2/2/2023
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The Spokesman-Review
As Camp Hope shrinks, city looks ahead
YAKIMA COUNTY RETURNS MORE THAN $2 MILLION IN HOMELESS GRANT FUNDING
KREM
The Center Square
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The Spokesman-Review
As Camp Hope shrinks, city looks ahead
Council members mull rehoming efforts as camp’s footprint gets smaller
By Emry Dinman THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
As the population at Spokane’s Camp Hope homeless encampment continues to fall, city leaders are eyeing the next steps to rehouse the remaining residents and clear the camp for good.
On Wednesday, Council President Breean Beggs was joined outside on the fence surrounding the camp by Councilman Zack Zappone, Councilwoman Lori Kinnear and representatives of Catholic Charities and Revive Counseling to summarize the work that has been done and the work that remains.
“Some people when they see this encampment, they see a lot of despair and suffering, and they’refearful and just want it to be gone,” Beggs said. “Other people have looked at this encampment over the last year and see it as an indictment of Spokane that we can’t serve our most vulnerable people.”
“But it doesn’t matter which ‘camp’ you come from in your thinking, it’s about where we’re going,” he added.
From an estimated high of over 600 people living in the encampment this summer, only around 124 remain, according to a report released Wednesday by the state Department of Transportation, which owns the property.
The camp is literally shrinking: on Monday, the fencing that surrounds Camp Hope will be moved in by 30 feet, reducing its footprint, officials announced.
While significant progress has been made in recent months to move the camp residents into transitional and permanent housing, the final stretch may be the hardest.
“Some of the more easily placed residents have moved off-site or found other lodging options, while some of those remaining may have multiple challenges or barriers to permanent housing,” WSDOT wrote in a Wednesday press release.
Beggs pointed to three priorities moving forward in order to house those who remain: finding places to relocate RVs, creating a pallet shelter or “tiny home” village and a shelter specifically for those with severe medical needs.
There are 17 RVs remaining at Camp Hope, many of which are not functional, down from 27 in mid-December. Sanctioned areas for those RVs have been considered, including through a proposal favored by the mayor that would use existing camping locations and have the state pay for the lot fees of the homeless people parking RVs there.
When the city presented a plan to the state last summer to rehouse Camp Hope’s residents, it included a funding proposal for a pallet village, said city spokesman Brian Coddington.
“The mayor is sensitive to the concentration of services or resources (into one area), but is open to exploring the right location,” Coddington said.
Existing shelter services are also inadequate for the “medically fragile,” Beggs said.
“Your typical shelter cannot accommodate them,” he added.
While the state has pitched in over $24 million to rehouse and provide services to the residents of Camp Hope, additional funds are necessary to finish the job, Beggs continued.
Emry Dinman can be reached at (509) 459-5472 or by email at emryd@ spokesman.com.
YAKIMA COUNTY RETURNS MORE THAN $2 MILLION IN HOMELESS GRANT FUNDING
By Phil Ferolito YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC
Yakima County is returning more than $2 million in emergency funds for homeless services to the state Department of Commerce because it didn’t receive enough projects to exhaust the funds.“That’s just because we didn’t get enough projects from our community for propagation,” said Human Services Director Esther Magasis.
Last year, the county received more than $4.3 million in federal Emergency Solutions Grant funds passed through the state.
It was only able to spend slightly more than $1.9 million of it.
Magasis said a request for proposals was devised to seek funding requests.
“We tried to make the RFP pretty simple,” she said. “We wanted to get the funds out; we wanted people to use it.”
The funds could be spent on homeless outreach services, rental assistance and some shelter costs.
Magasis said all requests that met grant requirements were funded.
“We did get a lot of applications and we funded every single application 100%,” she said.
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KREM
City leaders applauded the significant progress seen at the homeless encampment by community partners so far.
SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane city leaders held a press conference Wednesday about the shrinking homeless encampment on WSDOT property and how the Right-Of-Way initiative plan helped in these efforts.
Last summer, the city submitted a plan to the state on how it would get people out of the encampment and into housing. While city leaders admit the execution of that plan wasn't perfect, they applauded the significant progress seen at the homeless encampment by community partners so far.
Council President Breean Beggs specifically acknowledged Jewels Helping Hands, Empire Health, CHAZ Health and several other groups for their role in the progress seen at the encampment.
"All these groups have come together in a coordinated fashion and that is what was new about this initiative," Beggs said. "And so we've made it pretty far, but we still have at least 124 people to go. And I'm just focused on encouraging people to follow the plan that we have."
The city's acknowledgement came as somewhat of a surprise to founder of Jewels Helping Hands, Julie Garcia.
"I'm unconcerned with who gets the credit," Garcia said. "I am more concerned with the people experiencing homelessness, getting the help. I am hopeful that everything that was said here will continue on into the future because we're going to need these folks to come up with the solutions."
The state's Right-Of-Way initiative gave the city $25 million in funding to execute its plans for moving people into housing. Part of that plan includes the Catalyst project, which is by operated Catholic Charities. The non-profit is now reporting 52 participants currently in the project. They expect to be ready to offer full capacity in the coming weeks. Meaning, a total of 100 participants will get support transitioning into permanent housing.
Looking to the immediate future, WSDOT is preparing to move the Second Avenue side of the camp's fence line inward. Spokesperson Ryan Overton says this is meant to visually show the community it's getting closer to decommissioning the camp.
"Julie's staff has worked really hard to continually move people shrink the footprint of the camp," Overton said. "So, we're planning to move the fence, tentatively on Monday of next week. And it'll come in about 50 feet or so."
During the press conference, KREM asked Council President Beggs if this gathering with stakeholders
meant they are now all on the same page with this issue. He said they are "mostly on the same page" and working on getting there.
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The Center Square
Joseph Robello, lead cook at Mary's Place, a family homeless shelter located inside an Amazon corporate building on the tech giant's Seattle campus, prepares food Wednesday, June 17, 2020. The facility is home to the Popsicle Place shelter program, an initiative to address the needs of homeless children with life-threatening health conditions. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Ted S. Warren/ AP Photos
(The Center Square) – The King County Regional Homelessness Authority is seeking ways to support wage increases as it deals with a staffing shortage of front-line workers.
In the authority’s five-year draft plan, it analyzed the data to better understand the gap between current provider pay and a living wage based on prevailing economic factors in the region. The analysis revealed that direct service workers earn $19.70 an hour. Case managers make $24.92 per hour, on average.
That hourly rate is roughly half the $42.31 per hour wage needed in 2022 to afford a one-bedroom apartment in the King County metropolitan area, according to the authority.
The average case manager pay is slightly more than half of the 2022 King County median household income wage of approximately $49 per hour, while front-line workers make significantly less than half.
The average front-line worker would need to work 86 hours per week in order to afford a one-bedroom apartment in King County, according to the authority’s estimates.
Because the front-line workforce is not being appropriately paid for its essential work, the authority learned that the five largest homelessness service providers in King County had more than 300 vacant positions. The authority added that this could make its system underperform and suffer critical breakdowns at key moments.
“For example, during the COVID-19 omicron surge in early 2022, many staff were diagnosed as COVID-positive and had to remain at home [which coincided] with a severe weather event,” the King County Regional Homelessness Authority stated in its draft plan. “As a result, there were not enough funded provider staff to manage all of the severe weather shelters, so the City of Seattle and the [authority] had to deploy personnel to directly staff these locations.”
The Center Square found one case manager job posting from the Low income Housing Institute, which the authority has worked with. The job qualifications included a bachelor degree in social work or related field, or an associate degree with 3 years of experience. As well as, at least two years experience working with a diverse population. The pay range is listed at $20.70 to 25.86 per hour.
The Center Square previously reported on the authority’s five-year draft plan requesting over $11.8 billion. Annual operating costs, which includes wages for its workforce, would be between $1.7 billion and $3.4 billion.
In comparison, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s 2023 budget is estimated to be a total of $253 million.
The authority added that it will utilize its contracting and monitoring leverage to support wage increases. Public feedback on the draft plan is now being collected and will be shared with the authority’s Implementation Board and Governing Committee.