4/26/2022
Lots of news about the City Council’s deliberations etc.
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Spokesman-Review
WHAT’S BETTER? LIFE SKILLS OR HANDCUFFS?
Where you live may determine if you get stuck in jail before trial
Afghan Refugees: ‘They are welcomed here’
KHQ
KXLY
Spokane City Council strikes down ordinance change on proposed shelter
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Spokesman-Review
WHAT’S BETTER? LIFE SKILLS OR HANDCUFFS?
By Emma Epperly and Jim Allen
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Seven years after outcry over disparities in punishment of disabled and minority students, Spokane Public Schools has, along with many school districts in Washington, worked to change its approach to discipline in schools. That approach now is under fire from local law enforcement leaders and being investigated by the FBI.
A shift toward what is called restorative discipline and away from exclusionary punishment ramped up in 2019 and continued in 2020 when, unlike neighboring districts, Spokane schools removed school resource officers with the policing powers to arrest students, and replaced them with what the district describes as intervention specialists.
While the school district said it maintained a strong working relationship with police, the Spokane Police Department said schools could only be safe with law enforcement involvement.
Last month, Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl accused the district of failing to report student violence. Days later, the FBI announced it was looking into Meidl’s claims. Police records obtained by The Spokesman-Review detail some of the incidents that raised the chief’s concern.
Meidl declined to comment further on the situation until the FBI’s review is complete. The school district also declined to answer questions related to the review by law enforcement.
Proponents of restorative discipline and former school employees, Fred Schrumpf and Bob Murphy, say the incidents Meidl references are extreme cases and, overall, the new approach has reduced suspensions, eliminated disproportionate discipline and increased graduation rates.
What is restorative discipline?
Restorative discipline is a “relationship-oriented” practice that provides an alternative to suspension or other exclusionary punishment, instead allowing students space and time to calm down before discussing why they acted out and giving the student a chance to repair the relationships they damaged, explained Schrumpf and Murphy, two experts who helped create the district’s program.
The system operates on three tiers. The first tier includes low-level behaviors such as name-calling.
Responding to tier one problems centers on preventing escalation, and might involve a class discussion to address tensions or rising issues.
Tier two issues are disruptive behaviors affecting a classroom or larger school community, Murphy said. The tier could include behaviors like a student stealing class supplies from a teacher, according to an example from the district. A possible repercussion for a situation like that would be returning the supplies, apologizing to the class, and then helping with class chores or cleanup.
Educators first should ask what happened, how the student was feeling, and how their actions affected others. Then they would ask everyone involved what they needed to resolve the problem. Finally, they would facilitate an agreement to meet the needs of everyone involved, Schrumpf said.
“Consequences are important, but (they) need to change behaviors. Behaviors change when youth are involved in the solution and feel the support,” Schrumpf said. “It’s also about treating people with dignity and respect.”
Part of the transition to restorative discipline was due to tier one and two offenses being referred to law enforcement, Murphy said.
Lastly, tier three infractions might include fights or threats, and could merit a suspension, other exclusion or even arrest, Murphy explained. These are serious and possibly dangerous situations. Despite the seriousness of the situation, restorative interventions can be used in conjunction with punishment.
Those include meetings to help the student re-engage in school when they return and group discussions to help repair harm and rebuild relationships.
The road to restorative discipline
In 2015, the Washington Legislature passed a bill focused on closing the“educational opportunity gap.” Among other things, the bill required school districts to create and publish student discipline policies and procedures, and required districts to publish data to monitor the effectiveness of those policies.
The law took effect on June 6, 2016. Three days later, Shelley Redinger, then the superintendent of Spokane Public Schools, signed a resolution addressing numerous issues related to school discipline.
Between 2012 and 2015, the district suspended or expelled approximately 8% of students, a rate significantly higher than the state average. Exclusionary discipline, such as outof- school suspensions or expulsions, doesn’t change behavior and causes harm to all students, the resolution read. The more school a student misses, the less likely they are to graduate.
The district also noted that it was referring too many children for criminal prosecution for misdemeanor offenses in school.
Students who were members of minority racial and ethnic groups, as well as low-income and special needs students, were disciplined at a disproportionately high rate, the district acknowledged.
In the resolution, Redinger vowed to implement a restorative discipline system to address the inequities. She launched an initiative to implement restorative discipline throughout the district and a workgroup to help shape the program.
Two members of that initial workgroup were Murphy and Schrumpf.
Murphy is a former teacher and school administrator in Alaska who now lives in Spokane and does mediation work for local school districts. Schrumpf is a longtime school administrator and former principal at Havermale High School. He has written books on school discipline, including one titled “Creating a Peaceable School,” focused on teaching conflict resolution.
“I think at the foundation, it’s a lot about philosophy and culture,” Schrumpf said of restorative discipline.
Instead of punishing a child for acting out, a teacher using restorative principles will teach children to communicate with those they’ve hurt, resolve issues and differences of opinion, and plan how to avoid conflict and harm in the future.
“These are applied life skills that schools want to teach,” Schrumpf said.
Throughout the process of implementing the change, it became clear that the role of school resource officers needed to be redefined, Schrumpf said. Many misdemeanors committed in schools were being referred to juvenile court that should have been handled in school, he said.
In 2020, the district shifted to campus safety specialists, who focus on the root cause of a student’s inappropriate behavior, said Shawn Jordan, chief operations officer, in a January interview. The safety specialists aren’t commissioned through the Spokane Police Department, as resource officers were.
Dawn Sidell, founder of the Northwest Autism Center, was concerned with the disproportionate exclusion of disabled students, when the data was released in 2016.
She became a member of the Every Student Counts Alliance, a group that formed around that time to advocate for discipline reforms. The group has achieved many of their main goals, including the rates of discipline becoming more equitable.
The root of the problem, Sidell believes, was a lack of supports addressing behavioral health.
“You use what you’ve got,” Sidell said.
That used to be school resource officers who she said would often send kids into the criminal justice system for minor infractions.
Proponents of the restorative justice approach believe discipline will be more successful if kept in the school system.
“The closer we keep to the school the more success that they’re going to have,” Schrumpf said.
Targeted violence and threat assessment
School districts often use threat assessment teams to prevent targeted and extreme violence, as in the case of a school shooting threat.
Most school districts in the region, including Spokane Public Schools, use the Salem-Keizer Cascade threat assessment model.
The model was created by John Van Dreal, a school psychologist and former director of safety and risk management at the Salem- Keizer School District in Oregon. He began creating the model in 1999 and now consults with school districts throughout the country, including in Spokane, on how to implement the assessment.
There are two levels of threat assessment in the model, which is also used and supported by North-East Washington Educational Service District 101.
Threat assessment groups are meant for students who show signs of planning extreme aggression in advance toward pre-identified targets, said Courtenay McCarthy, a school psychologist and associate at Van Dreal’s consulting group.Much of the initial training on the threat assessment centers on the differences between targeted violence and normal childhood behavior, McCarthy said.
When there’s a threat that fits the criteria for a level one threat assessment, a team convened at the school, largely with school administrators, teachers, counselors, coaches and school safety staff, evaluate the situation. Law enforcement should be connected to the process in some form, McCarthy said.
The goal of the threat assessment team is to prevent one person from making decisions in isolation about how to handle the threat, McCarthy said.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, school counselors would use a checklist to evaluate the child making threats one-on-one, McCarthy said. Those assessments often resulted in counselors looking at personality traits or demographics rather than the actual situation and behavior. Now, best practices don’t support checklists or single-person evaluation and instead focus on addressing the behavior from a variety of viewpoints.
A level one threat assessment can be conducted in less than a day, with team members coming together, interviewing the student, their parents, witnesses and potential victims, and then assessing how best to prevent the violence and creating a plan to manage behavior in the future.
Those management plans include extra supervision, limiting contact with a potential victim, discussions with parents about weapons access and checking for weapons at schools. Focusing on engaging students in things that are already going well for them is also important, McCarthy said.
If the threat is not imminent the process can stretch out over a week or more, McCarthy said.
Level one threat assessments are common for things like social media threats and targeted bullying.
If a student is continuing to exhibit threatening behavior after a level one assessment and is unable to stick with their restoration plan, a level two assessment can be conducted that brings in more outside help to manage the situation.
That help can come from a variety of agencies, like child protective services, juvenile court, law enforcement or outside psychological care. Typicallly, level two assessments can’t be managed in a school setting, McCarthy explained.
Currently, the district calls police only if they believe there’s an imminent danger of violence. Mc-Carthy said the National Threat Assessment Center, run by the Secret Service, has recommended that schools develop criteria for calling law enforcement.
Even if law enforcement isn’t on the threat assessment team, it’s important schools have a partnership with law enforcement so they’re aware of incidents occurring outside of school and receiving a public safety perspective, McCarthy said.
The Spokane School Board was presented with proposed procedures earlier this year that would prohibit staff, except for a designated safety officer, from contacting law enforcement in many nonemergency situations. The safety officer could seek police intervention in six specific instances: sex crimes, first-degree robbery, first-degree assault, use or possession of deadly weapons, suicide and homicide.
On its face, the procedure would prohibit police from being contacted for some felony crimes, including second-degree assault, which is an assault that “inflicts substantial bodily harm,” according to Washington law.
Soon after Meidl made his concerns about Spokane Public Schools discipline public, district officials said the procedure was not in effect. Its status, however, is unclear.
Prevention and early intervention are paramount to avoiding school attacks and violence, a 2021 study by the Secret Service found.
Most students who plot school violence had histories of school discipline and contact with law enforcement, had mental health issues, intended to commit suicide as part of the attack, used drugs or alcohol, and had been impacted by adverse childhood experiences.
Targeted school violence is preventable if early warning signs are reported early, the study found. Schools should intervene with students before their behavior warrants legal consequences, the study found. It is something Murphy and Schrumpf say restorative discipline can help with.
Students are the ones best positioned to identify and report concerning behaviors from their classmates, the Secret Service study concluded. Students and school staff, who have been taught to openly and quickly address issues and grievances, are better prepared to help their peers modify their behavior and re-engage, according to the tenets of restorative discipline.
Is it working?
Within the district, public criticism of Spokane’s restorative practices model is virtually non-existent.
However, during a school board meeting on March 23, retired teacher Brad Cossette claimed that in-school violence has increased since students have returned to schools last fall.
“I’m also tired of hearing about a system that does not teach accountability,” said Cossette, who taught in the district for 39 years.
“Restorative practices can be a very effective tool, but use it too often and everyone suffers,” Cossette said.
Restorative justice has not been embraced by all states; in fact only 21 states, including Washington and Idaho, have enacted legislation supporting its use.
Nationally, the practice has its share of critics. They contend that the process takes too long, that it can be too emotionally draining on the people involved and places too much of a burden on teachers.
Others believe that it places an unfair or unrealistic expectation on victims and survivors – to speak with those who harmed them and to forgive them.
Defenders say that no one is compelled to do so; rather, the goal is mutual understanding.
The question of accountability is more complicated. Critics say that it won’t happen without some form of punishment. Proponents believe that accountability takes the form of self-responsibility and various agreements designed to repair harm and make things right.
The Independent, a libertarian think tank, claims that it “effectively institutionalized the notion that schools must sacrifice security to achieve equity, endangering students and teachers alike.”
But is it working? Data is promising, though incomplete.
Advocates of restorative practices, such as the International Institute for Restorative Practices, developer of the SaferSaner-Schools program, cite examples in Philadelphia and San Antonio of steep drops in violent incidents.
However, those studies may have been affected by educators’ decisions on whether to resolve some offenses through restorative practices or discipline. Those decisions are “extremely subjective and may not be a true indicator of student behavior,” researchers from the Rand Corporation said in 2016.
Moreover, incidents of violence, weapons and arrests were unchanged, and academic outcomes did not improve in treatment schools – and worsened in middle schools, Rand researchers said.
At Spokane Public Schools, the data also is unclear.
During a board meeting on March 23, staff presented a report on exclusions – that is, suspensions and expulsions. As of mid-March, about 130 days into the 180-day school year, the district reported 1,958 total exclusions.
If that trend continues, the district could expect to see about 2,711 exclusions. That is a 9% drop from the 2018-19, the last full pre-pandemic year, when the district had 3,045 exclusions.
However, middle school expulsions are tracking up this year, with 510 through mid-March compared to 608 for the entire 2018-19 school year.
Supporters of restorative discipline and critics of Meidl’s letter have been much more vocal.
Where you live may determine if you get stuck in jail before trial
By Wilson Criscione
INVESTIGATEWEST
Ten years ago, while driving to her nephew’s birthday party, Amber Letchworth was pulled over by an Asotin County sheriff’s deputy near the town of Clarkston. Letchworth says at the time, she was a 20-year-old college student in the midst of a mental health and addiction crisis following the death of her grandmother. On the floor of the car, the deputy found a dirty baggy. It contained meth.
Letchworth was taken to Asotin County Jail, in the southeast corner of Washington. She stayed there for the next couple weeks, unable to pay for bail, and with no access to pretrial services that exist today in many other jurisdictions meant to keep unconvicted defendants out of jail.
In that short amount of time, she lost her housing and access
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Gonzaga University School of Law student Amber Letchworth is co-founder of the Revive Center for Returning Citizens and a legal liaison for I Did the Time, an advocacy group for former inmates.
ERICK DOXEY/ FOR INVESTIGATEWEST
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to a car. Feeling the pressure to get out of jail quickly, she pleaded guilty to the felony drug possession charge – a charge that’s since been vacated due to a state Supreme Court decision in 2021 that ruled Washington’s felony drug possession statute was unconstitutional.
It spurred a downward spiral for Letchworth. She was homeless when she left the jail, and as her drug and alcohol addiction issues worsened, it led to more arrests and more jail time.
Today, Letchworth is a law school student at Gonzaga University, co-founder of the Revive Center for Returning Citizens and a legal liaison for I Did the Time, an advocacy group working to help former inmates. But she still wonders how those dark years of her life would have been different if after that arrest, she had been let out of jail, able to keep her housing and referred to mental health or addiction treatment.
“What if I would have gotten pretrial services the first time?” she asks.
Letchworth is part of a movement of advocates, judges and public defenders in Washington pushing to release more defendants from jail while awaiting trial. They argue that alternative measures such as drug and alcohol testing, electronic home monitoring, and behavioral health treatment can help lift those accused of crimes out of the criminal justice system. Law enforcement and prosecutors have been slow to embrace the idea, fearing that people released from jail while awaiting trial will commit more crimes in the community.
As it is now, the availability and cost of these pretrial services in Washington depends heavily on where an alleged crime occurs. Many rural counties in Eastern Washington and along the Olympic Peninsula don’t have a pretrial services program at all, filling the jails with defendants awaiting trial. Among those that do have such programs, most jurisdictions contacted by InvestigateWest require the accused to pay fees associated with their pretrial release – a barrier that disproportionately punishes poorer defendants and prevents some from being released from jail.
A person arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in the city of Spokane, which funds defendant costs for pretrial services, may be released while the court pays for the costs of supervision. But that same person arrested for the same crime in another part of Spokane County would likely be on the hook for pretrial services such as an alcohol ankle monitor that can cost as much as $500 per month. Those high-cost services often result in low-income defendants remaining behind bars, further disrupting their ability to maintain employment or housing.
It’s what Ali Hohman, director of legal services for the nonprofit Washington Defender Association, calls “justice by geography.”
“Where you’re at in the state will dictate your bail amount, and it will dictate your ability to access pretrial services,” Hohman says.
Growing movement
The movement to eliminate geographical barriers in bail and pretrial reform extends far beyond Washington. But as other states have led the way in upheaving their systems, Washington has been slow to follow suit.
New Jersey passed a law in 2017 that essentially eliminated cash bail, which forces defendants to post a certain amount of money set by the judge for their release. Despite concerns that released defendants would commit more crimes and skip court dates, the data indicates that hasn’t happened. Recidivism and court appearance rates have stayed consistent. And importantly for reform advocates, fewer defendants are stuck in jail just because they can’t afford bail. Since then, other states like Illinois have eliminated cash bail while creating a statewide centralized pretrial services office.
That’s the kind of model that may allow defendants in Washington’s rural counties to still have access to pretrial services, says state Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland. But right now, Washington is only in the beginning stages of exploring such options, says Goodman, who has served as chair of the House Public Safety Committee and has pushed for reform.
“We are by no means a model or a showcase for how pretrial services should be provided,” Goodman says. “We really don’t have a robust system of pretrial services in our state compared to some other states.”
Right now, Washington gives local control to jurisdictions to attempt their own reforms. Yakima County in 2016 began releasing low-risk offenders while providing pretrial services, and a study on the program found similar results to what New Jersey found: More people were released, there was less racial disparity in those kept in jail, and most did not go on to commit new crimes.
Other jurisdictions don’t have the resources to create those programs. Several years ago, the Legislature commissioned a task force to examine the issue. It released a report in 2019 that found gaps in the availability of pretrial services, most notably that 21 counties had no pretrial service programs at all.
Even where pretrial services existed, jails were still filled with people awaiting trial. Nationwide, two-thirds of all local jail inmates were awaiting trial, according to federal statistics, and Black and Native American people were jailed at much higher rates than white people. But in Washington’s largest counties, pretrial defendants in 2019 made up an even larger portion of the jail population. More than three-quarters of people in jails in King, Pierce and Spokane counties were there for a crime they hadn’t been convicted of, indicating pretrial reform efforts were still in early stages.
Those figures have been dramatically altered during the pandemic, with jails releasing defendants to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks. King County, for instance, has mostly stopped jailing people accused of misdemeanors. Seattle has since seen a small increase in crime, particularly violent crime, but those are trends in line with the rest of the country.
Advocates and public defenders like Hohman hope that the pandemic forcing counties to release people from jail shows that pretrial reform is possible.
“The world didn’t go to hell in a handbasket,” Hohman says.
‘Piecemeal’ approach
Rural counties have struggled to manage pretrial services during the pandemic.
Of the counties identified as having pretrial programs by the state task force report in 2019, some of those contacted by InvestigateWest have lost those programs entirely. Asotin County Superior Court where Letchworth was jailed started a program to monitor defendants released pretrial several years ago, but County Clerk McKenzie Campbell says it was manned by one person who left the position months ago.
“I don’t believe it’s being actively offered to people,” Campbell says.
Less populated counties that do have a pretrial services program still face logistical challenges. Okanogan County District Judge Charles Short says if someone charged with a DUI is released on the condition that they receive alcohol monitoring, they may not be able to afford the testing device.
“We’re dealing with a lot of people that don’t have a lot of income. That can create an issue if they’re required to do alcohol monitoring or electronic home monitoring,” Short says.
And if the defendants don’t have transportation, they may have difficulty making court dates, especially in an expansive county like Okanogan in northeast Washington. It could take hours for those on the outskirts of the county to make it to the courthouse. The county started offering remote hearings during the pandemic, but Short notes that many Okanogan residents don’t have internet access.
In Whitman County, District Judge John Hart says he can release someone under the condition that they get an alcohol ankle monitor, but the company that sets them up is in Spokane County, so it costs extra due to transportation costs. That can be prohibitive for low-income defendants. Ideally, Hart hopes that’s a cost that the government can pay for.
“I believe it’s both a worthy allocation of resources, but also an important one to make sure an individual’s released on the least restrictive alternative affording them and those around them safety,” Hart says. “It’s also cost effective.”
The pretrial task force report recommends that the government bear the cost of services rather than the accused. Some jurisdictions do cover those costs, either in full or in part. In Seattle Municipal Court, there is no cost to the accused person for pretrial services unless they need a device under electronic home monitoring or alcohol monitoring, in which case the court will subsidize the cost for low-income defendants.
The city of Spokane, through money that comes from grants, funds services such as alcohol or home monitoring. Spokane Municipal Judge Mary Logan, who was on the statewide task force, says it can cost more than $100 per day to keep someone in jail, so funding a home monitoring device for $14 per day is well worth it.
But with each jurisdiction left to make these decisions, the current “piecemeal” approach to pretrial services across the state is inevitable, she says. And county leaders may not be on board with reforming the system in the first place, fearing it will result in dangerous offenders being let out on the streets with no consequences.
“All of a sudden politics gets involved,” Logan says.
Things fall apart
In 2016, Jaime Hawk, legal strategy director for the Washington Campaign for Smart Justice at the ACLU of Washington, authored a report calling for major changes to the pretrial system. The report argued that pretrial detention not only harms those who are jailed in their personal lives, but makes them more likely to be convicted of low-level misdemeanors because they feel more pressure to take a plea deal and get out.
“As a former public defender, when my clients were released pretrial and I was able to work with them and their families, and they were able to keep their jobs and housing … my ability to get a better outcome for them was nine times out of 10,” Hawk says.
Around the same time, Spokane County started receiving millions of dollars in grants from the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation to reduce the jail population and racial disparities among those who are incarcerated. The grants include hundreds of thousands of dollars for a supported release program that would allow Spokane County District Court judges to release certain defendants and connect them with community resources instead of keeping them in jail.
But the reforms have been met with resistance within the county government. Maggie Yates, the woman chosen to lead reform efforts, reportedly resigned because she felt she wasn’t allowed to do her job. Implementation of the supported release program stalled, enough to frustrate the MacArthur Foundation into threatening to ask for $281,297 back last year. In public meetings about the program last fall, the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office said it was “opposed” to the program because it believed connecting defendants to services without conditions didn’t provide enough “accountability” and may lead to defendants missing court dates.
County commissioners have since agreed to have a third-party vendor run the supported release pilot program. But in an email to InvestigateWest, Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell says his office does not “resist” supported release, but he’d rather have the program run through the county’s own pretrial services program due to liability concerns.
“By keeping supported release ‘in house’ through pretrial services, we believe that the financial liability to the County, should a person who is placed on supported release commit another crime, is minimized,” Haskell says.
Often, county defendants must pay extra costs associated with their pretrial release, when those same costs might be covered if they were arrested within Spokane city limits. During the peak of the pandemic, the nonprofit Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund covered some defendants in District Court if they couldn’t afford electronic home monitoring or other fees. Executive Director Lerria Schuh says she’d get calls from public defenders asking if the fund would cover anything from an electronic monitoring device to a $20 urine test, because that was the only thing keeping the defendant in jail.
“If you’re arrested in the city and you’re low-income, you have a fighting chance,” Schuh says. “If you’re picked up by the county, they don’t offer any help. What ends up happening is folks end up staying in jail because they don’t have the money.”
Kyle Madsen, a Spokane County public defender, tapped the funds to help his clients. Most of his clients are low-income or homeless, and many of their charges were the result of mental illness.
“I think it’s easier for people in Spokane to understand that criminals go to jail, and we shouldn’t pay for a criminal to be free,” Madsen says. “But it’s not like we’re saying ‘you’re free.’ It’s that they’re being monitored while they have charges.”
For Hawk, the difficulties implementing the program highlight the uphill battle reform efforts could face, and why there are such disparities county- by-county in Washington.
“It’s so sad because I wanted Spokane to be the model for the rest of the state,” Hawk says.
Going forward
When the pretrial task force report came out in 2019, it made a series of recommendations on top of the idea that governments should bear the cost of pretrial services.
It also recommended that courts set up reminders for defendants to reduce their risk of missing court dates, that courts make more referrals to mental or behavioral health treatment, and that courts consider transportation support for defendants to make appointments.
But at the time, the report didn’t make waves across the state.
“It really just put into black and white what I always suspected with the justice by geography,” says Hohman, with the Washington Defender Association, an organization advocating for public defenders. “There wasn’t any sort of collective change in the winds from what I could tell.”
Hawk, with the ACLU, is working with academic researchers to figure out what can be learned from keeping misdemeanor defendants out of jail during the pandemic. But for now, she feels confident in her position that counties should be offering pretrial services that are paid for by the county, not the defendant.
“There’s a lot that can be done at the county level,” she says.
Rep. Goodman calls the recommendations from the task force “anemic.” He thinks that as long as there isn’t a unified court system and pretrial services program in Washington, you’re going to see disparities across jurisdictions.
But a statewide change like that could take years to do, Goodman says. There’s still more data to study on what programs are most effective. Judges, he says, are “arguing with themselves” over who’s to blame for confining too many people in jail.
“As far as any reform of pretrial policy, we are a ways away,” Goodman says.
That change, however, can’t come soon enough for people like Letchworth. While she’s been able to move on from her arrests in Asotin County a decade ago, she still works with people every day who could benefit from a pretrial system that doesn’t default to jailing them.
“The people that need the services the most,” Letchworth says, “are denied from the gate.”
Afghan Refugees: ‘They are welcomed here’
By Amber D. Dodd
COMMUNITY JOURNALISM FUND
At the Spokane International Airport one night last week, a welcome committee awaited the arrival of American Airlines Flight 303 from Dallas, due in at 8:56 p.m.
On board was a family from Afghanistan, who was leaving its home country eight months after the government collapsed and the Taliban seized power. The committee, a hodgepodge of Spokane’s citizens, was spearheaded by Lisa Church, the lead liaison for St. Charles Catholic Church and Bill Osbourne, the reverend at St. Stephens Episcopal Church. One woman brought a handdrawn poster with “Welcome!” in both English and Farsi.
Church members, former World Relief support agents, fellow Afghans and antsy high-schoolers gathered to provide a warm welcome. A group of children chattered about the best way to greet the arriving children, whose ages range from 20 to 2. They held a welcome banner that featured handdrawn children holding hands and smiling together, illustrated with apricot- and tan-colored stick figures.
“Jesus talks about who is our neighbor ... but the neighbor is also the person on the other side of the world. Whoever is in need, that is our neighbor,” Osbourne said. “And, certainly, refugees and people fleeing war and oppression are our neighbors.”
Once the U.S. State Department announced the creation of a community-based resettlement program called Sponsor Circle, Osbourne and Church both scheduled webinars about the program. The first family the church’s sponsor circle helped is a
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A crowd welcomes a family of Afghan refugees Wednesday at the Spokane International Airport. Those welcoming the family are part of the sponsor circle that is providing housing, food and money to refugee families.
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family of nine, bringing in at least $21,000 in fundraising to support the family. Osbourne noted the generosity of donors, including a $2,000 check, hours after announcing the housing initiative.
“I put out an email amongst all the congregations within our dioceses of the Eastern Washington and Idaho Panhandle,” Osbourne said. “People were so eager to help, the first check I got was from Grangeville, Idaho, and someone sent one, two thousand right of the bat. People have been really generous.”
Sponsor circles received mandatory training and underwent background checks. They also had to pledge to support a family for their first 90 days in the U.S., with housing, basic necessities, help accessing government services and benefits as well as help orienting new arrivals to their community, according to the State Department website.
From former refugee settlement counselors to the Realtors of Spokane, the lateral effort of community support helped bring the sponsorship to fruition. Discussions during Lent and Sunday school readings, such as Victorya Rouse’s “Finding Refuge: Real-Life Immigration Stories from Young People,” prepared the circle to welcome people from another world.
“We read that in our Sunday school, we talked every week about what was happening in Ukraine ... with the people of Afghanistan,” said Church. “We spent all of Lent talking about this. So, it happened fast with the housing but we had a long time to talk about it.”
This includes a thorough understanding of the cultural practices from the family’s country which comes in handy, especially as Muslims are in the thick of Ramadan, the holy holiday that including fasting, charity and pilgrimage.
Kabeer Derwoosh attended the welcome party, acting as a community ambassador on behalf of the family. He’s a displaced Afghan who emigrated to America in November. His passion is in helping refugees as a volunteer for international refugee programs, including the welcoming process.
“I think this will give them the feeling that they’re not estranged and that they are welcomed here,” Derwoosh said. “Especially with people from the same culture and language, they will feel more comfortable and welcomed to their life here.”
Volunteers received donated furniture from the estate of an elder church member, something Church calls “grief becoming a new beginning.” Citing their first donation as “50 lamps everywhere,” the church groups also created an online inventory to purchase items for the house. The children will share four twin beds. Members of the sponsor circle also stocked the house with food, specifically of ingredients found in Afghan culture while also keeping Ramadan in mind.
“We got these enormous SignUpGeniuses and that was the best way to get everyone to help in little, itty bitty ways,” Church said, of the app that coordinates dates and responsibilities for large community events. “Stocking a refrigerator for someone you’ve never met is no easy feat. These were all ways to love our neighbor.”
The sponsor group prepared to house the family in St. John’s Cathedral extra office spaces, but Spokane landlords Carrie and David Lockhert realized they had a three-bedroom unit available – the Afghan family would come home to a fully furnished and stocked three-bedroom house in the South Hill.
“But the house just isn’t quite big enough for them with multiple kids in one room, but we’re used to, as Americans, kids having their own bedroom, but that isn’t the case around the world yet ... it works,” Carrie said. “It was that moment of saying ‘Wow, OK – we need to get over our own mindsets.’” The family arrived right at 8:56 p.m., or 5:26 a.m. in Afghanistan. Derwoosh acted as a translator, introducing the mother to Osbourne, church members and Saw Gary. Gary, a former World Relief program manager, assisted the circle, including the next steps of the resettlement program. He is himself a refugee who escaped the genocide of the Karen people in Myanmar.
“This is so fulfilling, I’m so thankful that the community came out and showed us support, letting them know that yes, there’s people that love and care,” Gary said. “These are some of the most vulnerable people we are seeing today. It’s really encouraging.”
From proposing the housing idea to grabbing the family’s belongings at baggage claim, Osbourne commended Spokane’s successful, communal approach to reflect the value of “supporting a fellow neighbor.” For now, the family will focus on settling and understanding city essentials such as the bus line, cultural grocery stores and the local refugee entities that will support them such as World Relief, Refugee Connections and Feast World Kitchen. Rent is taken care of through the end of June. The family’s four teenagers will attend Ferris High School for the remainder of the school year. The high school houses the Newcomer Center where students new to the United States learn English.
While the Sponsor Circle program stipulates that circles support families for 90 days, the Episcopal Migration Ministries, under which both churches operate, takes it further, requiring 180 days of support.
“Our goal is to help them obtain self-sufficiency.” Osbourne said. The sponsor circle is asking for more donations including clothes, books and other items. However, housing is the highest priority since the family will only be in their three bedroom family home until July 1.
Donations can be offered directly to both St. Johns and St. Stephens churches.Amber D. Dodd, who can be reached at amberd@spokesman.com, is the Carl Maxey Racial and Social Inequity reporter for Eastern Washington and North Idaho. Her reporting primarily appears in both The Spokesman-Review and The Black Lens newspaper, and is funded in part by the Michael Conley Charitable Fund, the Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund, the Innovia Foundation and other local donors from across our community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.
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KHQ
SPOKANE, Wash. - On the Monday night meeting on April 25, Spokane City Council passed a resolution recommending best practices for future low-barrier shelters 5-2.
The resolution includes recommendations for:
Capping shelter space with 100 beds/acre on a daily basis with the option to increase that capacity in extreme weather events.
Dedicated space for wrap-around service providers onsite to help people transition out of homelessness
Independent security assessments
On-site lockable storage
Proximity to/dedicated transportation to training sites
The resolution also includes a preferred criteria that includes the following recommendations:
Private sleeping areas
Plumbed bathrooms, showers, and laundry inside the building
Ability to have shower/bathroom trailer on site
Nutritious meals available
Open space for recreational activities
While the resolution did pass, there was some opposition. Both council members Michael Cathcart and Jonathan Bingle voted against the resolution, objecting to the capping of space at 100 beds, pointing to the nearly 400 people living at Camp Hope.
This resolution is merely a recommendation to the Mayor’s office when finding future shelter space, whether they follow the guidance to the letter is up to the Mayor.
The resolution also does not make or break the proposed shelter on Trent Ave. While it was a hot topic in the night's meeting, there was no update on whether establishing the shelter may or may not move forward, other than to state Mayor Woodward is still negotiating the lease.
Aside from the questions about securing the lease for the Trent property, zoning remains an issue. As it stands the property is in an industrial zone, meaning that building cannot be used to house people. To that end, the Council took a vote to potentially change the zoning requirements last week. The change failed in that vote, but it is likely to come back up in next week's meeting.
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KXLY
Posted: April 25, 2022 10:29 PM Updated: April 26, 2022 7:21 AM by Emily Blume
SPOKANE, Wash. — Homelessness in Spokane is not a new problem, but it is a growing problem. The City Council and Mayor Nadine Woodward say they are committed to finding solutions. However, they have very different ideas on how to do that. They shared those opinions at the City Council meeting Monday night.
The City Council approved the resolution after a lengthy discussion with public commentary and city council discussion. As a resolution, it does not require the Mayor to do anything. It’s more of a suggestion.
Meanwhile, the Mayor told us earlier today, that she’s moving forward with what she had planned all along, regardless of the outcome at the City Council meeting tonight.
“That’s why we need to get this shelter on Trent open. So we can offer the people who are in that field a better place,” Mayor Woodward explained.
For the past few months, the Mayor has been working on opening a 250-person shelter on Trent Avenue. The big point of contention on this resolution is the capacity. The resolution suggests 100 people max, much smaller than the planned Trent Avenue shelter.
“You can’t get sober when this stuff is around you. You need to give these people space,” one public commenter proclaimed.
Others feel that the Trent Avenue shelter is not going to be a solution at all.
“We hear a lot from people in the homeless community who have lived that experience say, ‘I don’t want to live in a warehouse. I don’t want to go there,'” Council Member Zack Zappone explained.
Either way, one thing is for certain. “This is not easy to navigate through. It was going on long before this mayor was in place and we’re going to continue to struggle with this,” Council Member Lori Kinnear said.
Meanwhile, the Mayor says she has another long-term solution that she’ll announce in her State of the City address on Wednesday.
“The goal is to move more of the resources that have been concentrated downtown because we’ve seen the impact on what it’s done to commercial property owners, business owners, people who want to visit downtown. We want to improve the environment of the economic center of this entire region but deconcentrating some of those services,” the Mayor explained.
Posted: April 25, 2022 6:31 PM Updated: April 25, 2022 8:59 PM by Esther Bower
SPOKANE, Wash. — What type of homeless shelters does Spokane need or want to see? It’s a complicated question with no easy solution.
While the City searches for a provider for the proposed shelter at 4320 E. Trent Ave., the City Council has different ideas for how homeless shelters should look in the future.
The Council is expected to vote Monday on a resolution which will provide guidance to the City on new shelter specs.
On the resolution from the city’s agenda for April 25, Council Member Lori Kinnear is sponsoring the resolution for “establishing operational and facility requirements for additional low-barrier shelter investments.”
The resolution lists these points as the Highest Priority Criteria:
1. Shelter space at a location with around 100 regular shelter beds/acre on a daily basis, but that contains allowances for substantial surge capacity for extreme weather events;
2. Flexible space for increasing extreme weather capacity at appropriate locations by utilizing floor mats on a temporary basis;
3. Dedicated space for wrap-around service providers onsite to help individuals transition out of homelessness;
4. Provision for an independent security assessment and inclusion of recommended security as identified in that assessment;
5. Opportunity for on-site lockable storage;
6. Memorandum agreements with guest service providers;
7. Proximity and/or dedicated transportation to training sites (i.e. pre-apprenticeship programs, job search resources, educational resources, etc.
It also states “the City will solicit proposals for both a pallet shelter model of sheltering and a drive-in model of sheltering for non-recreational vehicles in
which people are living, both of which should serve around 100 individuals each, will have a secure, 24/7 monitored fenced perimeter to ensure the safety of guests, and are not adjacent to another homeless facility.”
While current Council Member Jonathan Bingle agrees with most of this, he has an issue with the 100 bed cap.
“My only big concern with it is again the capacity limits, and if we pass the capacity limits and we expect the Mayor to follow through with what we’re tasking her with, it’s a step backwards in our homeless situation,” he said.
Mayor Nadine Woodward doubled down she is still moving forward with her proposed shelter on Trent which could house 250 people or more in emergency situations. It’s important to note if the City Council approves this resolution, it’s only a suggestion for Woodward, not something binding she’ll have to adhere to. She says the growing homeless encampment in East Central isn’t expected to be cleared till June at the earliest.
Posted: April 20, 2022 7:30 PM Updated: April 20, 2022 8:02 PM by Esther Bower
SPOKANE, Wash. — The search for a homeless shelter isn’t getting any easier. After months of work, the city of Spokane says it’s starting over on the process to find an organization to run a new shelter.
The city says a conflict of interest and breach of process forced them to start over. The mayor says some of the people tasked with recommending a provider were also involved with one of the submitted proposals.
The Mayor says this is a severe delay to help people find housing. She plans to once again open up the request for proposal process and is still discussing who would be part of the board to help select the provider. She is still set on the building located at 4320 E. Trent Ave.
“We’re talking several weeks out. This is quite a delay,” said Mayor Nadine Woodward.
It took months of work to first find a space and then secure a provider. Today, there’s still no end in sight for a new shelter.
“We’re having to do this because the process the first time, unfortunately, was compromised,” Woodward said.
She says the delay is costing taxpayers money.
“It’s costing the tax payers. I do not have a dollar figure for you. Every time that we wait, it is costing tax payers,” she said. “The fact that we have to do this whole process all over again is costing tax payers, and tax payers should be concerned about that.”
On Monday, the City Council didn’t approve an emergency zoning change for the new shelter. City Council President Breean Beggs says he isn’t even sure that shelter would be sustainable.
“I think the biggest issue that we heard from the community and the subject matter experts was trying to have 250 people crammed into one location was not going to be effective,” Beggs said.
Beggs says the Council has other plans for how to solve the issue.
“We would have three locations, instead of one location,” he said. “We’re going to recommend that instead of one location with 250 people every night, we maybe use that same location with 120 people and then we have a couple other locations.”
The Mayor says finding more locations isn’t possible.
“If we can’t locate one larger facility, we’re not going to be able to locate multiple smaller shelters. We’ve seen the NIMBY-ism. We’ve seen the pushback from neighborhoods and businesses,” Woodward said. “It’s just not going to happen.”
It isn’t getting any easier to find a solution city officials agree on.
“City council are the policy makers for how we’re going to do homeless shelters, and it has to meet our criteria,” Beggs said.
“We’re doing what City Council asked us to do. They want more shelter space. Now, allow me to do my job to open up a shelter to provide that space,” Woodward added.
The lease on the building Woodward wants to use still isn’t signed. Larry Stone, the developer who owns it, says he’s disappointed with the setback. Stone said in a statement:
“We cannot hold this building for the City for an indeterminate time. Given the fact that the City apparently has to do a new RFP for the providers, there seems likely be at least three or four weeks of delay. If the City Council does not promptly on the zoning issue, then I will probably have to lease the building to a private party. I love my City and I desperately want to help it. But, I do not have the power to overcome obstruction in the City Council or other obstructions.”
Spokane City Council strikes down ordinance change on proposed shelter
Posted: April 19, 2022 12:22 PM Updated: April 19, 2022 8:01 PM by Esther Bower
SPOKANE, Wash. — The City Council shut down a zoning change that would allow a new shelter in an industrial location.
On Monday night, two city council members voted in opposition to the zoning change. Councilmembers Betsy Wilkerson and Karen Stratton voted against the zoning change. Councilmember Zack Zappone did not vote.
“I really felt that it wasn’t the time. I know we’ll have another chance to look at the issue, but I want to look at the issue again knowing that the people who need to weigh in have been given that opportunity,” said Karen Stratton. She’s a City Council Member for District 3.
The city said it has looked at nearly 100 locations throughout the city. Pushback from neighborhoods and local businesses forced the city to alter course.
The new shelter the City is pushing for is at 4320 E. Trent Ave. in East Spokane. It’s a 33,000-square-foot warehouse owned by local developer Larry Stone who said he’s holding the building with hopes the city will use it as a new shelter.
Stratton says she isn’t opposed to a new shelter at that location but isn’t convinced now is the time to move forward.
“We all want the same thing — the administration, the council, the community, we all want the same thing, but I think that we need to meet, we need to have additional information. My big thing is wraparound services. We can’t just warehouse people,” she said.
The Mayor has already said there will be drug addiction and mental health resources at the shelter she’s proposing.
Stratton says the City Council is expecting more information at next Monday’s City Council meeting on April 25. She’s expecting to learn who the provider will be and says they could vote on a zoning change in the area again.
Stratton says this doesn’t mean the new shelter proposal is totally halted. She just wants to see more communication with businesses in the area and more details released about who will run the shelter and actually be able to provide services to help people transition out of homelessness.