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KREM
KXLY
The Center Square
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KREM
SPOKANE, Wash. —
According to the Salvation Army, The Trent resource center could soon accommodate 350 metal beds, a quarantine area and space for changing rooms.
City spokesperson Brian Coddington said the ideal long-term solution to Spokane’s homelessness crisis is more permanent housing.
But in the meantime, the city is optimizing what it has right now.
"We need an ability right now to be able to get people out of the cold into a warm bed into a meal and a place to stay while we are growing the permanent housing inventory,” Coddington said.
He said expanding the shelter capacity at the Trent center is a step in the right direction.
“There's no reason to be sleeping on the ground," Coddington said. "There's no reason to be in a field. There are warm beds, warm meals and services inside that people can access.”
City building official Dermott Murphy signed off on new Trent occupancy permits that would allow a capacity of 375 people, including 25 support staff.
At Monday’s city council meeting, Murphy said building evaluations show an absolute max. occupancy could be 688 people. But Coddington said supporting that number isn’t as easy as adding a few more hundred beds.
“There's no discussion right now about 688 being the right number of people to be in there," Coddington shared. "But there is discussion about what the right capacity is, and how do we staff it at the right level. And so we're talking with the Salvation Army about staffing at 350 person level, and what that looks like, and what the cost that looks like, on an ongoing basis.”
When asked about opening a temporary warming center, Coddington said the city hopes to utilize the existing shelter system more efficiently before moving to a night by night option.
“it's very expensive to operate a night by night shelter system," Coddington said. "While that asset is very needed, it is expensive. So we're looking at it as a bridge to a much longer term solution, which is housing. So we need both.”
And while 100 more beds isn't the final solution, city officials hope a Trent Shelter expansion will get more people out of the cold.
The Salvation Army said it expects to add 350 metal beds and partitions in Dec. 19.
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KXLY
December 13, 2022 5:27 PM
Updated: December 13, 2022 6:15 PM
SPOKANE, Wash – Spokane County Commissioners voted Tuesday to put a new jail – and the tax to pay for it – on the ballot next November.
The commissioners plan to put a measure on the ballot for a “new modernized Community Corrections Center.”
Taxpayers will fund the project through a 0.2% sales and use tax.
Commissioners cited overcrowding, inadequate capacity and the desire to have a more “therapeutic model.”
“On a yearly basis, the County continues to spend a significant amount of valuable tax-payer funds on the maintenance and capital costs of current aging facilities, which are not significantly extending the life of these facilities,” the County said in a news release Tuesday night. “If approved, these funds will be used to construct an improved Community Correction Center facility with the ability to hold more inmates, offer programming and behavioral health programs, realize operational efficiencies, and require significantly less maintenance and capital improvement costs for years to come. ”
Commissioners say a team has been assigned to best review the needs of the criminal justice system.
The current jail was built in 1986 and designed to hold 462 inmates.
The county says there are regularly more than 800 people in the jail with peaks over 900.
You can watch the meeting where commissioners voted to bring this to a vote at this link.
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The Center Square
Camp Hope in Spokane, considered the state's largest homeless camp on public property, was estimated to have a population of about 650 residents last summer, but WSDOT reports that number is now about 433. Knezovich and other city officials believe the count is much lower, about 250 people, as they prepare to disband the camp due to public health and safety concerns.
Photo courtesy of Spokane County Sheriff's Office
(The Center Square) – Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said the city council is now helping state agencies recreate the Capital Hill Occupied Protest zone of Seattle and, thereby, encouraging continued lawlessness.
He was referencing the 5-2 vote of the council on Monday to remove liability protection from Spokane Police Department officers who assist deputies with closure of a large homeless camp unless authorized by a court.
Council President Breen Beggs was joined in that vote by Councilors Karen Stratton, Betsy Wilkerson, Lori Kinnear and Zack Zappone.
The resolution to curtail city involvement in disbanding what is known as Camp Hope was intended to protect employees from unintended consequences, they said.
In addition, the majority said the Washington Department of Transportation, as the landowner, had not requested help to remove camp occupants so attempting to do so was a violation of due process rights. And WSDOT and the Department of Commerce plans to transition people slowly to ensure they are connected to stabilizing services should be supported instead of more expedient movement.
“We all agree that the people living in Camp Hope should be rehoused in appropriate long-term housing as soon as possible so that they, along with the neighborhood, can return to normal,” Beggs said in a statement.
Councilors Michael Cathcart and Jonathan Bingle voted against the resolution.
“I think there was initially a lot of common ground about what needed to be done at the camp, but it has become so politicized that everyone’s now in their corner taking actions that appeal to their base,” said Cathcart.
Bingle said there is a brotherhood in law enforcement, as in the military, that will make the council’s action difficult for the police department to readily accept.
“It was certainly a move to say, 'You are not helping your brother even if he is in trouble,’” he said.
Knezovich said leaving people outside in weather that is headed into single digits at night this week shows that the council, like the state, is not truly concerned about the welfare of camp residents.
“This is the most egregious example of extremist progressive Marxist politics that I have seen in 32 years in law enforcement,” he said. “This city council has abandoned the neighborhoods and businesses in favor of lawless thugs.”
He said the answer to the problem of five city councilors trying to “turn Spokane into Seattle” is simple: recall them.
“It is time for the people of Spokane to say ‘Enough is enough’ and stop this madness,” he said.
Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl was more circumspect in his response to the council’s action on Dec. 12.
“It’s certainly concerning,” he said. “What we want is to move people out of the camp into warm, dry spaces and there are all these different variables that keep coming into play.”
He was referencing not only the council taking action but a federal judge granting an emergency restraining order Monday against forcibly removing campers until a court hearing takes place on the issue in late December.
Even though officers can no longer assist deputies with closure of the camp, Meidl said they can arrest its residents if crimes are committed.
“Our primary focus remains on public safety,” he said.
Meidl said statistics from Oct. 1 through the end of November show that overall crime has risen 85% in the East Central neighborhood where the same is sites as compared to data from that time period in 2021. Crime is up nearly 70% when compared to a three-year average.
“A lot of business owners are no longer reporting what is happening because they are concerned about losing their insurance, but there are continuing problems,” he said.
Knezovich contends that situations like the one playing out in Spokane show why the state is besieged by lawlessness.
He said local officials should learn a lesson from what happened to CHOP in the wake of government officials praising people for occupying as a protest over racial injustice in June 2020.
After four shootings left two teenagers dead, government officials finally acknowledged the sprawling CHOP encampment in the Capitol Hill neighborhood was “dangerous and unacceptable” and cleared it.
Like CHOP, Knezovich said Camp Hope formed on WSDOT property near Interstate 90 in December 2021 after a protest at city hall about the lack of housing and resources for the homeless. The population at the East Central site then grew to more than 650 and the neighborhood began experiencing a dramatic crime increase said Knezovich.
“This shows the danger of extreme progressive policies,” he said. “It is not about bringing everyone up, it is about pulling everyone down to the lowest common denominator.”
Knezovich said Camp Hope has become an “unlawful assembly” because the protest has devolved into chronic public health and safety violations.
Contrary to arguments from WSODT and service providers at Camp Hope that there is not enough shelter space available for residents, Knezovich said 900 people can be accommodated at facilities spread throughout the city.