10/25/2022
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The Spokesman-Review
City of Spokane, Knezovich requesting emergency proclamation for Camp Hope
KREM
The Inlander
The Center Square
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The Spokesman-Review
City of Spokane, Knezovich requesting emergency proclamation for Camp Hope
By Colin Tiernan
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Spokane County commissioners on Tuesday plan to proclaim an emergency at Camp Hope, the 450-person homeless encampment on state Department of Transportation land in east Spokane.
Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich made the emergency proclamation request during the commissioners’ Monday meeting, but it wasn’t his idea. The original request comes from Brian Schaeffer, Spokane’s interim emergency management director and fire chief.
Schaeffer said the emergency proclamation is needed in order to offer Camp Hope’s residents access to shelter and services before winter, store their belongings, provide security for outreach workers and clear out the encampment.
“This brings everybody together,” Schaeffer said. “Instead of having all these different lines of effort, we’re only going to have one and there’s going to be a focus.”
Knezovich said the emergency proclamation will allow the county to activate its emergency coordination center, which also serves as the Spokane Fire Department’s training facility on Rebecca Street. He said the move will also help the county address Camp Hope more rapidly and bypass competitive bidding requirements.
The sheriff said he believes allowing people to stay at Camp Hope would be inhumane.
“We’re right now kind of being painted as the bad guys, because we say this has got to go away,” Knezovich said. “No. The honest truth of this is this has to go away in order to save peoples’ lives. You’re not helping these people, you’re only damaging them more.”
The county commissioners said they support the idea of an emergency proclamation.
“The homelessness issue is an embarrassment to the community,” Commissioner Al French said. “Let’s see if we can get Spokane back to what it used to be and not what it is right now.”
See CAMP HOPE, 2
Continued from 1
Some of what Knezovich and Schaeffer are calling for is already happening.
The Empire Health Foundation, working as a contractor with the state Department of Commerce, is working to find housing for Camp Hope’s residents and helping connect them to mental health or addiction resources if needed.
Zeke Smith, the Empire Health Foundation’s director, said he fears the emergency proclamation will be more harmful than helpful. He said the response from Spokane and Spokane County to the encampment has made it far more difficult to help the people living there.
“We’re working with a population where anxiety and trauma affects their ability to get onto a path towards better housing,” Smith said. “The constant threat that folks at Camp Hope and service providers have felt around law enforcement action has, I think, really created a tense environment.”
Spokane County is suing the state Department of Transportation over Camp Hope, citing nuisance violations, and Spokane has threatened to sue. Knezovich has said he’ll forcibly remove people from Camp Hope by mid-November, although he said Monday he hopes law enforcement action won’t be necessary.
In a news release, the Department of Transportation said it doesn’t support the county’s emergency proclamation.
“We remain focused on our work to transition residents and close this site and we cannot join in their efforts,” the department wrote. “Simply put, an (emergency operations center) is duplicative and not needed because we’re already implementing all of the county’s proposed actions.”
Smith, of the Empire Health Foundation, said he understands that winter is approaching, but he said the deadlines imposed by the city and county are impossible to meet and won’t help anyone. Hastily disbanding Camp Hope and moving hundreds of people into the new homeless shelter on Trent Avenue would be a step backward after months of progress, he said.
“Moving somebody to a shelter without the additional supports that they need just means that they’re likely to be out on the street a little bit later,” he said. “We would be further away from our ability to serve them effectively.” Colin Tiernan can be reached at (509) 459-5039 or at colint@spokesman. com.
Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich fields questions from the media last month during a news conference on Camp Hope at the Spokane County Public Safety Building.
TYLER TJOMSLAND/
THE SPOKESMANREVIEW
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KREM
CEO Mike Shaw and other officials provided a timeline to help review the events surrounding a former employee's alleged mishandling of funds within the company.
SPOKANE, Wash. — On Monday, Oct. 10, 2022, Spokane City Council members said they learned a former Guardians Foundation employee was allegedly mishandling money. The claims prompted two council members to call for a criminal investigation into the suspected fraud.
The following day, the Spokane Police Department (SPD) confirmed the open investigation into the foundation, assigning a detective to look into the council members' allegations of embezzlement and fraud.
Here's what we know so far about the Guardians Foundation fraud investigation:
Timeline
Spring 2022: The Guardians' internal audit team finds "anomalies" in its transaction reports.
Upon investigating the anomalies, evidence of potential fraud pointed to one employee.
Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022: Guardians CEO Mike Shaw receives a four-page written confession from the suspected employee
In that same month, city council approved a $6.5 million dollar contract to the Guardians Foundation to open the east Trent shelter. The shelter began operating Sept. 6.
Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022: Guardians CEO Mike Shaw calls Crime Check to report a theft
Four months since claiming he had what he called "solid evidence" of potential fraud, Shaw calls Crime Check to report a theft
CRIME CHECK DISPATCHER: "Crime Check, what are you reporting?"
SHAW: "A theft."
DISPATCHER: "From a home? A business? A vehicle?"
SHAW: "A business."
Monday, Oct. 10, 2022: Council Members call for immediate criminal investigation
The Spokane city administration informs several city council members of a possible financial fraud within the city-funded homeless service provider network, later determined to be the Guardians Foundation.
Council members Lori Kinnear and Karen Stratton called for an immediate criminal investigation due to the nature of the potential fraud.
Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022: Spokane police confirm their involvement in the investigation
SPD assigns a detective to look into the allegations of theft and embezzlement within the organization. City Council member Michael Cathcart said a forensic audit is currently underway and is expected to be completed by Oct. 31.
Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022: Guardians Foundation reveals ex-employee confessed to alleged fraud two weeks before Trent shelter approval
Guardians Foundation CEO Mike Shaw explained to KREM 2 that his top priority at the time was getting the Trent shelter up and running. Shaw also said the suspected employee's final day was Sept. 23, nearly a full month after they wrote out their confession to the alleged crimes.
The center will be a place for service providers and officials to meet as they work toward getting people into shelters before the cold weather sets in.
Meghan Markle Admits to Renewed Coffee Habit
SPOKANE, Wash. — Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich is moving forward with plans to remove people and their belongings off the Department of Transportation's property, and on Tuesday, set up an emergency operations center.
The center will be a place for service providers and officials to meet as they work toward the common goal of getting people into shelters before the cold weather sets in.
"I can tell you within four weeks, I want this done," Knezovich said.
The sheriff says there are plans to build an extra 100 beds at the Trent shelter and Catholic Charities is expected to open the former Quality Inn by Dec. 1 with room for 100 homeless men and women.
"If we do need that extra 100 beds, it may take us another two weeks," Knezovich said. "We'll see. We're playing that out."
Jewels Helping Hands has called the sheriff's timeline unrealistic, claiming there are not enough low-barrier shelter beds available. They've also criticized the sheriff, pointing out that he's never been to the camp.
"But, I am going to go to the camp," Knezovich said. "What are you going to show me that I don't already know?"
Knezovich says he's had very productive meetings with the city, county and service providers, but conversations with the state have stalled.
On Monday, WSDOT said the sheriff's emergency operations center is not needed, saying the state is already implementing all of the county's proposed actions. WSDOT says they have been working to close the camp since spring.
WSDOT released the following statement:
"WSDOT, Commerce and WSP – the three state agencies partnering on the state Right of Way Safety Initiative for homeless encampments – are aware of Spokane County’s announcement that it will open an Emergency Operations Center to address Camp Hope. We remain focused on our work to transition residents and close this site and we cannot join in their efforts. As county leaders are well aware, our state agencies – along with local partners – have been proactively working to close Camp Hope since this spring and have been sharing regular updates on the progress. Simply put, an EOC is duplicative and not needed because we’re already implementing all of the county’s proposed actions. State and local partners already have bi-weekly operations meetings about next steps to close the encampment. We have repeatedly asked local government to proactively partner with us on this important work, but have instead been met with legal proceedings, arbitrary deadlines and misinformation.In addition, given the legal action the county chose to bring against WSDOT regarding Camp Hope, we are not able to partner with the very entities bringing those legal proceedings – the county and the sheriff – until court proceedings are dismissed."
"You could have had this camp empty if you were truly working on this since April," Knezovich said.
The sheriff says the state is refusing to come to the table. WSDOT claims it's the other way around.
"Come together and solve an issue within weeks rather than a year and why can't we drop the luggage, act like adults, work together for this community?," Knezovich said. "That's my question to the state. Why do you keep throwing red herrings? Is it the fact that you just want this to continue? If that's the case, shame on you all, we'll do it on our own."
Spokane city and county officials will meet at City Hall Tuesday to provide an update on the camp, along with addressing growing concerns from neighbors. Mayor Nadine Woodward, Mary Kuney and Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich are among the anticipated speakers.
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The Inlander
Young Kwak photo
Spokane police generally make one-and-a-half times their usual pay while stationed outside Camp Hope.
Earlier this month, Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl said the City of Spokane had spent more than half a million dollars on police overtime patrol at Camp Hope, a large homeless encampment in Spokane's East Central neighborhood.
The comment came in an Oct. 5 "Chronic Nuisance Notice" Meidl sent to the Washington State Department of Transportation, which owns the land Camp Hope is on, and Jewels Helping Hands, the nonprofit running the camp. The notice outlined Meidl's frustration with the camp's impact on the neighborhood and called for its removal by mid-November.
"The continuous and ongoing drug activity, criminal activity, and nuisance activity in and around the property is creating an inordinate expense for the City of Spokane, who has spent more than $500,000 on overtime patrol at the Property to date," Meidl wrote.
After the letter went out, the chief's comments about the half-million figure appeared in numerous news reports, including a Spokesman-Review headline.
The number isn't accurate.
In reality, the city has spent $217,000 on police overtime at Camp Hope between March and the end of August, according to city spokesperson Brian Coddington. (He doesn't have the September numbers yet.)
Spokane Police spokesperson Julie Humphreys says that when you account for September, the total number is roughly $250,000.
Still, that's nowhere near the half-million dollars reported in the chief's letter to WSDOT.
Humpherys says the chief "misstated" the figure in his letter.
The city has spent $500,000 on Camp Hope, but only when you also account for trash removal and money paid to Crowd Management Services (CMS), a private security company the city is contracting with to patrol the camp's perimeter. Coddington says the contract with CMS has cost the city $185,000 so far. He didn't have access to the total trash-removal figures when we spoke last week, but said total spending on sanitation, police overtime and private security adds up to roughly half-a-million dollars.
Police are stationed outside Camp Hope everyday from 7 am to 7 pm. It's in addition to the regular patrols in the East Central neighborhood, so officers who sign up to pick up shifts at Camp Hope get paid overtime, which is typically one-and-a-half times their usual pay.
Humphreys says police have been inside the camp on several occasions, but tend to stay out because they are concerned about sanitation, fire hazards and hostility from campers. They're mainly there to address concerns about property crime from local businesses and housed neighbors.
Camp residents say the police mostly just stay in their cars.
"Why are we paying them to sit there?" says Chris Senn, a Camp Hope resident who is also a part of the security team employed by Jewels Helping Hands.
Even though the number he gave was incorrect, Humphreys stresses that the chief's original point about Camp Hope draining taxpayer money remains.
The chief's letter also contained a proposed agreement that would see the all camp residents cleared from the site by Oct. 31 and personal belongings and trash removed by Nov. 15.
In a scathing response last week, WSDOT rejected the chief's timeline and accused the city of shifting blame for a problem created by local officials' failure to adequately provide services for unhoused people in Spokane.
Young Kwak photo
Camp Hope resident Chris Senn joined the Jewels Helping Hand security team about seven months ago.
It's Thursday afternoon, and Daniel Rose is settling into his regular 3 to 11 pm security shift at Camp Hope.
It's a calm day at the East Central Spokane homeless encampment, which has an estimated 440 residents. As he sips an energy drink, Rose explains that he used to live at the camp, but recently moved into a clean and sober living facility. Jewels Helping Hands, the nonprofit that administers Camp Hope, hired him to do security work about three weeks ago.
Today, Rose's job is to watch the camp's south entrance, which is currently locked. The Washington State Department of Transportation, which owns the land the camp is on, erected a chain-link perimeter fence around the camp earlier in the month to address security concerns. It's taken some getting used to, Rose says.
Every five minutes or so, someone will try to enter the camp through the south gate, and Rose will have to tell them to go around to the other side. Most people react with mild annoyance, like with unexpected road construction in the middle of a morning commute.
"Please go through the front," Rose says as a man tries to enter through the locked gate.
"This is bullshit," the man says, shaking his head and walking away.
"I don't make the rules," Rose replies. "I only enforce them."
A month ago, Camp Hope was more of a free-for-all. People could come and go as they pleased from any part of the camp. Then the fence went up. There's also a new nighttime curfew, floodlights, a badging system and a list of rules campers have to sign off on if they want to stay. There are four separate entities doing security now: the Jewels Helping Hands Team, city police and two private companies employed by the city and WSDOT. There's also Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich's recent threats to clear the camp next month.
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Just who the new security perimeter is there to protect — campers or neighborhood businesses — depends on who you ask. Camp residents say reactions to the new system have been somewhere between mixed and mostly positive.
"It stirred things up a little bit," says Robert Moody, another member of Jewels Helping Hands' eight-person security team. He also used to live at Camp Hope, but recently moved back in with his wife and son.
Chris Senn, who lives at Camp Hope and has worked on the security team for about seven months, says the new fence and security system has improved issues like theft and people coming to the camp to sell drugs. It also makes it easier for campers to prove they aren't the ones committing all the crimes in the neighborhood. If a local business reports an overnight theft, camp security can check the logs to see if anyone signed out of the camp at night.
Senn, like many unhoused people, is a military veteran. Dealing with misbehavior from the camp's residents isn't easy, he says, but it's still better than the rowdy soldiers he had to put up with when he spent 15 years in the Army's military police.
Senn says things have been pretty calm since the fence went up. Has it been perfect? No. Holes have been cut in the fence on several occasions, allowing people or illicit goods to sneak in and out undetected.
Unfortunately, Senn says, the most common issue he deals with at the camp is theft. But contrary to assertions from some elected officials, he says it's usually campers stealing from each other, not local businesses.
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What's more, Senn has taken a few blows while trying to break up fights. But for the most part he says the crime, violence and drug use at the camp aren't as bad as people say.
While Senn is talking, a man walks into the camp, visibly agitated.
"If you're not on drugs, it looks a little f—ed up," the man says, commenting on the row of tents and RVs.
The man isn't homeless. He says he lives in a Washington city a few hours away, and he came here looking for his estranged daughter.
She's 21. He thinks he saw her here a few hours ago, but she ran off. He thinks she's on drugs and it's a sensitive situation, so he asks that I not include his name.
The man says the camp is a mess, and that everyone must be on drugs. Senn tries to explain that not everyone at the camp is some drug-crazed criminal. The man doesn't buy it and says Senn should get a job. Everywhere is hiring now, he says.
"Sorry you feel everyone's a bad person," Senn says. "We're not all bad."
Senn says he'll ask around and keep an eye out for the man's daughter. The man wanders off to keep looking.
It's not uncommon for people to come to the camp in search of missing loved ones, Senn says, adding that the security team always does everything it can to help find people's kids. (Minors aren't allowed in the camp.)
The man's comments were hurtful, Senn says, but as a parent himself, he understands his pain.
Young Kwak photo
The four separate entities doing security work at Camp Hope have minimal collaboration.
The Spokane Police Department has two officers stationed at the camp from 7 am to 7 pm daily. The shifts are in addition to the regular patrols that officers do in the East Central neighborhood, so the police at Camp Hope get paid overtime. Brian Coddington, the mayor's spokesman, doesn't have the September numbers yet but says the overtime has cost the city more than $217,000 between March and the end of August.
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Campers say the police mostly just sit in their cars.
Julie Humphreys, spokesperson for the Spokane Police Department, says officers have been inside the camp on a few occasions but, by and large, they stay outside.
"From an officer safety standpoint, we're not just going wandering through the camp. That is not a safe environment," Humphreys says, adding that there might be sanitation or fire hazards, as well as hostility toward officers.
The priority for police, Humphreys says, is businesses, neighbors and "keeping the peace in general."
Senn, the camp security worker, acknowledges that's been an issue. In the past, he says, people who don't live at Camp Hope would sometimes commit crimes in the neighborhood and then hide inside the camp because they knew officers wouldn't follow them in. He hopes the fence will stop that.
Relationships between the officers and camp residents aren't great, but Julie Garcia, the executive director of Jewels Helping Hands, says there have been some improvements in recent days, and that officers seem increasingly willing to get out of their cars to actually help organizers and campers.
"There's a couple of really good officers that understand this population," Garcia says.
Senn says he's built good relationships with one cop, but still questions why the city is paying so much for the police to just sit in their cars all day.
Still, some campers are more than happy to see the cops stay out of the camp. Susan Grenfell, who has lived at the camp since the beginning, says she feels safer at the camp because police stay out and "know their place." When she was homeless downtown, Grenfell says cops would harass her. Here, they leave campers alone.
On top of police overtime pay, the city is also paying $30,000 a month to a private security company called Crowd Management Services (CMS) to patrol the camp's perimeter. The city started contracting with CMS in March, and has paid them about $185,000 so far, according to Coddington. Like police, CMS staff generally patrol outside the camp from 7 am to 7 pm.
"Their role has primarily been to be another set of eyes and ears when the police can't be there," Coddington says, "to keep an eye on property within the neighborhood and report any suspicious activity."
Coddington says CMS doesn't typically go inside the camp or interact with the Jewels Helping Hands security team. The city's contract with CMS is in place until the end of October. Coddington says the city will have a better sense of whether the contract is still needed at the end of the month.
Then there's Security Services Northwest, another private security company. WSDOT started contracting with them last week. Unlike police and CMS, Security Services Northwest is there 24/7. WSDOT is paying them $30,000 a week. That money comes out of the North Spokane Corridor Property Management Fund, says WSDOT's Joe McHale.
Garcia says CMS personnel haven't been very helpful and, like police, often just stay in their cars. She adds that the new WSDOT security team has been much more willing to work with the camp security. McHale says the security is mainly there for perimeter patrol, but will go inside the camp if the internal security team needs help.
All of the various security entities say they aim to stop property theft and crime from occurring in the neighborhood. But of all of them, the team employed by Jewels Helping Hands is the only one that seems solely focused on protecting the campers themselves — not just businesses and housed neighbors.
The eight-person team works two shifts: 3 to 11 pm and 11 pm to 7 am. Garcia says each employee is paid between $16 and $18 an hour.
The camp security team knows what it's like to be homeless. Grenfell says that lived-experience helps them navigate camp conflicts better than any police officer or private security guard could.
"They've lived the life, they know how to talk to us," Grenfell says.
The downside is that the security guards know the campers personally and have to work to put friendships aside. Moody, with Jewels security team, says he's had to put his foot down when campers he knows personally try to leverage personal favor to gain after-hours access to the camp.
"When I'm on the clock, I've got a job to do," Moody says.
When campers are caught committing crimes — like theft or assault — camp security tells them to pack their stuff and leave. Police aren't generally involved in the process, but McHale, with WSDOT, says Security Services Northwest will assist in the future.
Kicking someone out of the camp is never easy.
"We hate to do it, because we're all in this together, we're all human," Senn says.
As the afternoon went on, Senn grabbed a rake to do some cleaning around the camp. Moody left to pick up a pallet of water. Rose smoked a cigarette at his post by the south gate. The police chatted with camp organizers and then returned to their cars. Security Services Northwest did laps around the perimeter and guarded the main entrance.
The man searching for his daughter left the camp after about an hour. He didn't find her. ♦
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The Center Square
(The Center Square) – Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s latest update on his homelessness action plan reveals the number of referrals to shelter nearly doubled from June through September.
Through September, more than 1,300 homeless people were referred to shelters through a coordinated outreach effort from the city’s HOPE Team, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and non-profit partners.
Harrell’s previous update showed that only a little more than 700 referrals were made through the first six months of 2022. The Center Square previously reported that the estimated 700 referrals represented around 1% of the latest point-in-time count of homeless people in King County, which was over 40,000 in 2020, according to the Seattle Department of Community and Human Services.
The mayor’s One Seattle Homelessness Action Plan is now seeing small improvements in numbers with an updated 3% of King County homeless persons being referred to shelter through the coordinated outreach effort through the first nine months of 2022.
Seattle has identified 1,912 new units of shelter and housing as of September. The city is now 88 units away from its goal of 2,000 units of shelter by the end of the year.
The latest update shows that the number of documented tents went from 814 in June to 724 in September. The number of RV encampments dropped from 426 sites in June to 273 in September.
“Our current best estimate is that the tent and RV counts represent roughly 75% of all encampments throughout the city,” Mayor Harrell’s Office said in a statement.