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The Spokesman-Review
Constitutional rights, nuisance claims at center of complaints regarding Camp Hope
Shawn Vestal: The new County Commission looks like a win
KXLY
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The Spokesman-Review
Constitutional rights, nuisance claims at center of complaints regarding Camp Hope
By Garrett Cabeza
Lawsuits, threats and heated discussions have engulfed Camp Hope in recent weeks, culminating in two complaints – one against the city and county, the other from the county against the state – filed this week.
Three Camp Hope residents, Jewels Helping Hands and Disability Rights Washington filed a complaint Friday in federal court that would prohibit the city and county from arresting and removing camp residents if they refuse to leave the homeless encampment in East Central Spokane.
The request for injunction follows announcements in recent weeks by Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich and Spokane police Chief Craig Meidl that they will “forcibly relocate” campers, arrest those who refuse to leave and remove property from the site, the complaint says.
“For a sheriff or police chief to say that we’re going to come in there and just move people along and arrest them if they resist surprises all of us who are concerned about constitutional rights,” said Andrew Biviano, an attorney who filed the complaint on behalf of the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs listed in the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court – Eastern District of Washington, are camp residents Christopher Senn, Jason Bewley and Jered Fullen, as well as Disability Rights Washington and Jewels Helping Hands. The city of Spokane, Spokane County, Knezovich and Meidl are listed as defendants.
City spokesman Brian Coddington wrote in an email that he was unable to comment on pending litigation. County spokesperson Jared Webley could not immediately be reached for comment. The complaint was filed shortly before 5 p.m. Friday.
Senn, 51, is a U.S. Army veteran who worked as a painter before his car broke down, which led to himlosing his job and housing, according to the complaint. Bewley, 43, is a minister and has multiple disabilities, including post-traumatic stress disorder, deafness in an ear and spinal conditions. Fullen, 41, has anxiety and substance-use disorder, and relies on the resources at the camp to get care, treatment and housing.
Disability Rights Washington is a nonprofit representing the campers who have disabilities, and Jewels Helping Hands provides homeless services to residents at the tent city.
The complaint says the campers reside on stateowned property, off Interstate 90, with the consent of the Washington State Department of Transportation. Therefore, the residents are not trespassing or committing other crimes by living there.
“While there are reports of increased crime in the surrounding neighborhood, this does not provide probable cause to remove or arrest all the people who live in the area,” the complaint says. “Just as the government cannot evict all residents of an apartment complex because a handful of residents are suspected of crimes, it cannot evict all the residents of Camp Hope based on suspicion that some of them are criminals.”
The complaint says the defendants’ threats to “sweep” Camp Hope infringed on the campers’ U.S. and state constitutional rights as well as disability rights. The threats also brought trauma to campers and interfered with their efforts to obtain housing, the complaint alleges.
The city and county do not have adequate shelter space to house all Camp Hope residents, according to the complaint. It mentions the Martin v. Boise federal court ruling in which a city cannot punish homeless people for sleeping on public property if there are not enough shelter beds available.
Jeffry Finer, the other attorney who is representing the plaintiffs, said many people can’t transition to shelter beds because they lack identification and other documents. State agencies are assisting residents in obtaining these documents. Other residents are with family members or addicted to drugs so they are unable to access shelter beds, Finer said.
The complaint says a “very large percentage” of Camp Hope residents have disabilities. It’s estimated six campers use wheelchairs, others use walkers and several are amputees.
“These residents are not able to use most temporary shelters because the shelters are not equipped to provide the high level of services needed,” according to the complaint.
A large number of residents have mental disabilities, like PTSD, anxiety, depression and schizophrenia, the complaint alleges. The complaint says efforts by Jewels Helping Hands and others have reduced the camp’s footprint from more than 600 residents to about 450. With more time, Finer said the camp’s size will shrink even more.
“It is far better shape than it was weeks and weeks ago,” he said.
Spokane County filed a preliminary injunction Thursday asking the state court to allow the county to “take action necessary” to transition camp residents to available beds in Spokane and the county, while prohibiting the Department of Transportation’s interference.
“The (Department of Transportation) has created a situation that poses a substantial threat to the health and safety of the camp occupants,” the complaint says. The residents of the encampment have caused a substantial increase in criminal and offensive activities in the nearby areas.”
Spokane County is listed as the plaintiff in the complaint, and the state of Washington and the Washington State Department of Transportation are listed as the defendants.
The complaint says efforts by the state, including placing a fence around the camp and implementing a curfew for campers, aren’t enough.
“The efforts by (the Department of Transportation) remain ineffective as encampment residents continue to cut holes through the fencing of the area to either exit and enter during the curfew or to pass illicit materials through the fence,” according to the complaint.
It says available beds, such as those at the new Trent Resource and Assistance Center, are “a clear improvement” over Camp Hope housing conditions.
The complaint cites deaths, threats, thefts, vandalism and a recent drive-by shooting in and around the camp that have hurt surrounding neighborhoods and businesses.
Since the camp was established about 10 months ago, criminal reports increased more than 72% in the area, the complaint says. Garrett Cabeza can be reached at (509) 459-5135 or by email at garrettc@spokesman.com.
Fencing is installed around Camp Hope homeless encampment in Spokane on Sept. 30.
KATHY PLONKA/ THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Shawn Vestal: The new County Commission looks like a win
If there is anything we’ve learned about Spokane County government these past few weeks – as officials who ignored homelessness for years have suddenly awakened to it, blinking like Rip Van Winkle – it’s that it’s way past time for a reboot of Spokane County government.
Luckily, we’ve got one coming.
By next year, the Spokane County Commission will have five members instead of three.
We’ll soon see who will fill those seats, but however the elections break, it will be a major improvement: A more balanced representation of the community, with elections by district. An end to the single-party star chamber, distinguished by debate-free unanimous votes. A greater opportunity for discussion, disagreement and openness, for accountability and transparency, as opposed to three commissioners in lockstep, unveiling prepackaged decisions.
For years, the operations of the county commission have played out in a strangely quiet, almost unnoticed manner in the public square, especially compared to a city government that dominates public attention, press coverage and political debate.
There are many reasons for this. Public access to City Council meetings is simplyfar superior to County Commission meetings, for one thing – the council offers deep, informative agendas beforehand, it’s easy to watch meetings by video stream, the council chambers are a welcoming place for the public to watch or testify, and there is an emphasis on explanation and discussion that soars beyond what you’ll find in the cramped room where the county commission unveils its 3-0 votes.
Some of the attention deficit has to do with the way that influences the local press, which has never covered the County Commission as much, or as prominently, as the City Council. When I arrived at the S-R in 1999, our county government reporter would regularly point out that the county was making important decisions for half a million residents, but that his stories often played inside the paper while turn-of-the-screw news out of City Hall went on A1.
That has often been the case across all local media. There are a lot of reasons for this, but a big one is the absence of real debate on the commission, especially in the past decade or so.
City Hall has often been riven with controversies; the City Council has often been the scene of robust debates and intense disagreement; the dynamic between the executive and the legislative is often in tension over policy decisions.
This conflict can make progress difficult, and it sometimes boils down into a kind of gridlock. But in terms of the public’s understanding of what the city is doing, and what the different council members and administration officials think about what the city is doing, citizens are much better served by public conflict than smooth stealth.
The county’s smooth, stealthy operations have slithered to the forefront these past few weeks, as county commissioners, drawn on a leash by the sheriff, have blundered into the Camp Hope discourse.
This has given the situation at Camp Hope a strange dual reality. On the one hand, there is the actual progress of housing individuals being carried out steadily and seriously, if less speedily than some might wish, by the state-funded effort to move every individual indoors, On the other, we have performances at podiums and in political chambers, where the local officials whose long-standing failures helped get us here stride forth to proclaim themselves our saviors and play tug of war with the state.
“The homelessness issue is an embarrassment to the community,” County Commissioner Al French said last week. “A lot of people are frustrated at the lack of leadership that has taken it to get us to where we’re at.”
This, from the unofficial leader of Team Leadership Lack. There is almost nothing that Woodward got right about homelessness when she ran for office, but she was on point when she complained that regional governments have done far too little to address homelessness, leaving the problem almost solely to the city.
The biggest failure on that front, by far, has been the County Commission.
But now – via an incoherent series of actions ranging from intemperate threats to calls for cooperation – we’re supposed to see the county as the leaders on the issue, taking on our collective embarrassment.
All three of these commissioners are on the ballot. Only French faces a serious challenge, from Maggie Yates, who oversaw the county’s criminal justice reform efforts until leaving, following repeated opposition to new ideas from the powers that be.
Yates faces a battle, but she picked up the most votes in the primary, she’s running a strong campaign and the third-place GOP primary candidate has endorsed her – it will be one of the most exciting races to watch as the returns come in.
Kuney faces an intraparty opponent she beat handily in August, and Kerns is unopposed. In the two additional races, Democrats Amber Waldref and Chris Jordan each posted primary wins over their Republican opponents, Michael Cathcart and Kim Plese.
Even if all three incumbents remain, the new County Commission seems all but certain to leave behind the smooth, stealthy pattern. Merely adding voices will, in and of itself, mark a big step forward.
It’s past time for the change. Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or at shawnv@ spokesman. com.
SHAWN VESTAL
SPOKESMAN COLUMNIST
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KXLY
Posted: October 29, 2022 12:36 PM by Vincent Saglimbeni
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SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward will be hosting a town hall meeting to discuss community priorities, public safety and more.
“Public safety is always a topic of conversation when I visit neighborhoods and businesses,” Woodward said. “We continue to talk with the community to hear their thoughts and ideas even as we are executing a plan that expands our capacity to clean, better connects services to needs, advocates for the tools Spokane needs to be successful, activates our public spaces, places additional patrol officers in neighborhoods, and returns vibrant activity to the places we play and gather.”
Woodward also plans to release a budget proposal on November 1 that invests in public safety and people within the community. The City says Spokane City Council will host budget hearings in November and approve a budget by the end of the year.
The moderated town hall starts at 6 p.m. on November 1. Anyone who is interested in participating can call 877-353-4701. You can also sign up onlineby 3 p.m. on November 1. The City says phone calls will be placed to over 20,000 homes inviting people to join. The town hall will last one hour.