1/23/2023
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The Spokesman-Review
What is Spokane’s homeless shelter capacity and why does it matter? (ed. note - missed this yesterday, thanks to Murray Krow for bringing it to my attention)
Commission votes to authorize supported release pilot program
KXLY
The Center Square
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The Spokesman-Review
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Sun., Jan. 22, 2023
Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward speaks to the media about Camp Hope on Dec. 19 at City Hall. (Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review)
Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward has said for months the city could immediately provide shelter for everyone living at Camp Hope.
“We have a safe place for people that’s warm, that’s a bed, that’s three meals a day and access to showers,” she said in early October. “People don’t have to be freezing in tents.”
The Washington State Department of Transportation, which owns the Camp Hope property in east Spokane, has repeatedly said the city couldn’t immediately house everyone living there.
“There simply isn’t enough housing options to either meet the encampment or overall need at this time,” the department wrote in a December news release.
Spokane has a finite number of homeless shelter beds. According to a city-run dashboard on sheltermespokane.org, the city has 1,082 beds available spread across 11 shelters, including 350 at the Trent Resource and Assistance Center.
Yet debate over Spokane’s true shelter capacity continues.
“We don’t even seem to agree what capacity means,” said Jeffry Finer, a civil rights attorney who is fighting the city and county’s efforts to clear Camp Hope before its residents can be resettled.
Until recently, Woodward refused to place a hard limit on the city’s maximum shelter capacity. She now says the Trent Avenue shelter, operated by the Salvation Army, could house 688 people if necessary. That would bring the city’s emergency capacity to 1,420 based on the figures listed on sheltermespokane.org.
City spokesman Brian Coddington said shelter capacity is difficult to quantify.
“Flex capacity by nature is flexible,” he said.
Some question the feasibility of fitting 688 people into the Trent shelter. Salvation Army spokesman Brian Pickering said he couldn’t discuss whether the organization is capable of operating the facility if more than 600 people are using it.
“I’m personally skeptical of having much more than 250 in one place because of health concerns,” Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs said. “But at the same time, we’ve got to get people out of the cold, the heat, whatever it is.”
The disagreement over shelter capacity makes more sense when viewed in a legal context.
In 2018, the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that cities cannot prohibit camping on public property unless shelter is available.
The Martin v. Boise ruling allows for exceptions, but it often presents an obstacle for local governments seeking to remove tent cities. Evicting campers from public property without offering them a bed can be legally risky.
“Until there’s capacity to house, you cannot criminalize or use nuisance laws to chase after people who are homeless,” Finer said.
If Spokane clearly lacked shelter capacity, Finer said, sweeping Camp Hope would be an impossibility.
“If it’s murky,” he said. “The option exists.”
The 9th Circuit ruling gives cities “a strong motivation” to argue they have capacity, Finer said.
Woodward has made that argument since the city in September opened the Trent Resource and Assistance Center and Spokane’s shelter capacity grew dramatically. She began strongly pushing for the camp’s closure soon after the Trent shelter opened and even threatened to sue the Department of Transportation if it wasn’t closed by Oct. 14.
“If we have a bed to direct someone to, then we should be able to remove people out of an insidious encampment that is having an incredibly negative impact on the neighborhood and has for over a year,” Woodward said in an interview last week.
In recent federal court filings, the city argued that Camp Hope could be closed without violating the 9th Circuit’s ruling and did not appear to argue that it had capacity to house the tent city’s residents.
Some homeless advocates say the city didn’t have nearly enough capacity this fall to house people living at Camp Hope.
“Absolutely, absolutely not,” said Barry Barfield, administrator of the Spokane Homeless Coalition. “Absolutely, 100% not.”
An evolving shelter network
The question of how many people can be absorbed by the Spokane shelter system is becoming increasingly salient as the population of Camp Hope homeless dwindles. On Thursday, officials from the state Department of Transportation stated that less than 140 people remained, down from more than 600 last summer.
The recently opened Catalyst project, a former hotel converted into transitional housing for the homeless, can reportedly take in upward of 50 people from Camp Hope, which could drop the camp’s population to fewer than 100. Depending on the number of beds available in the shelter system, the city could soon be within striking distance of being able to relocate everyone staying at Camp Hope, which would be a major political victory for the Woodward administration. On Thursday afternoon, sheltermespokane.org listed 150 shelter beds available, although not all of those are open for all people.
Since it opened in September, the capacity of the Trent shelter has expanded well beyond the limits in the current contract with the Salvation Army and beyond what the city budgeted. From original projections in early 2022 that the shelter would house up to 120 people, the number of beds grew to 150, then 250, then 350, with emergency capacity for up to 450.
Woodward has insisted the capacity of the Trent shelter could be expanded even beyond 450 beds, pointing to building officials who have said the shelter could hold as many as 688 people, though not without additional staffing and utilities, such as bathrooms. City Administrator Johnnie Perkins also told council members in December that this was a legal maximum, but that there were no plans to put that many occupants in the Trent facility.
Yet, when asked whether the city could provide shelter to the residents of Camp Hope and shutter the encampment, Woodward has leaned on that 688 number to argue that the capacity exists.
Some homeless service providers call this claim and the shifting shelter bed numbers a politically convenient way to justify ramping up law enforcement against the homeless.
“I think she wants to be re-elected and it serves her image to not have a hard number, to be able to move around and have some wiggle room,” Barfield said of Woodward. “Her conservative base really wants her to be able to move somebody off a sidewalk.”
Coddington flatly rejected that characterization.
“Politics have nothing to do with it,” he said. “It’s about finding spaces for people to get out of the weather. Bottom line, our priority is helping people, and a considerable amount of time, energy and resources have been spent to do that.”
Woodward’s record and rhetoric
In her bid to become mayor, Woodward presented herself as the candidate to solve the visible issue of homelessness and prevent problems like those depicted in a controversial “Seattle is Dying” TV news report aired on KOMO in Seattle.
Unlike her general election opponent, then-Council President Ben Stuckart, Woodward stressed accountability, increased law enforcement and long-term solutions, rather than shelters with few restrictions on guests like the one now located on East Trent.
Woodward criticized the shelter-first approach to homelessness, saying in a political forum that “we have to get beyond warehousing people and handing out sandwiches.”
At the time, she proposed the city wait out the conclusion of the appeals to Martin v. Boise.
But in 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the case, allowing the precedent to remain the law of the land within the 9th Circuit, which includes Washington.
Police continued to issue citations. An Inlander report in late 2020 found that city police issued 30 citations for violating its sit-lie ordinance – a prohibition against sitting or lying on a public sidewalk – or illegal camping since November 2019, even though shelter space wasn’t available at the time.
Law enforcement pulled back, focusing instead on finding ways to clean up hot spots while avoiding the restrictions created by the appeals court. The city was forced to lean on “interference with pedestrian or vehicular traffic” and other charges, in part because they don’t come with the same shelter capacity requirements as its sit-lie ordinance, which was no longer being enforced.
The administration also launched some shelter services during this period, though Woodward faced criticism at the time for a lack of emphasis on low-barrier beds that could be accessed by any homeless person.
By late 2021, Woodward stated publicly that her philosophy had changed. The Cannon Street Shelter had opened, which today provides 80 low-barrier beds for men and women. The mayor’s proposed 2022 budget included a provision for what eventually would become the Trent Resource and Assistance Center.
Amid this shift in priorities, a tent city called Camp Hope formed outside of City Hall in December 2021 to protest a lack of low-barrier beds. After the protest was disbanded, its members moved to land near Interstate 90 owned by the state Department of Transportation.
Since then, the Trent shelter has come online, expanding from the 120 beds initially proposed to 350. More than 300 people stayed in the Trent shelter Thursday night.
Immediately after the Trent shelter opened, the city announced it would resume enforcing sit-lie ordinances, pointing to the new bed space as justification.
“We are setting an expectation that individuals take advantage of the opportunities available to them to receive services in a safe, healthy, and humane environment,” Woodward said in a statement published by the city. “Our downtown needs to be a safe and healthy place for everyone and living on streets, alleyways, viaducts, and fields is not in anyone’s best interest.”
An expanded system
Despite the ongoing debate over Spokane’s shelter capacity, there are more beds today than there were when Woodward took office. In an interview, she estimated that 500 low-barrier shelter beds have been created during her tenure.
“Last night, 500 people spent the night in a safe, warm, indoor environment, were fed, and had access to services,” Coddington wrote in a text Friday. “They had that option because Mayor Woodward supported and led partnerships to add those spaces.
“Those choices have rarely been popular and more often than not met with considerable criticism. However, she did it because helping people move out of the elements and closer to a permanent housing solution is the right and humane thing to do.”
On Thursday night, there were 150 beds open out of the nearly 1,100 throughout the shelter system within city limits.
Not every bed is created equal, though.
Jewels Helping Hands Executive Director Julie Garcia, whose organization helps provide services to Camp Hope’s residents, explained that each shelter comes with its own restrictions.
“There are a handful of beds in our system, but they are beds that are specific to specific groups of people,” Garcia said.
Some of Spokane’s shelters offer space exclusively to men. Others cater to women, teens, families or individuals fleeing domestic violence. The Union Gospel Mission’s shelters are referred to as “high-barrier” facilities because they impose sobriety requirements on their guests.
Of the 150 beds available on Thursday, more than a third were high-barrier. The city had 61 low-barrier beds available to adult men.
Several of the city’s shelters are continuously full. Joe Ader, executive director of Family Promise, said his organization’s facility is one of them. Family Promise is the only shelter that provides space for families with children.
“We have been operating at capacity since July and even a little bit over,” Ader said.
Among low-barrier shelters, the Trent Resource and Assistance Center often has the most room.
On Thursday, its 42 unoccupied beds accounted for more than two-thirds of the capacity open to adult men and women.
The capacity at the Trent shelter has ballooned over time.
The original Trent shelter proposal was for 60 two-person pods, but by the time the shelter opened on Sept. 6, its capacity was increased to 150 bunks, with the capacity to flex up to 250, according to the city. Mike Shaw, CEO of the Guardians Foundation, which operated the shelter at the time, stated that another 200-300 mats could be used to flex capacity further.
By November, when the Salvation Army began operating the Trent shelter, that facility was averaging 280 guests per night. In all, there were 250 wooden beds available, with 100 floor mats for overflow, according to city officials.
From the beginning, city officials have relied heavily on the Trent shelter to handle most of the homeless population once Camp Hope is closed. Even when the population of Camp Hope was over 440 people this fall, the administration claimed the capacity existed to house its residents.
“In theory, you could put everybody in there,” Coddington said on Sept. 27. “That’s not ideal; that’s not the city’s desire.”
“We can provide a lot more space at Trent, and we have other shelters within the regional shelter system that can expand as well,” Woodward said at the time.
In a Thursday interview, Coddington clarified that the situation was in flux shortly after the Trent shelter opened, and that additional housing options such as the Catalyst Project were expected to come online sooner than they have. There also were ongoing questions about whether Camp Hope contained as many people as had been reported.
The city was justified in stating at the time that shelter existed for everyone at Camp Hope, Coddington said.
Since the Trent shelter opened, Spokane County has pitched in $500,000 to replace the facility’s 250 wood-framed beds, which city officials have acknowledged were prone to breakage and infestation, with 350 metal beds.
Salvation Army Executive Director Maj. Ken Perine said in November that continuing to provide 100 overflow mats, for a total capacity of 450 sleeping areas, would take up too much room and interfere with the facility’s services.
Woodward, however, has repeatedly maintained that no one will be turned away from the shelter, and during a recent cold snap the population surged above 350.
Not long after the Trent shelter opened, city and county leaders increased pressure for the rapid closure of the camp before the start of winter. Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl and then-Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich threatened to arrest those who did not voluntarily leave.
In October, the Spokane Police Department warned the Department of Transportation that the camp was violating the city’s nuisance law. In response, state Transportation Secretary Roger Millar threatened legal action if the complaint was not rescinded and questioned whether there was enough shelter space for the camp to be cleared without running afoul of Martin v. Boise.
“Ignoring these complex considerations, the City’s administration has instead recently made vague assertions that it may go in and clean out the encampment, in apparent blatant disregard of the potential legal implications of such an action,” Millar wrote.
A point made moot?
Amid months of politicized debate over whether Camp Hope could truly be emptied out into Spokane’s shelter system, the encampment’s population has plummeted.
With less than 150 people remaining at the camp, there are more beds in the shelter system than residents remaining at Camp Hope, although not all of those beds are low-barrier and open to adults. An additional 50 housing units for residents of Camp Hope also are expected to come online in the near future, Coddington said.
A continued frustration for city officials, Coddington said, is that they have not been provided demographic data for those still living at the camp, which makes it difficult to know if all of those remaining can be placed in the beds available.
“Until we have the demographic breakdown and know for certainty who is there, it’s equally unfair to make the assumption that there isn’t space for people,” he said.
The next steps to close Camp Hope might not be easy ones. The people still living at Camp Hope could be the hardest to house, Finer said.
Of the more than 600 people that once called the encampment home, the easiest ones to place in shelters or housing already have been placed, he said. The ones who remain often have disabilities, he added.
“As the easy, cherry-picked ones leave, the group that’s left is the hard core,” Finer said. “They’re going to be very hard to place.”
Commission votes to authorize supported release pilot program
By Colin Tiernan THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
After more than a year of delays, Spokane County has found a contractor to run a supported release pilot program intended to give judges more options when deciding whether to release someone from jail or hold them on a low bond.
The Spokane County Commission on Jan. 10 unanimously authorized staff to finalize a $400,000 contract with Pioneer Human Services to run a supported release program for approximately a year.
Supported release gives judges the option of releasing nonviolent defendants from jail and connecting them with resources rather than holding them on a low bond. The MacArthur Foundation has given Spokane County more than $400,000 to try supported release in district court as part of its Safety and Justice Challenge, an effort to reduce incarceration and racial inequities.
The idea has long had the support of judges, public defenders and criminal justice reform advocates.
Maggie Yates, the county’s former regional law and justice administrator, presented a supported release proposal to the county commissioners in the fall of 2021. Her efforts to launch the program stalled, however, following resistance from the prosecutor’s office.
Spokane County commissioners said they supported the concept, but declined to move forward with the program on the advice of their attorney, who was appointed by Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell to serve as their legal counsel.
Yates resigned in January 2022 and later ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner as a Democrat against Republican incumbent Al French. She didn’t provide a specific reason for her resignation, but said she felt she could “no longer push the work of (her) office forward.” Her job hasn’t been filled, although the county has since created a senior director of law and justice position that oversees a handful of departments.
In February, The Spokesman-Review reported that the MacArthur Foundation in July 2021 had told the county it might ask for its money back if a supported release program wasn’t created.
Less than a week later, then-Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich asked the commissioners for permission to try to resurrect the effort, which they granted.
The job of restarting the supported release project fell to Mike Sparber, the county’s first senior director of law and justice. It hasn’t been easy, Sparber said.
“I had to re-engage all the stakeholders and get them working towards a common goal,” he said. “We wanted to do it right.”
Spokane County’s first attempt to find a contractor to run the pilot program failed after no one bid on the project.
The county received two bids on the second try: one from Pioneer Human Services for $399,337 and the other from Revive Counseling for $1.38 million.
When a district court judge decides to direct someone to supported release, Pioneer Human Services will work to connect them with resources. The organization could help the defendant find housing, addiction treatment, a job, transportation and other types of assistance.
Nanette Sorich, spokeswoman for Pioneer Health Services, said the company did not want to comment on the supported release program until after it has signed the contract.
Laurie Garduque, the MacArthur Foundation’s director of criminal justice, said in an email she’s pleased the county is moving forward with supported release.
“It has the potential to improve lives while making the county safer,” Garduque wrote. “Many other communities have successfully used supported release to safely reduce pretrial detention, provide some assurance that individuals being released will attend hearings, (and) offer voluntary services to address underlying issues that may be related to offending.”
The MacArthur Foundation’s original grant required Spokane County to start a supported release pilot program before the end of 2022, but Sparber said the foundation agreed to give the county an extension.
Sparber said he’s unsure when the pilot program will officially start helping district court defendants, but expects it to run into 2024.
If it succeeds and increases the likelihood of people showing up to court, the county could make it a permanent part of the criminal justice system.
Kurtis Robinson, a longtime criminal justice reform advocate who serves as vice president of the Spokane NAACP and executive director of I Did the Time, said he’s thrilled that Pioneer Human Services is running the pilot program.
“The work they do is topnotch,” he said.
While Robinson said he’s glad the pilot program is finally happening, he criticized the Republican county commissioners for not having allowed it to move forward sooner.
“From my perspective, what they do is they resist the process until it looks like it’s going to shine too bad of a light on them,” he said. “They should have done this a long time ago.”
Spokane County commissioners from both parties said they’re eager to see the supported release program up and running.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how many people we’re able to help,” Republican Mary Kuney said.
Commissioners Amber Waldref and Chris Jordan, Democrats who took office this month, said they believe supported release is a commonsense idea.
“It’s really just a best practice,” Waldref said. “Providing services to folks to stay housed, to keep their job, that’s a good thing in the end.”
Jordan, a former attorney who specialized in child abuse cases, said he’s seen firsthand how providing people with addiction and mental health assistance can change lives. Supported release could have communitywide benefits, he said.
“I think it’s a promising approach to try to reduce some of the failures to appear and thus reduce some unnecessary jail stays, which are costly to taxpayers and contribute to overcrowding,” Jordan said.
On the campaign trail last year, French criticized Yates and ran a TV ad that accused her of wanting to give criminals a “get out of jail free card.”
He publicly praised her when she resigned, however, and has repeatedly said he doesn’t think addicts and people struggling with mental illness need to be in jail.
That population needs help, French says, and if supported release can simultaneously help defendants and improve public safety, it’s worth trying.
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KXLY
Posted: January 22, 2023 12:08 PM Updated: January 22, 2023 6:54 PM by Vincent Saglimbeni
Credit: Tierra Mallorca, Unsplash
SPOKANE, Wash. — The Spokane City Council is voting to defer a landlord-tenant ordinance following the repair of a software glitch preventing City Council from providing virtual testimony.
The City says Landlord-Tenant Ordinance 36330 is designed to increase and improve rental housing inventory in Spokane, benefiting both tenants and landlords.
They also say the deferral is based on advice given to the City from the City Legal team, recommending that high-interest issues be deferred until they are able to do virtual testimony. The City says City Councilmembers are welcoming further conversation and thoughts from the public on this.
“While I am disappointed in a further delay of improving rental housing in Spokane, I am confident that our IT Department will soon remedy the software issues preventing virtual public comment,’ Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs said. “In the meantime, I will use this small delay to further improve the ordinance with the feedback that I am now receiving from key personnel in the Administration. The final ordinance will do an even better job of remedying substandard housing and providing accountability in the rental housing sector.”
The ordinance also proposes changed that require policy changes like habitability standards, Housing Ombuds services for tenants and landlords, portable background and credit checks and more, including “mitigation funds for landlords who rent to tenants through housing services agencies and a tenant relocation and legal services fund.”
“I have appreciated the opportunity to work with Council Member Stratton to engage the community and find Council consensus,” Spokane City Council Member Michael Cathcart said. “That effort has been positive, but it needs to continue. We owe it to our constituents to pass good policies that have been soundly considered, including our legal department’s due diligence and a solid fiscal analysis by the City’s finance team. We are not there yet with this ordinance. We need more outreach, time for staff to work, and time for Council to reach a real consensus, which may require considering multiple ordinances rather than just one. I am optimistic, but we must defer consideration until at least February 27 for that work to reasonably occur.”
The Council will vote in Monday’s 3:30 p.m. briefing session. There will be no virtual or call-in option for anyone due to technical issues.
“If you try something and it fails,” he said in an interview, “that’s not a failure.”
Colin Tiernan can be reached at (509) 459-5039 or at colint@spokesman.com.
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The Center Square
Shutterstock.com
(The Center Square) – The House Human Services, Youth, & Early Learning Committee on Friday morning ended up taking no action on legislation establishing the Evergreen Basic Income Pilot Program that would provide 24 monthly payments of up to $7,500 to qualifying participants.
The amount paid would be equal to 100% of the fair market rent for a two-bedroom dwelling in the county in which the participant resides.
Guaranteed basic income is a cash payment distributed to a targeted group of individuals or households that is recurring, unconditional, and unrestricted. It is meant to fill in cracks in existing public assistance programs.
Committee Chair Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island, indicated time ran out on the executive session considering House Bill 1045.
“So, we will go ahead and continue our work in consideration of this bill at a future meeting,” she said. “And will thank everybody for this committee for your work today and apologize that we are at time in our committee, and so we will go ahead and adjourn and take this back up at…a future meeting.”
Vice Chair Julio Cortes, D-Everett, moved a proposed substitute bill be reported out of committee with a do-pass recommendation.
The biggest change made by the substitute bill is delaying the initial disbursement date for program funds by six months to Jan. 1, 2025.
Thought the committee didn’t get the chance to vote on the substitute bill, it did consider nine of 11 proposed amendments to the substitute bill.
All nine amendments failed to pass the committee.
Some of the amendments voted down required program participants to have a rent or mortgage obligation, be employed full-or part time, have proof of a recent negative drug test, and complete a free financial education course offered by the state.
Other amendments that didn’t pass made certain people ineligible for the program, including those subject to a court order, registered sex offenders, those out of compliance with a child support order, and anyone with a prior domestic violence conviction.
Another failed amendment reduced the maximum number of participants from 7,500 to 1,000.
The committee didn’t consider two other amendments: one that removes provisions for compensation of the program’s control group participants and another that requires the Department of Social and Health Services to collect data directly from program participants, rather than doing so on a voluntary basis.
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RangeMedia
Valerie Osier
CIVICS | Vote postponed again. Plus Spokane wants to buy Trent shelter and possible changes at the county jail.
Spokane City Council
Landlord-tenant ordinance: In response to public comment, city council made changes to the proposed landlord tenant ordinance. They also postponed the vote due to technical difficulties, allowing more time, and probably more changes, to the ordinance before voting.
City Council President Breean Beggs said that the city’s software that allows the public to attend and speak at council meetings virtually is glitching and the city’s legal department advised that they don’t hold any controversial votes until that gets fixed. The vote will be deferred until February and a final version of the ordinance is in the works that will take into account a fiscal analysis from the city’s finance department. However, the city council has released an updated draft of the ordinance that has some folks worried.
We’ll be doing a deeper dive once the final-final-FINAL version is up, but in the meantime, some key differences in the new draft include:
Landlords will all still have to get a $127/year business license, but now their property management company will be able to fill out the paperwork for them (if they work with a property management company).
The new draft ordinance no longer requires a $10/unit fee for landlords with more than four units. However, this may have to change in the next draft of the ordinance if the city finds that taking away those fees will leave Code Enforcement without enough money to perform the duties laid out in the ordinance, Beggs said.
The Legal Services and Relocation Program for tenants remains the same as before, but its funding will now come from the sales tax revenue from HB 1590 (a 1/10th sales tax for affordable housing passed in 2020) for the first five years. Council will allocate 2% of that tax (about $140,000 per year) each year until 2027. That’s considerably more funding than the first draft allocated. After 2027, funding will come completely from the successful litigation of bad landlords.
The universal background checks are now called portable background checks, but the function is still the same: tenants can use them across any application in the city to save time and money. Additionally, they would be valid for 90 days rather than 60 days.
The Residential Rental Property Mitigation Program for landlords remains the same as before, but will be funded differently: for the first five years of the fund, the money will come from 10% of landlord business license fees (it was 20% before). After 2027, the funding will come from code enforcement fines (though this may have to change in the next draft too if Code Enforcement doesn’t make enough money in fines to support the program).
The city utility department, rather than landlords, will be responsible for giving new tenants information for voter registration and what their tenant rights are.
The full draft ordinance is in the council agenda packet starting on page 260. Beggs, along with city council member Karen Stratton, are sponsoring and drafting the ordinance with input from the other city council members. You can find their contact information here to give input on the ordinance.
Read more about the first draft ordinance here.
Intention to buy:
The City Council is set to vote on providing notice to the owner of the building the Trent shelter that the city intends on buying it. Last July, the city started negotiating with the owner, Larry Stone. The lease is set at $1.86 million per year and had a provision that allowed the city to have a purchase option that would expire on January 31.
In a council study session on Thursday, the council members discussed the pros and cons of buying the building, noting that the city is already paying maintenance and renovation costs for the shelter. Purchasing the building and adding plumbed restrooms and sleeping pods was added into the city’s 5-year Capital Improvement Plan late last year at an estimated cost of $4 million. The resolution doesn’t say what the estimated cost of buying the building will be, but says the funds for purchase may come from American Rescue Plan funds, Commerce Department Relocation funds, Real Estate Excise Tax funds, Spokane Investment Pool funds and 2021 accrued unallocated general fund budget reserves. Stone bought the building last spring for $3.5 million.
Agenda here
Monday, Jan. 23 at 6 p.m.
Council Chambers in the Lower Level of City Hall.
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99201
The meeting is also live streamed here.
Board of County Commissioners
No more border patrol detainees?: Just when we thought the county commission seemed awfully quiet this week, the consent agenda pulled us back in. The commission is poised to vote on terminating an agreement with the US Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection and US Border Patrol that requires Spokane County Jail to house federal detainees. The resolution doesn’t give the reason for terminating the agreement that was signed in 2016.
Collective transparency: In another consent agenda item, the county commission is set to vote to encourage, but not require, collective bargaining contract negotiations to happen in a way that’s open to the public. The resolution is an effort to comply with the state supreme court ruling in Washington State Council of County and City Employees (WSCCCE) v. City of Spokane that said the city was violating state law by requiring collective bargaining to be done in a way that’s open to the public. Most labor negotiations take place behind closed doors, but in 2019, Spokane voters approved a charter amendment requiring public-sector collective bargaining with public sector unions like WSCCCE to be public. The union sued the city in 2020 to once again make the negotiations closed to the public. The state supreme court ruled in favor of the union.
Sewer fees: The county commission will also hold a public hearing on amending county sewer fees. According to the agenda packet, the fees will go up by about $1 per month, depending on the type of building that is being served.
Agenda here
Tuesday, Jan. 24 at 2 p.m.
Public Works Building
1026 W Broadway, Spokane, WA
Commissioner’s Hearing Room, Lower Level
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Spokane City Plan Commission
Planning for less car-centric transportation: This week’s Plan Commission meeting furthers last week’s discussions about improving bike parking in the city. The staff recommendations in the agenda include plans for short-term and long-term (think indoor) bike parking. They also look at ideas to leverage bike infrastructure to reduce car parking requirements for new developments. Reducing parking is a favorite policy of urbanists seeking to build more dense transit-oriented cities and lower the cost of development. This Sightline Institute series delves into some case-studies from Oregon, which slashed parking mandates statewide last year.
New historic district: The Plan Commission is also considering the creation of a new historic district in Cliff Cannon, the Cannon Streetcar Suburb Historic District. The new district would create tax incentives and open up grant funding for property improvements in the area for homes that aren’t already listed as historic properties. That’s raised concerns from some, which can be read in the meeting packet. In some cases the comments are pretty spicy, such as questions about how equitable it is for the city to be giving people tax breaks to renovate their homes.
Agenda here
Wednesday, Jan. 25 at 2 p.m.
The meeting is hybrid with access link in the agenda
Council Chambers in the Lower Level of City Hall
808 W Spokane Falls Blvd
Spokane Housing Authority
Open Housing on Wednesday: The Spokane Housing Authority is opening the waiting lists for 10 different housing locations across the county starting January 25. There’s a tight sign-up window that closes on February 3 so if you are voucher eligible, or know someone who is, get on those lists asap. For more information about eligibility check out this link.
Waitlist sign-ups can be done in person at 25 W. Nora Ave., Spokane, WA 99205 or online at spokanehousing.org. SHA’s phone number is (509) 328-2953.