3/11/2022
Kudos once again to Daniel Walters and his compatriots at the Inlander! They published 5 articles today on the affordable housing crisis in Spokane.
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Inlander
Spokesman-Review
Incarceration should not be debt sentence
YouTube
KXLY
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Inlander
No major city in Washington was as bad at adding housing the past decade as Spokane.
How does a cute little town like Spokane — once famous for its low cost of living — have a spike in housing prices and rental costs sharp enough to make it the star of a New York Times story about our ridiculous spike in rents and housing costs?
Why did the typical rent on Zillow shoot up by over $200 in just a nine-month span last year? How did housing prices climb by 60 percent in just two years?
How did we come to have only one apartment unit available for every 200 apartments in the market?
At its core, the answer is mind-numbingly basic. Economics 101: too much demand, not enough supply.
We have significantly more families in Spokane than we have homes. We don't have enough housing to rent, we don't have enough housing to buy. It's a local housing crisis stacked on top of a national housing crisis, boosted by a global recession and then injected with a worldwide pandemic.
With this package of stories, the Inlander is launching "Out of Reach," a new housing series that investigates why finding a home, or even an affordable rental, has increasingly become out of reach for those in our region — and what we can do about it.
To start with, here's a quick primer about how we got here.
The roots of the housing crisis have been growing for a century. As early as the 1920s, Spokane, like most cities, established "single-family zones" where it was illegal to even build a duplex.
As Spokane grew, it favored the suburbs: It demolished its streetcar system, and plopped an interstate highway through its city center's poor, minority neighborhoods. Fewer houses were spread over a wider space.
Washington state passed a law to crack down on sprawl in the 1990s, only allowing closely built developments in and around the cities. It was supposed to drive dense development inside cities like Spokane. Instead, Spokane stagnated.
After all, truly dense development was illegal in most of the city. Your plot of land can't be too small, your yard has to be at least so big, you have to offer so much parking, you can't build too high or too close to the street.
Spokane could rezone, but why would they? Neighbors — the kind who already had homes, the kinds who attend neighborhood council meetings, the kind who vote — wouldn't have it. They worried densely packed housing brings traffic, noise and crime. They offered vague complaints about "neighborhood character" and less vague concerns that their neighborhood would be ruined by those people, you know the kind I mean.
Renters.
In 2008, a different kind of housing crisis hit: America had, in some places, built too many single-family homes — or, at least, built them too big and too pricey. Bad Wall Street bets on the housing market tanked the entire worldwide economy, and the construction industry with it. Vast numbers of contractors and carpenters fled the industry. Construction got slower. Financing got tougher.
As it emerged from the recession, Spokane became a destination for those pushed out by increasingly expensive cities on the West Coast. Our population began increasing much faster than expected.
By 2017, alarms were blaring: Spokane hardly had any empty apartments available and rents were climbing. But other than some small changes to zoning policies and some additional multifamily housing incentives, Spokane's leadership didn't scramble to address the building emergency.
Spokane Mayor David Condon launched a campaign to recruit more people to the area, bragging about what kind of amazing house you could get in Spokane compared to Seattle. Spokane City Council members kept regularly opposing zoning changes for proposed housing developments — each, surely, for carefully considered reasons, like traffic levels and neighborhood opposition.
The sprawl Spokane tried to avoid happened anyway — it just happened across the border. Kootenai County's housing market exploded.
And then, the second international crisis hit: COVID-19. Lockdowns temporarily froze the construction industry. A backlog piled up. Outbreaks, COVID safety restrictions, and sudden jolts in demand choked supply lines of materials. Building became more time-consuming and more expensive.
Washington state's eviction moratorium protected some low-income tenants from being booted out into homelessness, but it also paralyzed the rental market and spurred some frustrated landlords to sell their rentals.
Meanwhile, for those in bigger, more expensive cities like Portland and Seattle, the chance to work from home meant they could, theoretically, work from any home. So why not Spokane?
At the same time, potential homeowners — including millennials who'd delayed home shopping ever since the Great Recession crippled potential salaries — benefited from stimulus checks, higher unemployment payments and deferred entertainment expenses. They had a pile of savings. Maybe even enough for a down payment. Rent increases meant renting was becoming less and less affordable. Inflation meant interest rates were bound to spike. Now was the obvious time to buy a home.
Both new buyers and work-from-home outsiders flooded into our housing market at the same time.
Spokane gots its wish. Suddenly, everyone wanted to live in Spokane. The only problem was Spokane never bothered to build them a place to live.
JUSTIN JAMES SHERFEY
INVESTOR/FLIPPER
When he was 19 and going to school at Eastern Washington University, Justin James Sherfey listened to a lot of podcasts about the housing market. Real estate offered the appeal of financial freedom and the ability to take time off when you want, so he decided to jump right into the business of renovating homes and reselling them.
Through family who work in real estate and construction and his own research, he learned how to find potential "contract flips," where he'd locate a property, help negotiate a deal and pass the baton to an investor who could fix it up.
The type of properties he looked for had often become untenable for owners to keep up. Some people fell into pre-foreclosure status after missing payments. Other properties suffered damage from tenants, and the owner wasn't able to afford repairs. In other cases still, people inherited property they couldn't maintain or clean up (say, if it had been hoarded).
Now 23, Sherfey chips in with partners to purchase properties to fix and sell, or rent out.
"Over the last couple years post-COVID [arriving], inventory has shot down to all-time lows," Sherfey says. "The housing market is just crazy."
He knows house flippers sometimes get a bad rap, but he hopes people know he and his partners work with owners and whoever is living in a home to help them find a solution to their situation. They never kick people out without a place to go.
"We're really trying to do right by people in the situations they're in. We know we're not a fit for 99 percent of sellers out there, and we realize that," Sherfey says. "But if we're able to help someone not have a bankruptcy or foreclosure on their record, we're going to pursue it."
— SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL
KEITH KELLEY
LANDLORD
Keith Kelley says he was the only landlord on the city of Spokane's affordable housing committee. And he says he kept getting the same kinds of comments: "Keith, if you go out of business, your family's going to be just fine."
And in one sense, that's true.
"I'll adapt and find other work," Kelley says. "My family will be fine. But what happens to the roughly 75 people that I provide affordable housing to?"
That was the crux of the tension with Washington state's eviction moratorium last year. Of course protecting low-income tenants from becoming homeless is more compelling than a landlord's bottom line. But if you make it so miserable that landlords don't want to be in the low-income rental business, you'll have fewer available homes to rent, and the rent will be pricier because of it. Drive out decent landlords, he argues, and all you'll be left with will be the bad ones.
"The policy environment has created a host of unintended consequences," Kelley says. "I don't think anyone intends to make life absolutely miserable for our marginalized communities."
He says challenges he faced dealing with dangerous and destructive tenants during the eviction moratorium — and the spate of new laws intended to protect tenants — is pushing him out of the business.
He's already sold most of his shared single-room occupancy rental houses, and he's planning on selling his multifamily properties as well, though he hasn't made a final decision yet.
In his case, he's been trying to make sure to find buyers who will continue to offer them as affordable rentals. But that's not been the case for every landlord. He says he knows of another landlord in West Central who's converting five of his rentals into Airbnb-style short-term rentals. That risks making Spokane's affordable housing crisis worse.
Kelley isn't sure about what he's going to do next. He says he thought about investing in other cities but says he didn't get into this business just to make money.
"I am passionate about Spokane; I'm passionate about affordable housing," Kelley says. "[But] I can't live out my passion and get beat up all the time."
— DANIEL WALTERS
MARCY MARTIN REALTOR
REALTOR
Marcy Martin never thought the Spokane housing market would get this crazy.
Martin has been working as a Realtor in Spokane for around 15 years. Over the course of the pandemic, she's watched as a rise in remote work and buyers from major cities across the country transformed Spokane's real estate market.
"It's pretty stunning growth," Martin says. "Two years ago you definitely had a lot more wiggle room."
The market has become especially tough for first-time homebuyers aiming for houses in the $300,000 range. The market is competitive, and cash offers are increasingly common, Martin says. For first-time buyers, moving quickly is key.
"We have to get in the house that day if it comes on the market," Martin says.
Martin doesn't see the Spokane market slowing down anytime soon. More people are realizing their jobs can be done from anywhere, and even with prices skyrocketing, Spokane is still a cheap alternative to cities like Portland and Seattle. One of Martin's clients was able to buy a 7,000-square-foot home in Spokane using cash from the sale of his home in Los Angeles — a 400-square-foot property (picture a two-car garage) that went for just over a million dollars.
— NATE SANFORD
ZOE HJELM DIVERSION SPECIALIST
DIVERSION SPECIALIST
In her work at SNAP (Spokane Neighborhood Action Partners), Zoe Hjelm is familiar with how difficult it is to help people get off the street and into housing.
Through "coordinated entry" applications, social service agencies in Spokane first rank the many difficulties people face (mental health, addiction, medical issues, etc.) to figure out if they qualify for help.
For those with fewer struggles, rapid rehousing is an option. If they can find an apartment, there's money to cover early costs and the first few months of rent so people can move in, start working and take over payments on their own.
For those with higher needs, there's permanent supportive housing operated by a provider such as Catholic Charities. Those apartments are meant to build the skills and rental history needed to later move to other housing options.
But the system has been overwhelmed in recent years, both as the number of vacancies in Spokane has plummeted and the number of high-needs people has increased, Hjelm says. Some higher-needs people would actually qualify for assisted living, but many don't want to go that route, she says.
"What we have noticed is kind of a twofold problem: The folks that are coming through coordinated entry are higher acuity, with mental health, substance use issues, evictions, domestic violence, a plethora of issues, right?" Hjelm says. "And then there's a very, very limited number of apartments."
If someone can even find an open rental to apply for, when they have no job, no credit, and maybe an eviction or felony on their record, landlords don't even consider renting to them, even if they've got income to cover the rent, Hjelm says.
"It's just heartbreaking really. ... They come to our door and think we have apartments we can just put people in ... [then] they find out this is on them, and you see that look of defeat," Hjelm says. "There's less than a 0.4 percent vacancy rate. Even if everybody had the money, we wouldn't have enough places to go."
— SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL
LT. ARIANA WILKINSON
RENTER
Back as an ROTC student at Texas State University, Air Force Lt. Ariana Wilkinson never had a problem finding an apartment to rent. So when she was sent to Fairchild Air Force Base, Wilkinson had no idea how difficult a problem simply finding a place to live would be.
Wilkinson had tried checking apartment listings only a couple times and assumed that things would open up when Gonzaga students left for the summer. Instead, by the time she got her active duty orders in July 2021, the apartment hunt was a nightmare.
"I realized that availability was really, really, slim," says Wilkinson, a public affairs officer at Fairchild. "This was one of the first big obstacles I had."
For nearly a month she searched, staying in hotels like the Hampton Inn as she scrambled to find a spot.
"I think I honestly applied to about 25 or 30 different apartments," Wilkinson says. "Spokane Valley, Spokane, Airway Heights, north side, South Hill, all locations."
And she wasn't the only one. Fairchild Air Force Base is a massive economic engine, generating over $520 million in economic impact a year in Spokane. But even their best efforts to find housing for their airmen faced serious obstacles last summer.
"It was really frustrating. You'd lose sleep over it," says Jack Farver, who works in Fairchild's Housing Referral Office. "We started driving anywhere and everywhere, looking for rentals that wouldn't be advertised, looking for duplexes or new apartment complexes."
They'd get ahold of the property managers and keep checking in: When might there be a vacancy? Things are slightly better now, but still pretty rough.
In Wilkinson's case, she ended up finding a townhouse condo. It was about timing. Within 30 minutes of a vacancy opening, she called the landlord, told her all about her situation, and said she was new to the area. The landlord seemed to understand.
"I was able to secure a condo on the South Hill," Wilkinson says.
— DANIEL WALTERS
Young Kwak photo
People like Deborah Cooper-Anderson know that having a housing voucher doesn't guarantee you can get housed.
One night during the late February Arctic cold snap, Deborah Cooper-Anderson found herself shuffling through the snow as fast as she could with her walker. But by the time she could step up on the curb, she says the bus she was headed toward — the last one of the night — drove away.
Suddenly, the 64-year-old was faced with the scary reality that she might be stuck outside in single-digit weather for the night.
For many homeless people, missing a bus or missing the window of time when shelters accept people for the night can mean just that: spending a night on the streets.
Luckily, Cooper-Anderson says she was able to call the safe house she's staying at with other domestic violence survivors, and they offered to send someone to get her.
All told, it's been about five years since Cooper-Anderson was in a stable housing situation.
At that time, she was living in a Spokane Valley house she could afford with the help of a Section 8 housing choice voucher from the federal government. The voucher required that she pay a third of her $900-per-month income (which comes from Social Security disability) toward rent, with the voucher covering the remainder of the monthly cost.
She lived there for two years, but then her landlord said they needed the house back so a relative with medical issues could move in.
Initially, Cooper-Anderson says she wasn't worried about finding another place. But she quickly found that, even five years ago, it was hard to find a vacant rental that fit her budget — even with the voucher.
During her last few months in the house, not only did she have to find storage for her belongings and search for a new place to live, but she says her mother died in Seattle and she had to go take care of her burial.
Then time ran out. She kept looking, but ultimately she lost the voucher and became homeless.
"I bought three vehicles with the money I got from the death benefit," Cooper-Anderson says, noting the vehicles barely ran. "I parked them in different places so I'd never be stuck without a roof over my head."
Over the next four-and-a-half years or so, she'd spend time living in and out of those cars, staying with boyfriends and friends, staying in homeless shelters, and trying to survive on the street.
She says she suffered medical issues, including multiple strokes, but she continued looking for options. So when the Spokane Housing Authority announced it would release another 200-plus vouchers a few months ago, Cooper-Anderson was on top of it.
She told her housing counselor at Hope House about the new vouchers and set to work getting a new social security card and gathering the necessary information.
Luckily, she was able to secure a voucher.
But just because the government says it will help you pay the rent doesn't mean a landlord will rent to you.
While landlords are not legally allowed to discriminate based on where someone's income comes from, it definitely happens, explains Zoe Hjelm, a diversion specialist with SNAP's homeless services team.
"Unfortunately, there's a stigma attached to folks who have vouchers," Hjelm says. "If they want to take legal recourse, we have to prove the landlord is saying no because of vouchers ... a lot of folks don't want to pursue that. It's time consuming, and they just want to get into housing."
The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently authorized the Spokane Housing Authority to offer landlord incentives, such as $500 to $1,000, just for agreeing to rent to someone with a voucher. Other ideas include offering small repair grants, additional security deposits and more. But those incentives likely won't start being offered until 2023, according to housing authority staff.
In the meantime, applying for openings can be hard for people like Cooper-Anderson who don't have computers and struggle to repeatedly get help paying $45 background check fees with applications.
Cooper-Anderson says she recently applied for a downtown apartment and continues looking for listings with a bathtub, as soaking helps with pain from her medical issues and keeps her mobile.
"I worked hard to get my voucher, and I've been out there for a long time trying to beat the streets and find a place. I mean, I've walked miles," Cooper-Anderson says. "I'm on the phone all the time; I check every day. It just... it wears on you."
For much of her life, Cooper-Anderson says she worked as a caregiver, first for her brother who was quadriplegic, and later for other clients with disabilities and her grandfather. But years ago she broke her back, and after trying to keep jobs for several more years, she says she finally realized she wouldn't be able to work anymore.
"I did everything right. I worked all my life — I raised kids," Cooper-Anderson says. "I've worked harder being homeless than I ever have taking care of people all my life. ... I'm scared all the time. I don't know which way to go to get another place."
Around New Year's, before she secured a spot in the safe house, Cooper-Anderson says she checked out of Hope House and went to see what the emergency warming shelter at the Spokane Convention Center was like for the night.
"Because I wanted to know how far off I was from being really homeless, I guess," she says. "At any moment we can be back out there."
She's still working to find housing.
Erick Doxey photo
Spokane appealed to many remote workers like Chris Pick, who moved here last year from Seattle.
For Chris Pick, the freedom to work anywhere has been a game-changer.
Pick moved to Spokane in June after the Seattle-based dating app company he works for announced a permanent switch to remote work. He doesn't have to commute anymore, but even if he did, a well-timed flight from Spokane might actually beat his previous commute — an hour-and-a-half journey from Bainbridge Island involving a bus, ferry and walk through downtown Seattle.
"Now I get three hours back of my day," Pick says. "Fifteen hours a week, that's like two full workdays I get back to myself and family."
Spokane is one of dozens of midsize American cities experiencing what some have referred to as a "Zoom boom" — an influx of workers from major tech hubs like Seattle and San Francisco moving to smaller cities to work remotely.
Many cities have welcomed the money that remote workers bring, but the income disparity has also led to concerns about rising home prices and a local population unable to compete with buyers bringing six-figure salaries.
Other than a bumper sticker that says "Go back to California," Pick says he hasn't encountered any hostility or resentment over his status as a transplant. Spokane is an incredibly welcoming city, he says. It's part of what drew him here in the first place.
"Pretty much everyone we've met seems to be genuinely nice," Pick says. "People have been real friendly."
Pick didn't expect to end up in Spokane. After his work went remote, he and his wife first tried looking for houses in Dallas, where Pick has family members. But after a few months, a combination of traffic, taxes and family drama convinced them to look elsewhere.
Their next plan was Vancouver, Washington. But while scrolling through Zillow, Pick noticed a cluster of houses in Spokane that seemed to match everything they were looking for. Pick and his wife didn't know much about Spokane and had never been to the area, but they were intrigued. They decided to visit and quickly fell in love with the vibrant seasons, affordability and lack of "hustle and bustle," Pick says.
In June, Pick and his wife bought a house on the outskirts of Spokane, just off South Park Road. It's a short drive from downtown, but still has the rural feel and acreage that Pick was looking for when he left the Seattle area.
Spokane's housing market is fiercely competitive, but much of the competition is concentrated around smaller, midrange houses. By opting to spend more on a larger house, Pick and his wife were able to avoid much of the competition. Pick says they were only able to afford the more expensive option because of money from selling their Bainbridge Island house, which more than doubled in value since they purchased it in 2014.
Pick says he's conscious of people's concerns about rising home prices. He doesn't have a perfect solution — no one does — but he does think the city could consider offering tax abatements to the owners of vacant office buildings if they convert them into low-income housing.
Even though his main employer is based elsewhere, Pick says he and other recently arrived remote workers still contribute to the economy in other ways. As more tech workers spread out to rural areas, Pick predicts that many of them will collaborate and start small businesses. Pick has already worked on a few local startups of his own.
"Before you know it, you've got a business starting here that's paying taxes here," Pick says. "So from that standpoint, it's kind of one of the benefits."
The influx of remote workers has also been beneficial for co-working spaces in the Spokane area. Ann Long, who started Burbity Workspaces with her husband in 2019, estimates that half of her clients are recent arrivals in Spokane. Long also thinks the rise in remote work will translate to more small local businesses in the future.
"Coworking not only is a great way to meet other small business owners and like-minded people, it's an inexpensive way for you to establish your presence," Long says.
It's not just Zoom fatigue that's driving some remote workers to coworking spaces. Some of Long's clients seek out coworking spaces because they lack reliable internet at home. Wireless connections can be spotty in the rural parts of Spokane.
More than half a year after moving, Pick says his favorite thing about Spokane so far is the people. His least favorite thing might be the potholes, or getting stuck waiting for a train to pass. But for transplants like Pick who are used to battling Seattle gridlock, waiting for the occasional train to pass is a small price to pay.
"I know a lot of locals think the traffic's horrible around here, but I mean, compared to almost everywhere else, this is pretty good," Pick says.
Young Kwak photo
Jim Frank is the founder of Greenstone Homes, which has been building homes since 1980, including in mixed-use developments like Kendall Yards and Liberty Lake's River District.
If you have lived for any period of time in Eastern Washington or North Idaho, you know that we live in a wonderful place. Like me, you've probably wondered when the rest of the world would find our hidden jewels. We just never imagined it would be the New York Times, when it recently highlighted Spokane under the headline "The Next Affordable City Is Already Too Expensive." Attainable housing was perhaps the most precious of those jewels and what set us apart from most large cities in the West.
Over the past 10 years, we've taken housing affordability for granted. We thought it was a staple that we would never lose. In 2010, the median home price was about $160,000 — and we were worried about it going down. Of course we were going to be discovered.
As the growth in the region started to escalate, the first signs of price increases were welcomed as a sign the economy had finally turned the corner following the Great Recession. The trickle of growth turned into a stream, then surged into a COVID migration-swollen river. The regional growth rate is now well over 2 percent a year, while the median home price is nearly $400,000. This rapid price escalation is a result of our complacency and a failure to build enough housing to accommodate our population.
The mayor of Spokane has now declared a "housing crisis," but it's not a crisis for everyone. If you own a home, you've seen its value increase rapidly. A 2,000-square-foot home on the South Hill that a family bought for $250,000 several years ago is now worth $800,000.
But the windfall profits that benefit existing homeowners come at a cost. The price is paid by the young family that cannot find a home they can afford, and by the family that was displaced when the rent increased by $400 per month. The housing "crisis" has exacerbated housing inequality and is taking a heavy toll on families across the region. We all know someone who is resigned to the reality that they may never own a home.
Our growth over the past 10 year has transformed where we build new housing. Ten years ago, the city of Spokane accounted for more than 40 percent of the new home construction in the region. Today it accounts for less than 15 percent.
This is largely due to a decreasing supply of raw land, along with a development code that systematically discourages infill development. Growth has migrated at an increasing pace to outlying unincorporated areas, and to small cities in Spokane and Kootenai counties. It should be alarming to Spokane that more than 50 percent of new housing construction is occurring in Kootenai County. Post Falls is growing at a rate of 4 percent annually. The impact of this shift in growth patterns will have significant impacts on tax base, traffic and sprawl. Once these growth patterns take hold, they are very difficult to reverse.
Understanding what is happening is the easy part. Addressing the problem is far more complex. We need to allow a wide variety of housing types in every neighborhood. When you look around Spokane, what you see are single family homes on large lots, along with large multifamily projects. There is virtually nothing in between.
I'm often asked, why do we not have small patio homes? Why are there no condominiums and townhomes? Why do we need to build so many large apartment projects? The answer to all of these questions is that home builders and developers build what development codes permit.
The Spokane development code makes it very difficult to build anything but large homes on large lots and restricts all multifamily development to segregated high-density zoning districts.
People love Kendall Yards and the wide variety of housing, all integrated on a single street and neighborhood. The mayor has said she wants more development like Kendall Yards. If that's what you want, then you need a development code that both allows and encourages it. We spent the last decade with innumerable "infill housing committees" and "housing action plans" but no significant regulatory change.
The result is Spokane's declining housing market share and skyrocketing home prices.
Outside of the city of Spokane, there is reason for some optimism. Spokane County reformed its housing regulations for low-density residential zones and now permits townhomes and small multifamily buildings alongside single family homes. The county also has a very well thought out "Mixed-Use" zone that encourages walkable neighborhoods. Liberty Lake has what it calls a "Specific Area Plan" process that allows a developer to establish flexible development standards over a controlled area. This has been successfully used allowing a wide range of housing products in a single neighborhood.
We cannot accept being a community where housing is too expensive for the families living here. How we build neighborhoods and regulate housing has to change in ways that encourage infill. Regardless of economic status, families need to be welcomed into all of our neighborhoods. Families have the right to attainable housing and to be able to choose where they live. The barriers to attainable housing and economically diverse neighborhoods need to be removed.
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Spokesman-Review
Incarceration should not be debt sentence
By Abby Anderson
The Washington State Legislature recently passed HB1412, which will expand judicial discretion of a person’s ability to pay legal financial obligations and their associated 12% interest rates. However, the unjust expenses of the criminal justice system do not end there. The inmate exclusion policy in the Social Security Act severely limits people who are incarcerated from accessing affordable health care and should be removed from federal statute.
I believe our current carceral system does not work for anyone – not victims, perpetrators, nor people awaiting trial. Instead, the current system provides a false sense of security to the general public, while limiting well-being and inflicting further debt on people who are incarcerated.
In Washington state, people who are incarcerated can make a maximum of $55 per month through work programs. They also have a $4 copay for all medical services not considered “medically necessary preventative care” (such as tuberculosis screenings and medically appropriate vaccinations). At these rates, it would take someone who is incarcerated 11.11 hours of work to afford one $4 copay. To illustrate further, if you make $15 per hour, a $4 copay is the equivalent of $166.65 each time you visit the doctor. If someone cannot afford the $4 copay, they will fall into copayment debt and for many who are incarcerated, this debt will be added to the mountains they have already accumulated from criminal legal fines and fees.
The Social Security Act inmate exclusion policy prohibits “inmates of public institutions” from receiving Medicaid coverage. This exclusion applies to all incarcerated individuals except the few who may be able to maintain private insurance coverage. This leaves the vast majority of people who are incarcerated without medical coverage and subject to the $4 copays.
While federal law inhibits complete policy change, Washington has taken small steps to improve Medicaid coverage. In 2017, the Washington Department of Health changed its policy to allow individuals who are incarcerated to suspend, rather than terminate, their Medicaid coverage. This allows individuals to reinstate their coverage upon re-entry, but it limits the scope of their coverage during incarceration to covering only 24-hour or longer stays in an inpatient facility, charging copays for all other medical visits. To further support reentry, in May 2021, Gov. Jay Inslee approved the formation of a work group to investigate ways Washington can allow individuals to reinstate their Medicaid coverage 30 days prior to re-entry, eliminating the gap in coverage upon release. These policies, however, do not sufficiently break down barriers to health and well-being for people while they are incarcerated.
The Department of Corrections has an obligation to care for those living within their facilities. In the case of Estelle v. Gamble (1976), the Supreme Court ruled that denying access to medical care constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Financial barriers deter people from seeking care and therefore should be considered along these same lines. People who are incarcerated experience substance use disorders and mental health challenges at a higher rate than the general population. As COVID-19 revealed, people in carceral facilities are extremely susceptible to communicable diseases. People who are incarcerated deserve equitable and affordable access to care for all health and well-being needs.
The federal government should abolish the inmate exclusion policy and allow all individuals to have health insurance coverage while incarcerated.
Until then, Washington state needs to continue to recognize the expensive and unjust charges of the criminal legal system and support the well-being of people who are incarcerated by eliminating copays.
Abby Anderson grew up in Mead, earned her undergraduate degree at Gonzaga University and is pursuing master’s degrees in public administration and social work at the University of Washington.
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KREM
Home prices in Spokane County are still rising as the median hit a record high in February, according to the Spokane Association of Realtors.
SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — Home prices in Spokane County continue to rise, even as fewer homes hit the market.
The new median home price in the county is now a record $400,000, according to the February Home Sales Report from Spokane Association of Realtors. The median price is up 23.1% compared to February 2021, when the median price for homes was $325,000.
While crossing the $400,000 mark is certainly noteworthy in this boomtown, it is not unexpected. Prices have been steadily increasing since 2011, and the median price in Spokane County has been hovering around the $400,000 level since last summer when the median price reached a previous high of $395,000 in July.
Tom Hormel, President-Elect of Washington Realtors warned the median price can be deceiving, depending on the inventory that closed in any given month.
"It's historic," Hormel said of the $400,000 mark. "But it's a view of the market in a one-month cycle."
The increase in the median price comes as overall sales have dropped. The Spokane Association of Realtors notes that sales were down 21% for single-family homes and condos in February 2022 over the previous February.
But again, those numbers don't tell the whole story. Spokane saw its third-highest sales year in 2021, according to Hormel. And new home construction was at the second-highest level in the past decade.
"Buyers are outpacing sellers," Hormel said. "As long as that keeps happening median sales will fluctuate and go up."
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The market is especially brisk for homes listed below $300,000 according to Hormel, with those homes often selling fast and over list price. But for the most part, any home that is priced correctly is selling. The average home spends just four days on the market.
But not every home is selling. Hormel said some homes are sitting on the market for 45 to 60 days, usually because the seller got too aggressive with their pricing.
"Even in a crazy market, if you overprice, the market will reject it," Hormel said.
Still, Hormel expects prices will continue to rise, and the median price record will be broken by the end of the year.
For buyers, higher prices aren’t the only challenge they will face. The report shows new listings are down slightly from a year ago.
One bright spot, inventory is up significantly in the past year. The Spokane Association of Realtors reported 237 properties listed for sale, which is considered a 21-day supply. That’s up dramatically from last year when it was at just a 9-day supply. It should be noted, a healthy level is considered a 5-and-half month’s supply, so Spokane County is still far out from there.
March, April, and May are typically the hottest months for real estate in Spokane, so inventory should increase, but to see a healthier market, Hormel said more new homes are needed.
"We need cities and counties to relax rules about zoning to allow more housing to be built," he said.
Another big challenge for local buyers is people and money coming in from out of state.
The secret is out when it comes to how great it is to live in the Inland Northwest. It’s drawing people who grew up here to stay while attracting others who are new to the region with money to spend. It all adds up to a crowded field for buyers.
"When they see a $600,000 house, they sold their house for maybe $2.5 million in California. Now they're coming here,” Real Estate agent Perry Domini said of new buyers entering the market. “Well, $600,000 for an awesome house, that’s not a big deal for them."
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KXLY
Posted: March 10, 2022 12:38 PM by Tasha Cain-Gray
SPOKANE, Wash.– New moms and moms-to-be will now have a resource for their mental health needs.
Providence is launching its new Perinatal RISE Program (P-RISE) to help pregnant women or moms up to one-year post-partum. It’s an intensive, outpatient resource that will be located on the Providence Holy Family Hospital campus in Spokane.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that while some mothers experience mild mood changes, an estimated one in eight experience significant symptoms of depression or anxiety.
New moms can go for treatment three to four times a week from 2 p.m.- 5:30 p.m. for six to eight weeks. Services are mostly group-based and include therapy, parenting education, and other learning opportunities.
“Providence’s Perinatal RISE Program marks an important step in addressing the urgent need for mental health services among new moms. It’s important that new families get their best possible start and this program can provide hope and healing to new moms in need,” said Tamara Sheehan, Providence behavioral health director.
Treatment is tailored to meet the needs of each mom.
Moms are encouraged to bring their babies who are younger than one. P-RISE will have opportunities for mothers to bond with their babies.
Providence is now accepting referrals for women 18 and older who are pregnant or up to one-year post-partum. Self-referrals are accepted.
Mothers can call (509) 252-6446 for more information.