12/2/2022
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The Spokesman-Review
Shawn Vestal: CAMP COLD
KREM
RangeMedia
KXLY
The Inlander
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The Spokesman-Review
Shawn Vestal: CAMP COLD
Cassandra Cree woke up to find her roof – the tarp under which she sleeps at Camp Hope – had collapsed.
The wet, heavy snow that covered the city Wednesday had caved in her tent, a condition that afflicted many of the camp’s residents as a result of this week’s record snowstorm. Across the encampment, tents slumped under the weight of snow or collapsed altogether, leaving people and their clothing and bedding soaked. Camp residents huddled inside the warming tents that organizers have set up – and tried to do whatever else they could to stay warm and dry in desperate circumstances.
Despite it all, Cree smiled and spoke almost cheerfully in describing what had happened to her and how she was struggling to outlast the weather. She sat bundled up in layers of clothing and rubbing her hands before one of the large ducts snaking through the camp’s welcome tent blew out welcome, warm air.
“Yes, it’s a little tiring, but I have my buddy right here,” she said, pointing to a man lying in a nearby cot. “He helps me a lot.”
With snow falling and a temperature in the low 30s, homeless residents of Camp Hope huddle around a space heater in a warming tent on Wednesday. TOP: Tommy Fetzer huddles his hands near a heat vent in the main warming tent at Camp Hope. Fetzer, 49, was one of the first residents of Camp Hope and is known as the “bike wizard” because he helps other homeless repair their bicycles.
COLIN MULVANY/ THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
As the winter storm struck Spokane early Wednesday morning – shutting down schools, bringing out the plows, causing car crashes – Cree and the other roughly 400 residents of Camp Hope were focused on the simplest, most elemental challenge: staying alive.
They huddled, bulked up with layers of clothing and draped in blankets and sleeping bags, inside three warming tents that had been arranged around the camp – the large Quonset hut-style tent on the outer edge of the camp that has been a focus of dispute with the city and two smaller tents inside the fenced camp.
Camp residents tried to dry out, or swap, clothes and bedding that had gotten wet. Camp organizer Julie Garcia said they’d distributed about 400 pounds of blankets and scores of Buddy Heaters to help people stay warm in tents and campers.
Some residents have turned to desperate and potentially dangerous ways of keeping warm in their tents, burning wood or creating makeshift warming lanterns by burning hand sanitizer in pop cans.
“You gotta stay warm somehow,” said Tommy Fetzer, a 49-year-old resident of the camp.
Camp rules prohibit dangerous burning inside tents, but camp residents don’t always follow them. As an apparent result of residents using an unauthorized burning method to stay warm, one camper trailer was burned and two people displaced by a fire Tuesday.
As politicians posture and threaten, as lawsuits collide in courts, as the blustering deadlines come and go, the arrival of extreme winter weather put a sharp, uncomfortable light on the humanitarian crisis at Camp Hope this week.
Under the weight of the cold and the snow, those in the camp are more focused than ever on simple survival. And the forecast is a long line of nights and days below freezing.
“We’re the keep-people-alive folks,” said Garcia, whose Jewels Helping Hands has been operating the camp in conjunction with Empire Health Foundation and several other partners. “We just keep people alive. That’s our job, is to stable people and keep them alive.”
‘Best alternative’
The one-year anniversary of Camp Hope is drawing near; it started last Dec. 10 as a protest at City Hall, relocating to the vacant state land alongside I-90 after the city drove protesters away.
Garcia organized that demonstration as an unavoidable call on city leaders to do more to address homelessness. Since then, the camp has grown dramatically; potential solutions have not.
“We’re still in the same situation we were in when we started,” Garcia said. “The powers that be have definitely misjudged the number of people experiencing homelessness.”
The camp has become many things to many people. As more and more homeless people moved there, it turned into an unavoidable expression of a human crisis and a failure of civic leadership. It became a political Rorschach test of various responses to the issue: Do you see human beings or public nuisances on that land? Do you see poverty or crime?
It has laid bare the ineffectiveness of those who believe that, in a city with glaringly insufficient housing, our real problem is too many services, too much misguided compassion and too many grifters getting rich off the poor. “We make it easy to be homeless,” Mayor Nadine Woodward once pronounced.
In a situation that begs for unified, effective action, deep schisms among divided camps of leaders, activists, business people, East Central residents and service providers have deepened further.
The ongoing state-funded efforts at the camp have also exposed how steep the challenge is. The state is spending roughly $25 million – by far the largest investment of any government in our region – to move every person at Camp Hope indoors, but the lack of housing and other services has made it a slower process than anyone would wish.
Zeke Smith, the president of Empire Health Foundation, said there has been steady progress in the last few weeks, with the camp’s population dropping from 465 to 433, and he’s optimistic that the pace is about to pick up. Empire is partnered with several other organizations – including Jewels, Compassionate Addiction Treatment, the Spokane Low Income Housing Coalition and Revive Counseling – to identify what residents need and find them a place to live.
Next week, a new permanent supportive housing project, operated by Catholic Charities, is expected to open and take in about 100 people. And Smith said he anticipates more state resources becoming available very soon that could accelerate efforts.
He hears regularly from people who tell him the camp’s residents simply don’t want housing – that they’re just drug users and criminals who prefer that life. But he said most of the residents want housing but don’t see options that they consider better than life in the camp.
“There are so many folks there who are legitimately, sincerely trying to figure out how they can get into a better situation and are still deciding Camp Hope is the best alternative available,” he said.
‘No shelter’
City and county officials, meanwhile, have been in intense and seemingly continual conflict with the state effort at the encampment.
They’ve put all of their eggs in one basket – the Trent shelter, which is still very far from being the kind of service-oriented “navigation center” it’s been touted as, and the seeming hope to simply sweep the camp and force everyone there.
The true capacity of that shelter has been hard to gauge, with different officials citing different numbers of beds and talk of a “flex capacity” that has been very flexible. No matter what the number is, it isn’t enough to put all of Camp Hope there, to say nothing of many homeless people living elsewhere throughout the city.
Even if it were, many residents of Camp Hope say they won’t go there. Most are chronically homeless people who have deep aversions to shelters for various reasons. On Wednesday, several people warming up at Camp Hope said they’d spent the previous night at Trent simply because they had no other place to go during the storm – but they didn’t plan to make it a regular practice.
“That place is no shelter,” said Sandy Pennington, who was warming up inside the tent with her partner, James Conner.
Pennington is pregnant, and she has qualified for a federal housing voucher to get a place to live. In that respect, she’s a symbol of the overall problem – she needs a permanent place to live, she qualifies for a subsidy, but there’s nothing available. Housing officials recently cited a three-year wait for people to get into federally subsidized housing.
Pennington complained that the Trent shelter is cold, lacks personal space for residents and doesn’t have the kind of services – including access to addiction counseling, housing services, identification badges and indoor plumbing – she’d expect to see.
“It’s not a shelter,” she said. “It’s a homeless community in a warehouse.”
Many other people weren’t able to get in to Trent on Wednesday, Garcia said, because it was full. The city is saying that its warming center plan – required by law when temperatures get too cold – is just to rely on the existing network of shelters throughout the city rather than additional indoor emergency space.
Repeatedly, the people trying to stay warm at Camp Hope and camp organizers said the city’s warming center plan is leaving people in the cold.
‘Some little hope’
By late afternoon Wednesday, more than 7 inches of snow had fallen, and it was piling up thickly throughout Camp Hope. It was heavy and wet, turning the paths between the tents into mushy gray tributaries, and dripping thickly from the trees.
Many of the tents and tent-like tarp structures were bowed under fat clumps of snow. Some had collapsed, soaked through.
John Smilari, who has been living at the camp since he was evicted earlier this year, was warming up near an outdoor burn barrel with the legs of an old chair ablaze. He said he was using a burn barrel at night inside his own tent.
A few feet away, Loren Freeman surveyed his collapsed tent. A couple of camp staffers brought him a shovel to begin digging out. He said it was a difficult situation, but he was trying to make the best of it.
“I get along fine,” he said. “It is what it is.”
A man walking by pushing a bicycle shouted a greeting. When he was asked in return how he was doing, he said, “Blessed!”
In the large welcome tent, people come in for sandwiches, for dry clothes, for canned goods and bags of lentils and macaroni. Free copies of the New Testament sit in a rack. Housing officials have posted shelter information on a white board and are issuing identification badges for residents. In a neighboring trailer, residents are seen for addiction services.
At the back of the tent, Cree – the young woman whose tent collapsed – is sitting by her “buddy,” Tommy Fetzer, in front of the warm air blowing through a duct.
Fetzer has been at Camp Hope since it was at City Hall. He said he drifted into homelessness after a serious bike crash that left him with a broken arm, unable to return to work in Alaska. He lifts the sleeve of his heavy canvas coat to show the scar – a thick pink line, brightly pale against skin darkened by smoke and dirt, running up the inside of his arm from his wrist.
“Sometimes you want to throw up your hands and give up,” he said.
But for Fetzer, there is some light on the horizon.
“He just got housing!” Cree said. “So maybe there is some little hope here.”
Fetzer said he’d been approved for housing through Frontier Behavioral Health, though it won’t be available until January.
“I used to have a normal life. A regular life,” he said. “I’m finally getting my life back on track.” Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or at shawnv@spokesman.com.
A resident in a snow-covered Camp Hope leaves her tent Wednesday. More than 400 Camp Hope residents are dealing with the snow collapsing their tents and the impact from the cold weather.
COLIN MULVANY/ THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
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KREM
Shelters remain consistently full amid dropping temperatures and record snowfall, but that doesn't mean people are turned away.
University of Idaho murders gaining national attention amid search for suspect
SPOKANE, Wash. — Tracking available shelter space in Spokane just got a bit easier with the regional Shelter Me Spokane website.
Based on current staffing levels, the Trent Resource and Assistance Center (TRAC) can provide 275 spaces, which include beds and mats. The shelter remains consistently full amid dropping temperatures and record snowfall, but that doesn't mean people are turned away.
The Salvation Army, the operator of TRAC, is in constant contact with other Spokane shelters. This allows operators to divert people to facilities with additional space.
The Cannon Street shelter requires a 3 p.m. check-in daily. On Thursday, it was completely full, but there are still some beds available across the regional shelter system, according to the dashboard.
Additionally, the city of Spokane said shelters remain safe spaces for people to stay despite concerns of illness at some shelters.
KREM 2 confirmed with the Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) and the city of Spokane there is one COVID-19 case at TRAC and that person is in isolation. Shelter operators are also aware of influenza and gastrointestinal (GI) cases among staff at TRAC and continue to monitor guests. Beyond that, the Salvation Army is following standard protocol for isolation.
Meanwhile, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is reporting the population of the homeless camp near I-90 decreased by 7%. As of last Friday, 433 people remain at the camp, down from 467 three weeks prior.
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RangeMedia
Carl Segerstrom
Service providers say, and city officials confirm, that Trent has lacked handwashing facilities necessary to prevent disease transmission.
Communicable diseases are currently spreading throughout the Spokane shelter system and unhoused community, including the Trent shelter, Camp Hope, and various treatment and supportive housing facilities. “We're seeing a lot of viral activity in the shelters, which is not unexpected for this time of year,” said Kelli Hawkins, the public information officer for the Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD).
Outbreaks are defined as any location where two or more people are sick with a disease. SRHD shared the following outbreaks:
Influenza is almost everywhere, including at the Union Gospel Mission’s Men’s shelter, House of Charity, Trent and Family Promise shelters.
At the Trent Shelter and Camp Hope, there is a gastrointestinal disease outbreak that is possibly Norovirus, but has not been confirmed to be Norovirus.*
The Family Promise Shelter and Catholic Charities Rising Strong drug treatment and housing program are both at the tail end of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) outbreaks.
There are COVID-19 outbreaks at Miryam’s House, which offers supportive transitional housing for single women, and Pioneer’s Mental Health Crisis Stabilization Facility.
*Norovirus is confirmed through a stool test, and several physicians and public health officials told us stool samples are very hard to retrieve from portapotties because of the open hole where traditional toilets have a bowl.
Amid the outbreaks of respiratory and gastrointestinal disease, Trent Shelter staff, health officials and city communications director Brian Coddington confirmed problems with handwashing facilities at the shelter. “Sinks have been out of order about a week,” according to a Trent Shelter staff member, whose identity RANGE is protecting because of fears of workplace reprisals. “I’m not exactly sure why we have gone so long without working sinks. I do know there was a part that melted on the inside of one sink, so they were unplugged to avoid further damage and possible fire.”
In an email, Kelli Hawkins of SRHD confirmed that the handwashing sinks at TRAC, “did not operate well due to the cold temperatures. We were told an electrician was scheduled for 11/30 to fix this issue (enabling the stations to provide warm water). I do not have an update as to whether that was completed or not.”
In addition to having working sinks, the health district has recommended adding more handwashing options at the facility.
“There have been recent issues with the handwashing stations related to the cold weather,” Coddington wrote. “A heater is being installed to resolve those issues. The Salvation Army is also working on doubling the number of stations.”
Camp Hope currently has one handwashing sink that is only available until 5 p.m. when the tent at the facility closes, said Julie Garcia. Garcia said they are going to add another sink that will be operating at all times, but that it has been a challenge because the sink requires the use of a generator. “If we could get water and electricity from the city we could do more,” Garcia said. The Inlander’s Nate Sanford has reported that the city has withheld access to electricity and water at the encampment as it attempts to gain access to the names of Camp Hope residents and impose a deadline for removal of the camp.
Garcia said that additional mitigation measures have been put in place at the encampment, including designating three port-a-potties specifically for people feeling sick, cleaning the toilets every hour, and reducing access to and requiring masking and hand washing in the tent adjacent to the camp where service providers meet with camp residents.
Hawkins said SRHD staff have been visiting area shelters and Camp Hope to provide additional guidance on how to manage the outbreaks. That includes creating isolation areas at the Trent Shelter, a converted warehouse. “What we've asked them to do is set up an isolation space and they can do that utilizing a walled off room,” Hawkins said. The goal of these isolation areas is to separate people depending on their illness and to try to mitigate the spread of illness throughout the shelter. “A respiratory virus is spreading, so now it's time to step up mitigation measures. That's what these recommendations are asking them to do.”
Hawkins shared the following recommendations for the Trent Shelter and Norovirus outbreak response with RANGE.
TRAC Walk Through Recommendations by RANGE Media on Scribd
Bob Lutz, the former Spokane County Health Officer, has been providing medical services at Trent as well as throughout the shelter community and Camp Hope, and has serious concerns about the conditions at Trent. “It’s glaringly obvious that facility is not equipped to deal with communicable disease,” said Lutz.
The lack of handwashing stations was a major concern, especially if the gastrointestinal disease at the facility is confirmed to be Norovirus. “I had a patient with 9-10 bowel movements in a day,” Lutz said. “Each time he would have to go out to the bathroom in the cold and then there’s nowhere to wash hands afterwards.”
“Norovirus is incredibly contagious — hand sanitizer is not enough,” Lutz said.
Lutz also said that, as far as spreading disease is concerned, people are safer in tents than at Trent. “I have more concerns about disease spreading in a tightly packed shelter in a warehouse that wasn’t designed for human habitation,” Lutz said. “We have a facility that’s not able to provide mitigating or preventative measures. They don’t have the ability to spread people out.”
The consequences of the diseases spreading in shelters can be potentially more severe than in the general population, Lutz said, because many in the unhoused community have preexisting health conditions and risk factors.
The vulnerability of many at Trent was tragically evident in the early morning hours today (Dec. 1), when a 65 year-old man was found not breathing. CPR was started and emergency services were called around 6:30 am. First responders pronounced him dead just after 7. In a meeting of the Spokane Homeless Coalition, Ken Perine of the Salvation Army said the man died due to “an underlying medical condition,” but no autopsy has been performed. It’s not clear if he was suffering from a virus or bacterial infection.
Additional reporting by Luke Baumgarten.
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KXLY
December 1, 2022 6:02 PM
Updated: December 1, 2022 6:18 PM
SPOKANE, Wash. — A new rumor is now spreading about people being turned away from the Trent Resource and Assistance Center in Spokane over an outbreak.
The Salvation Army says this is not true, and they have not turned anyone away because of COVID or the flu.
The Salvation Army’s executive director says up to 280 people a night get a bed and receive services at the shelter. He says they will not turn people away because of a virus.
“When people are coming to the Trent shelter, we try to accommodate them with beds we have there,” said Major Ken Perine. “Should we run out the beds that we put them in, we actually work to get them sent to another location. We aren’t turning people away. Obviously, we aren’t going to send somebody back out to freezing cold weather.”
The director says as of Thursday, the Trent shelter only has one confirmed COVID case and one case of a stomach bug.
People who test positive for COVID-19 will be quarantined and asked to follow CDC guidelines, including wearing a mask.
The director says they only turn people away from the shelter when they violate safety protocols, like fighting and using drugs inside.
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The Inlander
The city has doesn't want to connect Camp Hope to water or electricity because they worry it would give the camp the appearance of permanency.
For months now, organizers at Camp Hope have been relying on a neighbor's hose and diesel generators to provide water and electricity to the East Central homeless encampment's estimated 465 residents.
Officials from the Washington State Department of Transportation, which owns the land Camp Hope occupies, say they've repeatedly asked the city to provide water and electricity to the camp. The city hasn't done that.
Camp organizers say the city's refusal has been frustrating and made their work more difficult. The camp is next to the city's water and power lines, and Ryan Overton, communications manager for WSDOT's eastern region, argues that it would be easy for the city to connect the camp to those services.
Brian Coddington, the mayor's spokesperson, says the city's expectation is that the camp is gone as soon as possible, and that connecting it to the city's electricity and water supply would give Camp Hope the appearance of permanency.
In an Oct. 28 email obtained by the Inlander, city administrator Johnnie Perkins told WSDOT that the city was willing to further discuss providing water and electricity — but with a few conditions.
Here's what the city was asking the state to do in exchange for water and electricity at Camp Hope:
1. Take down the privacy screening from the fence around the camp.
2. Use Washington State Patrol to patrol the area or pay for the Spokane Police Department's daily overtime shifts at Camp Hope.
3. Give the city the names of the camp residents who have been identified and given ID badges.
4. Pay the city for waste removal services.
5. Agree to a Dec. 1 deadline for decommissioning the camp.
In the email to WSDOT, Perkins, who didn't return calls seeking comment, added that he would encourage the state, county, city, Empire Health Foundation and Jewels Helping Hands to publicly announce "this collaborative solution to ensuring the health and safety of the site occupants." (Jewels Helping Hands and the Empire Health Foundation are being contracted by the state to do outreach and peer navigation at Camp Hope.)
"I also believe this would be received well by the neighboring businesses and community," Perkins wrote.
WSDOT wasn't having it. In a reply to Perkin's email, Mike Gribner, WSDOT's eastern region director, said his agency had discussed the city's offer and would not be agreeing to it.
"It is the agency position that water and electricity are basic human needs and integral to both the survival of the campers and decommissioning the camp, as such, should not be a chip to barter with," Gribner wrote.
Overton says WSDOT was increasingly concerned about the neighbor's hose freezing in the winter. After the email exchange, he says the state agency realized the city wouldn't be cooperating, and decided to take matters into their own hands by paying for a truck to deliver water to the camp. The first tank of water arrived last week.
Gribner tells the Inlander that the city's refusal to provide water and electricity has been a major frustration, and that the city's list of demands felt ill-considered.
"We don't like bargaining with basic human needs," Gribner says.
The generators outside the service tent at Camp Hope are loud, and organizers say the noise can make it difficult to have sensitive conversations inside the tent.
Camp Hope has been at the center of a rift between local officials and the state for months. The city and county, citing concerns about crime and the coming winter, say they want to see the camp cleared and campers moved into city shelters as soon as possible. The state doesn't think the city's current shelter network is sufficient. They have shied away from firm deadlines and asked for patience as they work to identify and stand up more shelter and housing options for the camp residents. The state is contracting with various service providers to do peer navigation and outreach work at the camp, and worry that a quick sweep will interrupt the work.
At Camp Hope, people like Sharyl Brown meet with unhoused people to guide them through the complicated process of applying for housing and other services. Brown works for Jewels Helping Hands, and used to be homeless herself. Her experience helps build trust with camp residents and relate to what they're going through.
It's a tough job. When asked what would make the work easier, Brown gives two answers: electricity and water.
Brown meets with camp residents in the service tent to do interviews, but it's hard to talk over the cacophony of the generators. Imagine trying to fill out housing paperwork and talk to a stranger about your medical or substance use history while shouting over the noise.
"It's impossible to have a real conversation in there," Brown says.
Brown says she normally just asks clients to step outside the tent so they can talk in peace. She does the same for our interview. But going outside just defeats the whole purpose of the service tent. And it's getting cold.
"It's a huge barrier," Brown says.
WSDOT's main objection to the city's list of demands was the proposed deadline and, they say, the implication that basic human needs were being bargained with.
The state agency had specific objections to the city's demands:
1. Take down the green privacy screen
In September, WSDOT put up a chain-link security fence around Camp Hope. They added a mesh privacy screen a few days later. The city has voiced concerns about police not being able to see into the camp.
Before the privacy screen went up, Overton says campers were putting their own tarps on the fence for privacy, which made parts of it impossible to see through. He argues that the new mesh screening is still allows for some visibility into the camp, while still offering privacy for the residents.
2. Have Washington State Patrol at the camp or fund Spokane police shifts
The city has previously asked for Washington State Patrol's presence at the camp. Overton says it not something that can happen because the agency is understaffed, and because Camp Hope is outside their usual jurisdiction. (Coddington questions the accuracy of WSDOT's jurisdictional argument.)
For months, the city has been paying police officers overtime to patrol outside the camp on a daily basis. Overton notes that WSDOT never actually asked the city to station police outside the camp in the first place, and that the state agency is already paying for a private security company to patrol the camp.
3. Provide a list of the campers' names
Since September, the Empire Health Foundation has been issuing ID badges and conducting a census of Camp Hope residents. On Nov. 9, WSDOT reported that badges have been issued to 467 people at Camp Hope. Overton doesn't know why the city wanted a list of the names, and says WSDOT doesn't even have access to the list. (The Empire Health Foundation is an independent entity, but their work at Camp Hope is being funded by a contract with the state.)
Coddington says the city wanted the list of names so they could verify how many people are actually at the camp. He says the city is concerned the camp might be growing. WSDOT and service providers have said new residents are no longer allowed to move into the camp, and that the total population has been steadily shrinking.
When asked if the city wanted the list of names so police could check for warrants, Coddington says no, and adds that he doesn't think all the names on the list are valid legal names anyway.
4. Pay for waste removal
The city has been paying for dumpsters and waste removal at Camp Hope since spring. Overton says the city started doing that on their own accord, and that he's not sure why they're asking for payment now.
5. Agree to a Dec. 1 deadline for decommissioning the camp
"Obviously we can't do [that]," Overton says, "because there's not enough housing available."
The city has repeatedly asked the state to agree to a near-term deadline for clearing the camp, and the state has repeatedly refused and said Spokane doesn't have enough housing and shelter to accommodate everyone.
"THE MOST HUMANE PLACE FOR PEOPLE TO BE"
Coddington argues that the city is providing water and electricity to homeless people — not at Camp Hope, but at the recently-opened Trent Resource and Assistance Center. The city has touted the shelter as part a key part of its plan to close Camp Hope, and is working to expand the shelter with additional beds and amenities so it can accommodate people from the camp.
"That's the most humane place for people to be," Coddington says. "Especially now during extreme winter cold weather."
Trent is a congregate shelter in a converted warehouse in an industrial area. It has a capacity of 275 beds, and efforts are underway to expand the capacity to 500.
When a 70-mile-per-hour windstorm hit earlier this month, the city made arrangements for two city buses to take people from Camp Hope to the Trent shelter. Only three people took them up on the offer, Coddington says. He notes that Camp Hope started in 2018 as a protest over a lack of low-barrier shelter beds in Spokane. The city added shelter beds, he says, why has the ball moved?
Coddington argues that the process of connecting homeless people to stable, more long-term housing is best done indoors — not in a cold field.
"The city is offering a way to be indoors while they're waiting to access houses," he says.
Advocates note that unhoused people are often hesitant to go to shelters because they are worried about a lack of privacy, rules about substance use, curfews, religious affiliation, trauma, personal belongings, personal safety, being able to stay with partners or family, trauma and other reasons.
The Trent shelter is being operated by the Salvation Army, who took over earlier this month after a fraud scandal involving the previous operator, the Guardians Foundation. On Wednesday, RANGE Media reported that several staff members at Trent had described chaotic, unsanitary conditions at the Trent shelter. They described overflowing portable toilets, medications being taken from guests for hours on end, inadequate supply of drinking cups and blankets and spoiled meals.
In a statement to the publication, Kirstin Davis, the city's communications manager, said challenges are always expected when a change in operations happen quickly, and that the feedback had been shared with Salvation Army staff.
While nobody on either side of the debate thinks it's good for people to be living outdoors in the winter, WSDOT has taken steps to prepare Camp Hope for the winter, and recently added a warming tent with propane heat in the middle of the camp.