5/28/2022
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The Spokesman-Review
KREM
KHQ
The Center Square
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The Spokesman-Review
By Jim Allen
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
When Madeline Sells first heard about the massacre this week at a Texas elementary school, she was saddened and tearful, yet not all that surprised.
A counselor at Spokane Public Schools, she works every day with children of poverty who deal with trauma at home. And instead of finding a safe haven at school, they’ve been bullied on social media before walking in the front door.
“It’s one of the most eye-opening things, and it happens every day,” Sells said of kids, especially girls, who often find “horrific things” on their phones. In some cases, that means pornography, even child porn, is sent via fake profiles on TikTok, Instagram and other media.
A surge in student mental health needs, combined with staff shortages and widespread episodes of misbehavior and violence, has placed more burdens on school counselors and psychologists. Whether one of those bullied children will grow up to be a killer is too awful for Sells to contemplate. But she worries that a lack of funding at schools and hospitals means the chances of a violent incident will increase. Sells’ current position is funded by COVID relief dollars that will run out in two more years.“
“I can tell you that therapists are struggling,” Erich Merkle, a school psychologist in Akron, Ohio, told Education Week recently.
“The tagline I would go with is the kids are not all right,” Merkle said.
The problem worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced children into remote learning and “back into trauma,” Sells said.
Gone were the friendly faces of teachers, counselors and friends, while the online bullying followed some home. For some, the anxiety was so great, they continued to wear face coverings long after the mask mandate was rescinded.
“They had so much time away from their peers, there was an anxiety of having others see their faces,” said Sells, who currently works at several North Side schools and will move this fall into the new Denny Yasuhara Middle School.
But childhood depression and anxiety were on the rise nationally for years before the pandemic, experts say.
The return to in-person classes has been accompanied by soaring numbers of school shootings, according to experts who say disputes are ending in gunfire as more students bring weapons to school. Teachers say disrespect and defiance have increased, and tempers are shorter and flaring faster.
Once, Sells dealt with a student who showed homicidal ideations – “she wanted to kill her sibling,” Sells said.
Police were called to the school, but the youth said they no longer felt that way, and there was no room at a local facility.
The shooting earlier this month in Buffalo highlighted the inability of some schools and agencies to adequately screen those who show potential for violence.
When the accused shooter in Buffalo, Payton Gendron, was asked in spring 2021 by a teacher at his Binghamton, New York, high school about his plans after graduation, he responded that he wanted to commit a murder- suicide, according to law enforcement.
The comment resulted in state police being called and a mental health evaluation at a hospital, where he claimed he was joking and was cleared to attend his graduation.
Spokane County is no stranger to mass gun violence.
Sells was an early responder at Freeman High School in 2017, when then-15-year-old Caleb Sharpe killed one student and wounded three others.
The tragedy has colored how Sells approaches her job. During a recent tour of Yasuhara Middle School, she noted the preponderance of glass – beautiful to behold, but a poor barrier against intruders or their bullets.
“That’s the first thing I noticed,” said Sells, who was relieved to learn that the building also has interior security doors in hallways as well as individual classrooms.
With the threat of school violence ever present, experts have tried to offer advice to students and families.
Debbie Wiechert, a social worker at Meadow Ridge Elementary in the Mead School District, says she often begins conversations by “letting kids know that they are safe at school, and that we can talk about all the things that we can do to be safe in our schools.”Parents need to pay attention to little things like their children’s appetite, sleep patterns and other behaviors – “telltale signals” that something isn’t right.
And for students who are hesitant to report suspicious behavior or comments from another child, she reminds them that many schools have anonymous hotlines.
Wiechert urged children to “talk about it if you hear something that makes you feel scared or nervous.” Jim Allen can be reached at (509) 459-5437 or by email at jima@spokesman. com.
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KREM
Spokane families are struggling to keep up with the quickly growing rental rates in the region.
SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane has the highest rent increases in the state of Washington and is in the top three for highest rent spikes nationwide. The Ball family in Spokane Valley is just one of many families struggling to keep up with the growing rental rates.
The Balls moved to their house in Spokane Valley in March 2020 from Kentucky. They moved to Spokane thinking it would be an affordable option.
That quickly changed.
Chris Ball remembers getting a phone call from his landlord in May. He learned his rent was increasing by $680. That increase was just one year after their rent had already gone up $150.
"I told him I needed to call him back. I needed to breathe and figure out our next move," Ball said.
From March 2020 to March 2022, the Ball's rent increased 49 percent. They are now paying $2,520 every month. When they looked for other options, they came up short.
"We looked, but everyone was trying to rent for the same amount of money," Ball said.
Terri Anderson with the Washington State's Tenant's Union said this is a problem families across the region are facing. Anderson said a majority of the phone calls the tenant's union hotline receives is to complain about rent increases in the Spokane area.
In the four years before the pandemic Spokane's rental rates increased by 45% according to the Washington State's Tenant's Union. Then after pandemic restrictions eased Spokane had the highest rent increases in the country.
That made it hard for families like the Ball family to make ends meet. Ball's wife had to start a new job so the family could afford the extra rent. Now, Ball wants rent increase regulations in place to prevent this from happening again.
"It just seems that there should be some protections for the people that are living in the homes," Ball said.
The Washington State Tenant's Union is also fighting for rent increase caps, along with extensions for the notice a landlord is required to give a tenant before increasing rents.
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KHQ
SPOKANE, Wash. - Across the country, there are more than 200 co-housing communities, 17 of those being in western Washington. On Friday, Spokane became the home of the first Inland Northwest co-housing neighborhood, Haystack Heights.
Haystack Heights held an open house Friday to show what the eco-friendly community has to offer to the people of Spokane, who are currently living in a housing crisis.
“Here we are, with real people, living together in community,” Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs said. “If you can make it work in Spokane, it can work anywhere.”
Haystack Heights serves as one response to the region’s housing crisis, a time when half of Spokane residents are renters.
“Not everyone has the means in today’s construction market to be able to chip in and build a newly built home,” Haystack Heights Co-Founder Mariah McKay said.
In a moment where countless people are struggling to find a home, dealing with uncertainty each day, the team at Haystack Heights believes co-housing is the solution Spokane needs.
The co-housing model has boomed across the nation in recent years, starting out in 2013 as only a novelty. According to realtor.com, by 2018 there were hundreds of co-housing neighborhoods across the US, with hundreds more on the way.
Haystack Heights looks forward to not only creating a community where someone can buy a unit, but also where those owners can rent out their rooms to people in need when they are out of town.
“The people who live here don’t just want that kind of support and certainty for themselves, we want to walk the road, and be an example to show other people that they can build and live within a community,” McKay said.
The idea is to grow not just as neighbors, but as family.
“Because we know there’s a vibrancy when there’s all ages,” Spokane City Councilwoman Betsy Wilkerson said. “We know there’s a vibrancy and richness when there’s all cultures.”
Haystack Heights is striving to be an eco-friendly place to call home, by reducing the amount of space used for the units, while expanding the green areas of the community.
Residents have created a plentiful garden for everyone to use, planting foods that neighbors can share with each other for meals, taking care of chickens who can provide fresh eggs and fertilizer, all while composting for the planet. The mission is to be self-sustainable, minimizing the number of resources used each day.
While the properties at Haystack Heights sold out before construction could even begin, Friday’s open house served as a reminder for everyone; work together for the common good.
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The Center Square
(The Center Square) – The Governing Committee of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority passed the spending proposal for 2023 by a two-thirds majority vote.
The KCRHA is now asking King County and Seattle to approve the budget that totals up to $227.4 million for the organization’s efforts to address homelessness in the county. The organization’s approved budget for 2022 was nearly $171 million.
“We encourage Governing Committee members to view this budget submission as a blueprint of what it will take to close the most glaring gaps within the existing homelessness crisis response system, addressing immediate concerns that we hear from people experiencing homelessness and from the broader community,” KCRHA Implementation Board Co-Chairs Harold Odom and Simha Reddy said in a letter to the KCRHA governing committee. “This includes focusing on workforce stabilization to ensure continued operations of the current system, as well as the creation of safe lots for vehicles and hundreds of new beds with appropriate supports.”
Of the $227.4 million, $20 million would go toward adding 345 new beds for emergency housing at almost $58,000 a bed. Another $20 million would be to pay for a special acuity shelter for chronically homeless people suffering from mental and behavioral health issues. KCRHA is proposing $15.4 million towards pay raises for a “permanent 13% addition to provider base budgets to increase wages system-wide.”
In the committee meeting on May 27, KCRHA CEO Marc Dones said the organization got the expanded budget estimate by looking “for gaps in current services, ongoing effects of COVID-19 and concerns about our own operational capacity.”
Mayor Bruce Harrell talked in the meeting about how a recent trip to Washington D.C. to talk with officials who coordinate federal and state dollars to the city revealed that those people want to know how the money is being spent.
“[The officials] want to know what we are doing and they have accountability, but I don’t even have unlimited funds on those ends,” Harrell said in the meeting. “So we have to do more with less. We just have to.”
Now the proposed budget goes to King County and City of Seattle officials for review and changes before the proposal is finalized. King County Executive Dow Constantine’s office says that it plans to work with the organization to ensure it has the funds necessary to tackle the homelessness crisis.
“We are reviewing the draft budget and are in communication with KCRHA and our partners at the City of Seattle to discuss needs and realistic budget expectations, as well as potential opportunities for funding,” a spokesperson from the Executive’s Office said in an email to The Center Square. “As our respective executives and councils engage in their budget processes, we will continue that work with KCRHA and the implementation and governing boards.”