2/18/2023
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The Spokesman-Review
KREM
The Center Square
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The Spokesman-Review
Sat., Feb. 18, 2023
Redemption Church Ministry Operations Pastor Jonathan Bonetti said his church is actively looking to sell its building in downtown Spokane and move because rising crime rates have made its members feel unsafe. Redemption also got dropped by its insurer after putting in numerous claims for broken windows. The church had to find a new insurer for their building, but the best rate they could find was three times as expensive. (Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review)
Pastor Jonathan Bonetti estimates his downtown Spokane church has had as many as 25 broken windows in the last seven years.
Repairing all that property damage has been expensive in more ways than one. Not only has it cost Redemption Church thousands of dollars, it’s made insurers nervous.
“Not every one of those (broken windows) was a claim,” Bonetti said. “But obviously when you file that many claims with an insurance company, they get a little wary.”
Eventually, Great American Insurance Co. had enough with Redemption. They dropped the church as a client and Bonetti had to go shopping for a new provider.
He searched for more than a month and reached out to 12 companies before he found one willing to cover his church – for three times what they’d been paying.
Monthly insurance premiums for Redemption’s property, which is valued at $2.2 million by the county assessor’s office, have gone from $950 to $3,000.
Redemption Church, which has roughly 150 members, is trying to sell its building and leave downtown Spokane. Rising crime is the main driver, Bonetti said, but insurance costs are also a factor. The church can’t afford to pay an extra $24,000 a year for coverage.
“It’s not sustainable,” Bonetti said.
Kenton Brine, president of the NW Insurance Council, said insurance costs are generally increasing. Inflation, higher construction material costs, a tight labor market and supply chain delays all play a role.
Insurance companies consider crime rates when offering coverage, but Brine said a neighborhoodwide increase in vandalism probably isn’t what tripled Redemption’s rates. He said it typically takes a catastrophic event, like an earthquake or wildfire, to change a company’s underwriting or pricing.
“If a policyholder – either a business, church or homeowner – files repeated and costly claims, it is not unusual for their insurer to not renew their policy, or, at a minimum, to increase their premium,” Brine said.
Bonetti said he doesn’t blame Great American for dropping his church. The number of claims was extreme, he said.
“It’s understandable and it puts us in a tough situation,” he said.
Numerous downtown businesses said their properties have been vandalized in the last few years. But most said that, as far as they know, their insurance premiums have held steady.
“We have not had to enter claims like the church has,” Kirishian Rugs owner Richard Kirishian said. “Fortunately we have not been broken into and we have not had broken windows. I’m actually kind of surprised.”
Jack Gumm, manager of Clark’s Cleaners, said his business has filed seven property damage claims in the last two years. He said he suspects those claims have led to higher premiums.
New Community, a church located half a mile west of Redemption, has had its own insurance woes.
Kevin Longmeier, the church’s administrative pastor, said New Community has been dropped by an insurance provider in the past. A flooding problem, roof leaks and thefts were the main culprits, he said.
“We have since learned we can’t really file the claims that we need to file,” Longmeier said. “We just try to pay out of pocket because we know our premiums are either going to go through the roof or we’d have to find a new insurer.”
Longmeier added that his church, which pays about $1,250 a month for insurance, has boarded up windows “because we can’t afford to pay to replace glass every time it’s broken.”
New Community doesn’t plan to leave downtown.
“We’ve always felt like this is the exact spot that our church needs to be and needs to continue to be,” Longmeier said. “We want to be a place of hope and a place of respite and a source of resources for folks that don’t have them.”
Bonetti said he feels that crime is destroying downtown Spokane near Second Avenue and Division Street. He said he believes the loss of Starbucks, which closed last year due to safety concerns, is indicative of the neighborhood’s decline.
“There’s just been really an increase in a feeling of hopelessness on the corner,” Bonetti said. “Everybody is dealing with this in one way or another.”
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KREM
In recent months, the Trent Shelter has brought a lot more activity to Spokane's Chief Garry neighborhood.
KREM 2 News 10 @ 10: Friday, February 17, 2023
SPOKANE, Wash. — Newly-released data from Spokane police show a major increase in how many times officers are called to the new Trent Avenue homeless shelter since it opened. Now, neighbors and area businesses are seeing the impacts of those calls.
The data looks at the total SPD "calls for service" within a 1/4-mile radius of the shelter from the day it opened (Sept. 6, 2022) through February 6, 2023. That time frame shows SPD had 890 total calls for service. SPD said of that total, 79 calls turned into actual cases.
This is a significant jump from totals pulled from the same time frame in previous years.
Sept. 6 - Feb. 6
2022-23: 890
2021-22: 154
2020-21: 110
2019-20: 121
2018-19: 140
Colleen Gardner, former co-chair of Chief Garry's neighborhood council, fields several emails a day from her neighbors and businesses near the Trent shelter. All of which say they're concerned with the criminal activity in the area.
"There's loitering, there's businesses whose employees are being harassed," Garnder said. "What I'm trying to do is be that single point of contact."
Now serving as neighborhood liaison to the non-profits operating the Trent shelter, Gardner shares her neighbors' concerns in hopes of finding a way to mitigate this activity.
"The crime rates have gone off the charts, the number of calls to SPD is ridiculous," Gardner said.
The city of Spokane's spokesperson Brian Coddington told KREM it's working collaboratively with the Salvation Army, which operates the shelter, and SPD to address all this activity.
"First and foremost, it's about managing expectations to make sure that everybody that's using the resource center has those expectations in mind," Coddington said. "One of the things you'll see in the next month or so is the Salvation Army will have a van that's capable of going out into the neighborhood, stopping and talking to people who are camping or who are loitering on the sidewalk and encouraging them to get in and come to the navigation center."
He adds the city's new camping ordinance establishes a three-block radius around the Trent Shelter. It doesn't mean there will be a citation to enforce the camping ordinance every time, but it allows for officers to contact people on the street, ask them to move along or off the street and into the nearby shelter.
In the meantime, Coddington said the Salvation Army is beginning to build relationships within the neighborhood. That way they can help address any concerns more effectively.
"We've encouraged to report these things so that we are aware," Coddington said. "We need the data to be able to utilize that information to best direct resources.”
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The Center Square
An estimated 582,462 people experienced homelessness on a single night in January 2022, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The agency notes that the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic could have led to a far higher number, but with government outreach and programs to prevent eviction through rental assistance, the national homelessness rate rose only by 0.3% from 2020 to 2022.
The number of unhoused people declined by 8.6%, or 54,615, since 2010, but more persons experience unsheltered homelessness. Two out of every five people without a home were living in an unsheltered setting, with the number of unsheltered homeless persons increasing by 3.4% from 2020 to 233,832 in 2022. As HUD points out, the rise in unsheltered homelessness outpaced the decrease in sheltered homeless persons.
A reported 25,211 people were experiencing homelessness in Washington in January 2022, and an estimated 50.2% of them were unsheltered, the ninth largest share among the 50 states.
The number of people experiencing homelessness in Washington increased by 10.0% since 2020 and is up by 10.2% since 2010.
All data in this story is from the Office of Policy Development and Research.
