Welcome to the Jewels Helping Hands Housing navigation Center.

This is a space that navigates homelessness in Spokane and Spokane County to our scattered site locations.

The process starts with an intake form that gets people into the city's Homeless management Information System, or HMAS, and onto lists for shelter, beds, housing, and other resources.

As you can see behind me, one of our staff is doing an intake with somebody experiencing homelessness.

We talk with them about what their goals are.

Where would you like to go tonight?

Where are you staying currently?

We navigate them into any available and open beds.

Jewels Helping Hands also operates several overnight shelters.

Those efforts and coordination with other providers ensure people have a bed to sleep in at night.

But by day, when many of the overnight shelters closed, the navigation center fills a gap.

They can do their laundry here.

We play relaxing music.

They get peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in this space.

And then as we walk this direction, you sign up for for a shower down at the front desk.

We have underwear.

We have socks.

All of the clothing that we get is Dawnated by the community.

So if we have it, we give it to you.

I'm a firm believer that even if I can't offer you an entire outfit, can I get you socks and underwear?

Because nobody wants to take a shower and put on dirty socks or underwear?

Those are just the things jewels, helping hands and Dawnations from the community provide.

Another layer of support makes this facility even more unique.

This is the heart of the navigation center.

This is how we operate.

These are providers that come here.

Partnered services give people the extra help they need to end the cycle of homelessness.

They have mental health, behavioral health, STD testing.

They can get IDs and and birth certificates here.

Whatever your needs are, we're going to find you a provider that can get you on your next step.

Garcia says the navigation center alone cannot end homelessness.

Instead, it's the first step in introducing homeless services to someone.

And she's optimistic that the approach is the right one for Spokane.

I am absolutely hopeful that we are getting onto the right path to providing appropriate interventions for people experiencing homelessness through the scattered site model.

This navigation center, the other providers, the unified care teams, the new requirements for staying at shelters, all of that stuff leads me to believe that we're headed in a direction that will actually impact the visible homelessness in the city of Spokane.

But she's been in the field long enough to know priorities can change with election cycles.

The problem with homeless services is it is very politically driven.

So this is the this is the path that we get on every four years in this community.

When we get a new mayor or we elect new officials, the system that we've already created is no longer on their agenda.

We plan to put our heads to the grindstone and work hard to prove that this model is sustainable, regardless of who's in politics, whether you have an hour or a day after your name.

Moving people through the system effectively is still Spokane's best option of reducing visible homelessness.