engineer office, so that every day, when you arrive at 5 a.m., as leaders throughout our community, like everybody here, and you're looking and you say, wow, we've only got two months left to deliver on every one of these great ideas and that sense of urgency.

And when you set them up that way, it forces everybody together and you find a way.

And but it's going to take daily meetings probably seven days a week.

It's just not business as usual.

I'll just, you know, this morning's walk, going back to the commerce element, there's a new restaurant.

We started our morning walk this morning at 430 for a variety of reasons.

Instead of five.

But right then, there was a window broken on the new lobster roll restaurant between.

I don't remember the name of it.

Somebody here probably knows, but it's between, Riverside and Maine on Washington and the gentleman who owns it.

Small business owner.

Just it's been vacant for a year.

Is they're starting out this wonderful new restaurant, and he's out there sitting in his car just staring at this, probably, you know, huge window.

It's probably going to cost him $10,000 to repair.

And he's wondering if he can turn it into insurance because his rates will skyrocket.

Or is he going to eat it?

On the bottom line, these are the things they're dealing with.

So we've got to go into that emergency response to enable all these other ideas to happen.

All right.

We have to leave it there.

This has been an incredible conversation.

Thank you to all of you for your thoughtful comments.

And we know that we could talk about this for several more hours.

We will hopefully circle back on some of these issues we talked about today.

So thank you again.

I hope those of you watching feel informed on the topic of homelessness in Spokane, visit our website ksp.org to find links to the resources we discussed during today's program.

You'll also find a place to submit future story ideas and feedback.

Thank you for joining us for this premiere episode of At Issue.

We hope to see you next time.

For more local voices and real conversations.