7/15/2022
Ed. Note: the last article listed today, from the Houston Chronicle, is very long, but deserves our attention. Remember - Houston has done incredible work to decrease the number of homeless. But they still have homeless people sleeping under bridges etc. We have to persuade our fellow citizens that homelessness is a huge crisis that is not going away.
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Range Media
The Spokesman-Review
Latest point-in-time count offers snapshot of rising homelessness
SPD behavioral health unit freed up jail, ER spaces in 2021, report says
9-8-8 suicide prevention hotline launches Saturday
KHQ
KXLY
The Center Square
The Houston Chronicle
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Range Media
Carl Segerstrom
“These people have prepared themselves — these are their homes — that’s how everybody feels. I’m not sure any of us are prepared for what’s to come.”
In early July, an unrelenting sun beat down on the tents, RVs and cars of Camp Hope. Covering a full city block just off of Interstate 90 a couple miles east of downtown Spokane, Camp Hope is home to more than 600 people, making it the largest encampment on state land in Washington. And while “camp” is in the name, this block houses more people than any of Spokane County’s incorporated towns and one of its cities.
Attempts at making a home and community are ever present in the camp. Pallets have been nailed together and stood on end to create fences. Makeshift gardens of potted flowers wilt in the heat outside tightly packed clusters of tents. The main dirt thoroughfare buzzes with people, cars and dogs. Halfway down this main street a supply tent acts as a sort of general store.
Angel, who has a shaved head and wears a tie-dye gray tank top, helps organize the supply tent. She also lives in it. She lifts the flap to the inside, where food, clothing and other supplies are neatly ordered in crates. Boxes are set on top of stepping stones that line the dirt floor and keep the area dry. Angel maintains a running list of community needs that she shares with volunteers who support the camp.
As she takes a break from her work, Angel reflects on the challenges the community faces. “Everybody’s pulling [their] weight, and adding to pulling one another down in a sort of chain reaction,” she said. They have created something of their own and have pride in their community, but with so many struggling with mental health and addiction, Angel said she believes campers need more support to build and retain life skills.
“These people have prepared themselves — these are their homes — that’s how everybody feels,” she said. “If we’re going to have to move off the lot, there’s going to be a lot of sadness with tentmates and so forth. I’m not sure any of us are prepared for what’s to come.”
What’s to come — more than $24 million in state funding and the relocation of the camp’s residents — is a testament to the endurance of the Camp Hope community and the intractability of the homelessness crisis in Spokane and across Washington. It’s money that’s coming from the state, not for homelessness in general, but specifically for the residents of this camp. On the heavily trafficked roadside, this large and still growing community of unhoused people has forced a response. Now, they’re waiting to see if that response reflects their needs as individuals and as a community.
This iteration of Camp Hope started as a protest at Spokane City Hallagainst the city’s lack of shelter beds in December 2021. Then, with winter weather bearing down on the region, a notice of an imminent sweep from law enforcement, and insufficient options for shelter, the protest camp moved on to a Washington Department of Transportation lot just off the highway.
“They were scared that all their things were going to be taken and destroyed” if they stayed at city hall, said Julie Garcia, the executive director of Jewels Helping Hands and a driving force behind Camp Hope. “This plot of land had already had people experiencing homelessness on it,” she said. “We came where we knew they’d at least be safe through the winter spell.”
An initial population of less than 100 has grown along with the alfalfa and dandelions on nearby lots. Now, tents are so tightly placed it's hard to get around without tripping over something. Other campers occupy nearby lots, some waiting for the opportunity to move in. Service providers regularly visit the camp to connect residents with services like addiction treatment and healthcare. A dozen port-a-potties line the sidewalk and, on the day we visited, a shower trailer was available for residents to use.
The combination of on-site services and a tight-knit community has drawn people experiencing homelessness to the encampment. Heather, who was wearing a Seahawks jersey and large sunglasses, said she moved to the camp in February to escape an abusive relationship. “The only other option is Downtown and that’s scarier than here,” she says. “This seems to be more homey.”
A sense of shared ownership has evolved as the community has grown. Every Sunday at noon residents gather for a safety meeting where they can raise community concerns and sign up for shifts patrolling the camp in security t-shirts. The self-policing of the camp is one of ways people have created a community at Camp Hope. The camp has a few basic rules: no open drug use, no fighting and no stealing from each other or the neighbors, Garcia said.
Every week Heather signs up for three-hour shifts where she walks around the camp and checks in on her community. “I see a lot of people who do help, and a lot of people who don’t at the same time,” she said. “If you walk around here, you’ll notice the way the tents are set up, sometimes it looks like a little neighborhood,” Heather said. “I’ve noticed that the ones that are like little neighborhoods have a tendency to help each other just like normal neighbors.”
While bonds of community have been forged over the seven-plus months of Camp Hope’s existence, some unhoused people look down on the camp. One man who was younger than most of the others at the camp and who wouldn’t share his name, said that the conditions of the camp are awful and that he doesn’t consider himself part of the community.
As he stood at the fly of an open tent, with several people inside urging him not to talk to the media, the young man described his lifestyle and approach to Camp Hope. “I’m not like these people here,” he said. “I can find a place to stay, like on a couch or in someone’s garage. To me, tents are like for camping on a family vacation when I was a kid.”
Camp Hope has faced challenges maintaining community and has become a target for non-residents, according to Garcia. People in the community have reported being stolen from and sexually abused by people from outside the camp. Residents say they’re jeered and honked at by drivers passing by at all hours of the day.
The young man who looked down on the camp and its residents described his lifestyle as a cycle of stealing then getting drugs. He said someday he’d like to get clean, perhaps even by getting arrested and doing a few months in prison. But, when we mentioned there were addiction services available on site that day, he said he wasn’t interested. “I haven’t hit rock bottom yet,” he said.
For Heather, who is entrenched in the community, both in her own neighborhood of tents and as a security volunteer, seeing people at rock bottom is all too familiar. “I’ve helped three people come back from [overdosing],” by administering Narcan, a drug that reverses opiate overdoses, which the Spokane Regional Health Department was handing out to residents that day. “So that’s really rewarding, especially when two of them are my friends,” she said.
The persistence and growth of Camp Hope has made it a primary target of the state’s initiative to disband encampments on Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) right-of-ways. At a meeting of the Spokane Homeless Coalition that brought together local service providers and government representatives at the Gathering House Cafe in Spokane’s Garland neighborhood, Alex Scott described the evolution and next steps of the state’s homelessness response.
“The sense of urgency from WSDOT and from Washington State Patrol around rights-of-way has been building for quite some time,” said Scott, the special assistant for federal policy to Director Lisa Brown at the Washington Department of Commerce. “The situation we’re in now is we’ve got a little more than $24 million earmarked for Spokane — the first priority for that funding is folks that are in Camp Hope.”
That $24 million is part of a $144 million state fund to address 11 encampments in five counties across Washington. Access to that money, which is being allocated by the Department of Commerce, depends on the ability of local governments to agree on a workable plan to spend the money and relocate the residents of Camp Hope. “The money isn’t a certainty for Spokane,” said Liz Rocca, the director of communications for Commerce. “It’s contingent on them giving us a viable plan.”
If the county and cities of Spokane and Spokane Valley can’t come up with a viable plan, Commerce could cut the cities and county out of the process and still fund housing projects and local service providers. “All options are on the table at this point,” said Scott. Those options include the state moving the money out of Spokane to other counties and municipalities that are coming up with plans to house people living in right-of-ways.
Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs said that there’s already agreement between the Spokane City Council, Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward, Spokane Valley and Spokane County on some ways to use the funding, including purchasing a Quality Inn Hotel in west Spokane and renovating the proposed Trent Shelter to improve privacy. Beggs said the main sticking point between the city council and Spokane Valley on one side, and Woodward and the county on the other, is a proposal to convert an RV park in Spokane into a location for safe parking and pallet shelters (Beggs said he can’t share the exact location).
Regardless of lingering disagreements, Beggs said he’s confident that Commerce will spend the money in Spokane. “I’ve heard from multiple sources that the Governor is most concerned about Camp Hope,” Beggs said. “So, I think if there’s a viable plan, even if the mayor’s office doesn’t support it … I’ve got to believe that Commerce will spend that money here.”
As policy makers work on plans to fund alternatives to Camp Hope, residents shared mixed views about disbanding the camp and the alternatives available to them. Common themes emerged: people value community, they want independence, and are wary of large congregate shelters like the proposed Trent shelter.
Those themes resonated with Hallie Burchinal, the executive director of Compassionate Addiction Treatment, who experienced homelessness for three years as a teenager. “The sense of autonomy and feeling like you’re part of a community is integral to anyone [whether] housed or experiencing homelessness,” she said. “Having that sense of being part of a community is what gives people connection and hope. As human beings we don’t move forward without that.”
Burchinal’s organization offers addiction treatment services to Camp Hope residents. “We are meeting people where they are, without judgment,” she said. “People don’t become homeless by choice, at the core of that almost always is trauma.” To help people build resilience, Burchinal said it’s important to offer them “the help that they feel they need” and not force them into services, treatment or shelters.
With so much invested in the community, many don’t want to see Camp Hope removed. A man who identified himself as Mayo, expressed skepticism that disbanding the camp would work. “I don’t think they’re going to be able to, honestly,” he says. “The truth is they should allocate this whole strip of land because we’re packed in here like sardines.”
Mayo, who wore a black denim vest, shared his perspective as someone who's lived on the streets for the better part of 26 years. “I don’t like shelters,” he said. “That’s how COVID spreads, other diseases spread and you’re in a confined space with other people.” Besides the health challenges, he also saw shelters as a place where you lose personal agency. “Once you’ve been out here a while — I do what I want,” he said.
Giving up his autonomy to live in a congregate shelter wasn’t a solution he said he would be on board with, but he did have some thoughts about helping people stay off the streets. “Honestly, the best solution for the homeless situation would be to prevent the homeless situation in the first place — and that’s fairly easy,” he said. “Most of the time people that become homeless for the first time, all they really need is time: a month or two to just exist and not be bothered by anybody. Any program that you go through, they're constantly picking at you and that doesn't work.”
One solution that residents said they prefer over congregate shelters is pallet shelters — small, semi-permanent structures that are climate controlled and can be locked. “I know a lot of people here don’t like shelters,” Heather said. “I don’t want to be told when I have to go to bed or when I have to be in.”
Surveys of 601 Camp Hope residents conducted by Jewels Helping Hands found that every camper would be willing to move into a pallet shelter or tiny home, and only 51 would be willing to go to a shelter, depending on the operator.
With a pallet house, Heather said she would be able to retain her independence in a safe and comfortable environment. “The pallet houses are what I'm super excited about,” she said. “I hope that that is what comes through.”
Heather said she is waiting to get her identification replaced and a cell phone, then she hopes to get a job at Amazon. “Then hopefully, eventually, I'd be able to step out of this tent or a pallet home” and feel like a member of society again, she said.
According to Garcia of Jewels Helping Hands, only two of the 600 campers surveyed had their core identification: an ID and Social Security card. Without those basic pieces of identification, people are unable to access services like housing vouchers or even fill out paperwork for employment.
For Shawn Williams, who spoke to us from the doorway of an RV, the most important next steps aren’t about shelter plans or new housing projects, but personal growth and opportunities. “Having the resources, that’s hope,” he said, referring to the service providers who set up booths at the camp that day. “That’s giving everybody the opportunity to see that there’s someone who cares.”
“To have somebody care about somebody gives them some kind of confidence,” said Williams. “It gives them some hope and gives them the opportunity to say: You know what, there is a chance for me.”
— additional reporting by Valerie Osier, edited by Luke Baumgarten
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The Spokesman-Review
Latest point-in-time count offers snapshot of rising homelessness
By Greg Mason
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
A recent census of Spokane County’s homeless populations has indicated an approximately 13% rise in homelessness over the last complete tally conducted two years ago.
While a lack of housing is a factor in the region’s rising homelessness rates, approaching it as a supply-and-demand issue is not the answer – especially since the problem doesn’t have a singular cause or solution, said Matthew Anderson, an associate professor and director of the urban and regional planning program at Eastern Washington University.
“There’s so many mediating variables that it tends not to really happen. Seattle, for instance, has been doing this, but prices have never been higher,” he said. “The time it takes … it could be a year or more later. A lot’s happened in that year or more later.”
Anderson offered his conclusions as one of the coordinators behind this year’s point-in-time-count, the latest annual census of Spokane County’s homeless population as required by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Researchers and volunteers focused this year’s count on where people were living and sleeping Feb. 24. Approximately 140 volunteers formed a team helmed by Daniel Ramos, who runs the city’s Community Management Information System; Shiloh Deitz, community data coordinator for Spokane Public Library; Anderson; a number of EWU students and city officials.
The results, detailed during a presentation Wednesday at the downtown Spokane library, tallied 1,757 people out of 1,513 households that were homeless.
That’s up from the 1,559 people in 1,244 households counted in 2020, the last time evaluators could conduct a complete Point-in-Time count, as the COVID-19 pandemic restricted 2021’s research to sheltered individuals only.
Of the 1,757 tallied, 934 were sheltered, with 725 in emergency shelters and 209 in transitional housing.
Shiloh Deitz, a data scientist working for the Spokane Public Library and the city of Spokane, points to a chart that shows income gains have not kept up with rising home prices in the Spokane area at a public meeting held Wednesday at the Spokane Central Library.
The other 823 were unsheltered, up 52% from the 541 tallied in 2020.
By the numbers
Ramos said HUD classifies homeless persons into three groups: singles, families and “children-only households,” or households made up of persons under 18 years old.
Singles accounted for 1,460 of the 1,757 persons documented. Individuals from children-only families accounted for just 10.
The number of veterans tallied with this year’s count, or lack thereof, was a bright spot of the report, Ramos said, as veterans only represented 6% of the tally. Approximately 11% of the county’s population is veterans, he said.
“Which means there’s some work that’s been done over the last couple of years,” Ramos said, “and it’s working.”
A majority of the people documented for this year’s count were living in Spokane before they were homeless, according to the data.
Of the 74% of unsheltered individuals who indicated they lived in Spokane County before becoming homeless, 79% said they lived in Spokane. Another 13% indicated they lived in Spokane Valley.
On Feb. 24, however, 260 of the 823 unsheltered individuals were living in a homeless encampment, up from the 74 counted in 2020.
Several dozen of the unsheltered were recorded on or near state Department of Transportation land along East Second Avenue and Ray Street that has grown into the Camp Hope homeless encampment, which is occupied by upward of 600 people, according to a recent count. That land was unoccupied during the 2020 point-intime count, according to the data.
There were 213 people documented as living on the street or sidewalk, up from 156 (approximately 37%) in 2020. Another 155 were found in RVs, vans or cars, similar to the 149 documented two years ago.
‘We need a lot more from the top’
Unsheltered individuals documented with this year’s count were asked a number of survey questions, including why they didn’t plan to sleep in an emergency shelter Feb. 24.
Approximately 44% of people cited reasons related to “safety/fear of violence,” according to the data, with “privacy” (38%) “anxiety” (31%) and “rules” the next most-common responses. People were allowed to choose more than one answer.
In evaluating the causes of homelessness, the pointin- time count differentiates between “structural determinants,” like housing and the job market, and “individual risk factors,” such as mental health and domestic or substance abuse.
The data suggests, however, that while substance abuse and serious mental illness are factors, there have not been major increases in those areas that correlate with the county’s rise in homelessness.
The report does outline a relationship between the number of homeless individuals tallied with point-in-time counts over the years versus the area’s housing affordability index.
The housing affordability index measures a median- income household’s ability to afford an average- priced home. A higher number means more affordability.
In Spokane County, that number has trended downward over around the past five years to its lowest point since 2009, according to the data, but, the 1,757 people tallied this year is the highest the count has been in that span.
“We can’t say that this is exact causation, but it’s interesting the relationship we see here between those two things,” Deitz said. “With the housing affordability index and the pointin- time count, what is likely happening is that more and more people are getting squeezed out of the housing market. Going to the rental market, there’s less and less available.”
Asked about the primary reasons they became homeless or what services they are in most need of, homeless individuals who responded to the point-in-time survey indicated housing in some capacity, whether it’s a lack of affordable housing or the need for permanent housing.
Spokane is “not unique or special” in regards to the lack of affordable housing, Anderson said, as the problem is similar in places with higher costs of living across the country.
“Getting people out of homelessness today is just part of the picture. We’re not doing enough to prevent people from becoming homeless tomorrow,” he said. “What that would look like: a lot more subsidized housing and federally funded mental health institutions, which we had a lot more of until the 1980s.
“We really need a lot more from the top to address why the streets are becoming so unsafe,” he continued. Greg Mason can be reached at (509) 459-5047 or gregm@spokesman.com.
SPD behavioral health unit freed up jail, ER spaces in 2021, report says
By Julien A. Luebbers
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Four out of five people contacted by the Spokane Police Department’s Behavioral Health Unit in the past year did not end up in jail or the hospital, according to a report from the unit.
The unit handles cases of people in crisis and works to “divert (them) from being involved with the criminal justice system and occupying the emergency room,” Sgt. Jay Kernkamp said.
“We know that behavioral health outcome will tend to end up in jail or in the hospital ERs. So anytime we can give them services to free up that space ... that’s always a bonus,” he said.
The unit responds to calls in what Kernkamp called “co-responder units.” Co-responder units are made up of “a law enforcement officer or deputy paired with a clinician,” Kernkamp said. The unit typically spends 30-45 minutes on a call, where a standard unit might spend 15, according to Kernkamp. The clinicians are employed by Frontier Behavioral Health.
The behavioral health unit’s report to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs highlighted several key numbers from the unit’s past year of operations. The sheriffs and police chiefs association provides funding to the unit in the form of grants.
One percent of people contacted by the BHU were arrested, and 5.5% were diverted from arrestable offenses or hospitals. According to Kernkamp, that 5.5% included people for whom law
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enforcement had probable cause to arrest, but the unit instead “connects them to a different service or other resource where they’re cared for.”
Of those contacted by the unit, 16% were detained.
Under Washington state law, the co-responder units can involuntarily treat people under certain circumstances.
“Anytime somebody is homicidal, suicidal, or gravely disabled, unable to care for themselves ... we’re able to involuntarily detain them,” Kernkamp said.
“The long-term goal is that they’re evaluated, and then during that time they’re able to get back on their medication and back on their feet,” he added. The unit gives people “the services they need rather than just pigeonholing them,” Kernkamp said. Out of the 5,364 calls the BHU responded to, zero resulted in force beyond handcuffing.
Many of the calls BHU answers are suicide calls, people “struggling with acute behavioral health issues and in a state of crisis,” Kernkamp said. “We’re able to provide them with services and take life-saving measures before it gets too far down the road.”
In May, the unit received 48 suicide calls. Julien A. Luebbers can be reached at (509) 459-5318 or at julienl@ spokesman. com.
Spokane Sheriff Deputy Dan Moman and Holly Keller, a clinician with Frontier Behavioral Health, partners in the Spokane County Co-Deploy Team, make a welfare check on a woman with mental health issues, July 5, 2019, in the Spokane Valley.
COLIN MULVANY/ THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
9-8-8 suicide prevention hotline launches Saturday
By Julien A. Luebbers
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Callers in crisis will be able to dial 9-8-8 to reach help nationwide beginning Saturday, and a local provider is preparing to ramp up its response. Callers across the United States will be able to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing three digits instead of the current 10-digit Lifeline phone number, (800) 273-8255. The current Lifeline phone number will remain available.
Federal legislation approved in 2020 first designated 9-8-8 as a hotline, and it’s rolling out just under two years later. In 2021, the Washington Legislature passed a law designed to enhance behavioral health crisis response statewide and support suicide prevention services.
Frontier Behavioral Health will field incoming 9-8-8 calls from Spokane, Adams, Ferry, Lincoln, Pend Oreille and Stevens counties.
According to Jeff Thomas, Frontier’s chief executive officer, the Washington law increases the organization’s funding and enables it to better respond to what is expected to be an increased call volume.
The group is one of just three organizations in Washington identified as crisis call center hubs under the transition to the 9-8-8 number. The rest of the state is divided into two regions, one of which is King County and the other is everything else, each with a call center hub. Frontier provides “a comprehensive array of behavioral health services, including outpatient, inpatient, and crisis” services, according to Thomas. The 9-8-8 line will be an expansion to the lines it operates, but will not fundamentally change Frontier’s role in the area.
Even though the number is changing, the underlying call center structure is not. Frontier already operates the regional behavioral health crisis line, (877) 266-1818, and it will be using their current call center to take 9-8-8 calls. The organization also already receives calls from the 10-digit prevention number.
“In our case,” Thomas said, “it’s really going to be the same call center, just an expanded version of it, that is serving as the 9-8-8 line while also serving as the regional crisis line.”
Courtney Camyn, a crisis triage specialist at Frontier Behavioral Health, is shown Tuesday at her job working the Mental Health Crisis Line on Tuesday.
TYLER TJOMSLAND/ THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Thomas emphasized that calls to the regional crisis line, 9-8-8, and the national Lifeline will all be routed to the same group of professionals. “There is no wrong number to call.”
The move to a three-digit designated number seeks to make access to mental health services easier and therefore more effective. “Undoubtedly, more people will be aware, more people will take advantage of that resource,” Thomas said.
“We are hiring staff and expanding our infrastructure in anticipation of that increase,” he said.
The 9-8-8 transition has put pressure, however, on an already strained job market.
“There’s a behavioral health workforce shortage crisis,” said Thomas. According to Thomas, the shortage extends across all aspects of behavioral health work. “It’s certainly had an impact on us.” The money laid out by the state Legislature has allowed Frontier to better recruit and retain staff, Thomas said. Plus, recent technological developments allow call center operators to work remotely, “enabling us to expand the number of applicants, which has been very helpful.”
The state law has also allowed Frontier to assemble a new team of professionals: the Child, Youth and Family Mobile Crisis Team. The team will provide 24/7 services for youth and families.
“It’s going to be one more resource that this call center would have access to,” Thomas said.
Frontier’s call center fielded 46,000 calls in 2021.
When a person calls 9-8-8, or any of the other lines connected to Frontier, they will be greeted by an extensively trained call operator, whose job is provide mental health services.
The call staff members are not trained to provide outpatient session therapy, but instead to determine the level of crisis and what resources are needed, Thomas said. From there, operators can decide on a range of support, up to and including dispatching crisis responders to talk to a caller in-person immediately.
These Designated Crisis Responders are trained to evaluate individuals under the Involuntary Treatment Act, to determine if their situation necessitates involuntary detainment for inpatient care.
In the most extreme cases, call center staff may refer a caller to 9-1-1, or make the call themselves.
The move to 9-8-8 could give 9-1-1 operators another option in handling cases of people in crisis, if they were able to route calls to the crisis call center. The Spokane Police Department’s Behavioral Health Unit also hopes the 9-8-8 hotline will aid in its operations.
The unit, launched in 2020, is designed “to maintain a safe and healthy environment for our community by identifying the people in crisis and high utilizers of services and responding to their needs,” said Spokane police Sgt. Jay Kernkamp.
Kernkamp said he is hopeful that “calls that 9-1-1 or law enforcement or the co-respondents (of BHU) don’t need to respond to” will be handled by mobile crisis units.
According to Thomas, this arrangement is being discussed at state and local levels.
“It would need to be developed, and there would be a lot of considerations, so nothing’s been decided at this point,” said Thomas. “There will be a lot to it.”
Kernkamp said he hopes the new system will lead to better service for those in crisis.
“A three-digit number is a lot easier to remember,” Kernkamp said. “It’s good to connect all those (Frontier) services and resources together so that we’re able to triage what exactly is needed for those individuals.” Julien A. Luebbers can be reached at (509) 459-5318 or at julienl@spokesman. com.
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KHQ
SPOKANE, Wash. - Maybe you played cops and robbers growing up, where police try to catch the bad guy. In the real world, while that is part of their job, the majority of time, police are put in situations where handcuffs aren't the solution. That’s where the partnership with Frontier Behavioral Health and its training come in.
"We were blessed in about 2018-2017 to kind of get a partnership with frontier behavioral health and Jan Tokumoto and she brought Casey Jackson on too with the police department to train our people in some de-escalation and some interviewing techniques that we hadn't seen before," said Steve Wohl, Spokane Police Lt.
It's called motivational interviewing, but really, Wohl said, its communication, a way to connect with those in need. Which is where Casey Jackson, who has worked in behavioral health for 30 years comes in.
"I travel around the country, actually around the world and train on a very specific method,” Jackson said. “An evidence-based communication method that helps people change behavior."
A tool that the Spokane Police Department in partnership with Frontier Behavioral Health has invested heavily in.
"A lot of times when I use it it's with people who are hurting themselves and stuff like that, and the tools Casey has given me specifically has allowed me to be successful in talking people into you know seeking help rather than the other side of the coin," said Joe Dunsmoor, SPD officer.
Jackson uses body camera footage to teach police officers, like officer Dunsmoor, how to communicate with people in crisis. Many times, that communication happens in high stress environments.
Like a football coach going over film with their team, this training helps SPD learn and grow.
And Jan Tokumoto, chief operating officer at Frontier Behavioral Health, said the impact of Jackson's training here in Spokane has been profound.
“I am always grateful for the relationship and the partnership that we have with law enforcement it is unheard of in other locations,” Tokumoto said.
For officers on the streets this training is something they use every day, a tool that has almost certainly saved lives.
"This style that Casey's taught us is just, I think it's far superior than anything I've ever been taught in the past, and like I said, I use it as much as I can,” Officer Dunsmoor said. “And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but at least if we give it a shot then, you know, more often than not, we are going to be successful."
The Spokane Police Department isn't the only local law enforcement agency utilizing this Jackson, the Spokane County Sheriff's office also enlists his help.
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KXLY
Posted: July 14, 2022 6:42 PM Updated: July 14, 2022 7:02 PM by Peter Choi
SPOKANE, Wash.– The Starbucks on 2nd and Division Street in downtown Spokane closed its lobby to the public, citing safety concerns. The drive-thru is only open right now.
This store is not the only business in the area that’s calling for help while dealing with illegal drug use in their parking lots.
The downtown area has been the focus of cleanup from the city for years. The city completely revamped Division Street, but local business owners like Bret Gordan, President of Lumberbeard Brewing on Third Avenue, still see a problem.
“We get a lot of junkies in our parking lots. I got to kick them out…picking up trash,” said Gordan. “Usually once a week, we kind of have to sweep around the whole building, kind of clean up the trash.”
Gordan says he would like it to stop.
“We put up cameras and signs saying we have cameras up,” said Gordan. “That helped a little bit, but it’s getting frustrating.”
Across the street, Steve Niles at the American Lock and Key Store is dealing with similar problems.
“I’m seeing people, ten, 15 people who are all doing drugs at the same time, constantly, it’s a row of them almost every day,” said Niles.
Spokane Police say they are well aware of this area, adding that this area traditionally generates a lot of calls for service and criminal activity.
“SPD employs specific patrol missions to this and other high crime areas on a regular basis. During these missions, extra officers are assigned to the area which has been successful in driving down crime numbers and calls for service,” the Spokane Police said in a statement.
Business owners also say they are hoping to see an ordinance to secure their safety as soon as possible.
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The Center Square
Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward is shown with Council President Breean Beggs. The two officials are frequently at odds over how the city should be governed, with a new round in that dispute coming at Monday's council meeting.
Photos courtesy of City of Spokane
(The Center Square) – The growing tension between Spokane City Council majority and Mayor Nadine Woodward comes in part from differing interpretations of the separation of powers.
The latest battle lines are being drawn over Woodward’s recent decision to move police out of a second-floor former nunnery and into a vacant city-owned building in the East Central neighborhood.
On Monday, the council will consider an ordinance to transfer the power to make decisions for police precincts or offices, fire stations, utility facilities and community centers from the executive to the legislative branch.
“This council has illustrated time and time again that they are trying to chip away at the city charter with a strong mayor system of government that was approved by voters,” Woodward told The Center Square. “It is concerning that they are trying to erode the will of the people."
Council President Breean Beggs, chief sponsor of the ordinance, insists that Spokane has a “unique” charter in that there is both a “strong mayor” and “strong council” style of governance. The legislative branch holds equal power by enacting laws and setting policies, he said.
In addition, the council has the ability to override a mayoral veto, he told The Center Square.
“It’s about checks and balances,” said Beggs.
The Spokane City Charter can be found on the city’s website, my.spokanecity.org. Under Section 4 Powers – How Exercised, it states: “All power of the City, unless otherwise provided in this Charter, shall be exercised by the mayor and city council in a strong-mayor form of government. They shall be subject to the control and direction of the people at all times by the initiative, referendum, and recall provided for in this Charter.”
The city of Spokane has about 2,000 employees and changed from a council-manager form of government after 40 years to a strong mayor form in January 2001, records show.
Under a strong mayor system, the person elected to the office serves as the chief executive officer for the city. That individual has the authority to administer operations – including use of city properties - and appoint and remove department heads. The mayor drafts and proposes a budget to city council and has veto power over policies set by the council, according to the National League of Cities.
If Spokane operated under the council-strong form of government, the NLC states that a manager would be appointed by the council to oversee daily operations and answer to the elected body. The mayor would be elected as part of the council, or selected by the council, to preside at meetings, serve as a spokesperson for the community, and facilitate communication between elected and appointed officials.
Beggs leads a council with a majority vote of five members that are increasingly opposed to mayoral proposals and actions. At the same time, two councilors frequently back the city administration's moves and decisions.
Woodward said in an interview with The Center Square that the makeup of the council has made her veto power largely symbolic because there are not enough votes to sustain it at the council table.
The majority are now poised to approve the ordinance sponsored by Beggs and Councilor Betsy Wilkerson. They oppose Woodward’s recent decision to move police into a vacated library at 425 S. Stone Street.
Woodward announced in May that the 6,000 square foot space would not only accommodate officers but behavioral health services, in addition to providing meeting space for community groups.
“That police precinct is going to stay right where it’s at,” said the mayor after learning about the proposed ordinance.
“I will continue to take my role as defined by the public vote on the charter," she said. "I have to say that I was surprised by the pushback on my decision to give an underserved community a more visible police presence."
Woodward said that six months of outreach to businesses, residents and community groups yielded “overwhelming support” for her decision.
“The former precinct was located on the second floor of an old nunnery at Saint Ann Catholic Church and officers were not visible – the building was really not visible,” she said.
In addition, she said the move was smart economically because the city already owned the old library building.
Beggs and Wilkerson want to relocate to precinct to somewhere along or within two blocks of East Sprague Avenue, between the Hamilton Street overpass and Havana Street.
Beggs said that is an area with violent crime that would be better served by a police presence.
He said officers will be moved back to Saint Ann’s while a more involved public process is undertaken to figure out where to relocate the precinct.
“If the ordinance goes through, they go back to where they were,” he said.
By leasing out the Stone Street space to medical and mental health service providers, he said the city can cover the costs of a new facility.
Beggs and Woodward say they meet weekly to conduct city business and discuss policy issues. Both officials see those conversations as important and plan to continue them.
“We do have a few spicy points,” he said. “But we agree 98 to 99% of the time – it’s just that 1 or 2% when we disagree that grabs headlines.”
“It is becoming more and more difficult to work with the council,” admits Woodward. “So, I am having to become more vocal about the issues because many of them involve public safety and that’s something that this community cares deeply about.”
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The Houston Chronicle
Jon Shapley/Staff photographer R.A. SCHUETZ , GODOFREDO VÁSQUEZ , STAFF July 14, 2022 Updated: July 14, 2022 10:07 a.m.
DECEMBER 2021
On a gorgeous, sun-filled morning, Lance Cosper sat cross-legged on a tiny patio made of pavers in front of his tent and shared his good news: He’d been approved for short-term rental assistance.
He and his neighbors were sitting in folding chairs contained within a circle of tents, which formed an outdoor living room with a firepit at the center. Overhead, two concrete ribbons on the edge of downtown carried drivers turning off Interstate 10 onto U.S. 59 South.
The Houston area has received national attention for dramatically reducing its number of people living without homes by more than half since 2011 through a seemingly simple solution: offering them housing.
All Cosper had to do to leave the camp — dozens of tents that stretch along both sides of the interchange — was find an available unit from a list of four complexes that worked with Houston, Harris County and their partners, which pay to house the formerly homeless and provide them with social workers.
But he was afraid that someone — with good intentions or bad — might walk up to his home while he was gone, and he’d regret having stepped away.
As Cosper watched to see who might turn up, a small figure appeared on the sidewalk. He was wearing a bowling shirt, rectangular sunglasses and square-toed leather shoes; in his hand was a plastic bag. He plopped it near Cosper’s feet and gestured at it, then at the group, smiling and tilting his head.
HOMELESS IN HOUSTON: How to survive on the streets
“Family,” mouthed the man, Albert Castillo, motioning at Cosper and the five others who sat in a circle. He wore a leather collar with a lock hanging over a hole in his throat, from which air whispered.
“I do know that,” Cosper said, reading the man’s lips and nodding. He peered inside the bag and pulled out a gallon of cold milk for breakfast. “That’s why we love you, Albert. When I get my housing, I’ll also come back.”
Castillo had lived in the camp until receiving housing through the city, county and their partners. But despite having an apartment of his own off of Westpark Drive — an hour and a half away by bus — he visited regularly. Sometimes he visited just to get away from his empty room, or because he felt his mental state start to darken. Sometimes he visited because he needed food or clothing, which good Samaritans regularly brought by the camp. Even though he had his housing, he believed he wouldn’t be alive without the support of his friends.
He sat down next to Cosper, who had settled into his chair and set his eyes upon the horizon. The milk had begun to sweat with condensation.
Ken Ellis/Staff
Plan for Houston’s camps
If everything goes according to plan, the camp and all of its inhabitants soon will be gone.
The Houston area started systematically closing camps by offering those living there permanent housing — then clearing the site, usually with fencing to prevent the camp from reforming — in early 2021, as the city and county bookmarked tens of thousands of COVID-related funding sent down from Congress to address homelessness.
But when the rental market began to boom as social distancing mandates thawed, fewer landlords opted to participate in the program, choosing instead to rent to the market. The pace at which the city, county and their partners could move people out of camps slowed.
A red-hot rental market impacts housing for the homeless
At the beginning of the pandemic, Houston, Harris County and their partners quickly ramped up the number of units available to house the formerly homeless by renting vacant apartments. But as the rental market picked up steam, the number of units added to the program plummeted from 1,100 in the first four months of 2021 to 500 in the same period in 2022, according to the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston and Harris County.
So for Cosper and his neighbors — as for people living in many other camps — life remained stuck in the day-to-day shuffle of survival, trying to protect what they had while also navigating the bureaucratic web of organizations meant to help them get back on their feet. Without other places to go, the camps provided the protection of other people.
“It’s the safest place to be homeless that I know,” Cosper said. Everyone in the circle of tents had made an unspoken pact to look out for one another.
That didn’t mean the camp was free from tragedy. Within months of losing his home, Cosper said the police dispatcher knew his voice. “She says, ‘Hi, Lance, I know where you are — what’s going on?’” He’d seen a friend have a stroke and another suffer a life-threatening infection; others in the greater camp had died from illness, exposure, overdose or violence.
But there was also plenty of generosity. Just take his leather boots. One of them had the words “Follow Jesus” written across the top in permanent market, the other, “Do not sell these,” a message that makes him chuckle. Cosper said a selfless man who traveled across the country helping the homeless had pulled up, asked what he needed, and drove back with boots in his size.
The Monday after Cosper announced he had qualified for short-term rental assistance, he borrowed his neighbor Alex Dehn’s phone to call a Yale Street property that was the most promising of the four participating apartment complexes his case manager had given him.
But the line was busy, and Cosper never found out if there were vacancies at the complex.
Old life
The last day of what Cosper, now 54, calls his “old life” was May 1, 2020. Weeks after the novel coronavirus’ spread led to stay-at-home orders across the nation, two old drinking buddies called. They had driven over to his neighborhood in the leafy, master-planned suburb of Kingwood and were sitting at the end of the dock on a nearby lake.
He was sober after financial troubles, divorce and the deaths of his parents had threatened his prosperous life as a construction manager and cost him the two homes he had owned — 5 acres in the ranch-dotted town of Splendora north of Houston (“We did the whole horse thing: two horses and a Shetland pony”) and a brick home with a pool in Kingwood.
His friends had brought something for him: a Four Loko. He looked at the tall can. Just one would be fine, he thought. As they talked and laughed and tossed scraps of chicken to a gator in the lake, he had three more.
When a police officer found him asleep at a traffic light, his blood-alcohol content was more than double the legal threshold for intoxication. He went to jail, got fired and — unwilling to ask his uncles or children for help — determined he’d stay in Star of Hope shelter to sort things out.
But the shelter had reduced its capacity because of COVID-19 and wasn’t accepting new clients. From its doorstep, he turned and saw a collection of tents across the street, underneath U.S. 59. There, he recognized faces of people he had done the addiction program with before.
The pandemic pushed back Cosper’s court date again and again and again. In what his neighbors referred to as Tent City, Cosper fell into a rhythm, learning where generous individuals or food kitchens provided meals or how to sell food stamps for cash. He learned the schedule of the shower truck that came by Wednesday and Saturday.
Soon, the camp was home, and the small group living in the ring of tents was family.
There was Castillo, who’d had a tracheotomy during his treatment for throat cancer while living in the camp and wore a collar covering the spot where the tube had been surgically inserted. After Castillo got housing, others moved in — Gary Leeds was one, a tall man in his 60s with intensely blue eyes and a fondness for classic rock and roll. Dehn, at 25, became one of the youngest in the group, a jack-of-all-trades known for his upbeat, joking banter.
Leeds would take their makeshift family out to dinners at Outback Steakhouse when his disability and Social Security payments came. On nights they ate in, Dehn sometimes cooked meals over a firepit he had constructed out of pavers. One day, Dehn found a discarded love seat outside a nearby public housing complex; he brought it back and set it up inside his tent, where the crew took turns taking naps. While the menacing sense that things could go south never disappeared, Cosper sometimes caught himself using the word “comfortable” to describe their way of life.
JANUARY
With one glance, Leeds was sure: His life was about to take a turn for the better.
A week and a half into the new year, a man had walked into the camp cradling a kitten. Each of his hands was the size of the gray tabby’s body. It mewed, opening its mouth wide like a hungry bird and squeezing shut its eyes. The man explained he was looking to find the kitten a home.
Leeds charged out of his tent. “That’s my cat,” he declared.
The man, looking a little confused, handed Leeds his cat.
Leeds sat in a folding chair, nestling the kitten in his lap. “Don’t ask me why I did this,” he said. “I can’t even take care of myself. But I’ll take care of that cat.” He tickled her belly. He had already decided on a name: Claws, for the needle-sharp nails she used to try to climb up his shirt.
Cosper thought he knew why. “Pets are therapy,” he told Leeds.
He had his theories about the ways people tried to deal with the unbearable. Take his bottle of beer. “There’s three ways to describe it: numbing, self medication and coping,” he explained. But really, he felt, what it all came down to was avoiding — and the need for an escape was intensified by living outside where you could never let your guard down. Sometimes he and the others in the camp muttered darkly that the worst place to be, if someone had it out for you, was inside a tent.
Leeds was trying to deal with a lot. In the weeks before, he had begun to worry about his health. His knee throbbed, there was blood in his stool, and he had lost weight. But when the kitten clumsily sat up in his lap, he broke into a smile and began to coo.
Leeds’ path to sleeping under U.S. 59 started in 2016. As an alcoholic, he had enrolled in a live-in program for recovering addicts, but he became suspicious of the people he lived with. That summer, convinced that the home was actually a crackhouse that society would be better without, he set the building on fire. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to arson and was sentenced to five years in prison.
The silver lining of his time in prison, Leeds said with a deprecating shake of his head, was that he got on medication that helped with his bipolar and generalized anxiety disorders. He sometimes drew line graphs to explain how his moods went up and down — a period of happiness, then a period of deep depression, until steady medication leveled it out.
When Leeds got out, he qualified for Social Security and disability payments but had no luck renting.
“Arson being my charge, it’s hard to get housing,” he explained. He went straight from prison to homelessness.
But he had money for Claws. Leeds called Dehn over and asked him to find cat food, kitty litter and a bottle of vodka.
Dehn returned with a bag of cat food, a bottle of Watermelon Seagrams and a stack of sticky notes. There had been no litter at the store, but Dehn — known within the camp as a MacGyver — figured he could make some by shredding the notes. “The cat food was expensive,” he warned as he handed Leeds the bill. Leeds seemed unbothered.
Taking comfort
Cosper took comfort in knowing that he had been approved for housing. But each day he told himself he would visit apartments, he put it off. It was so far to travel by bus, especially not knowing whether there was a vacancy. Finally he heard troubling news — he had lost his spot because his application had been inactive. He was shocked. He hadn’t known there was a deadline.
Dehn found comfort in making improvements to the camp. He’d lost his most recent home — a towable recreational vehicle in Rockport — during Hurricane Harvey. Dehn remembered walking out into the eye of the storm from the hotel where he had sheltered. The world was cool and quiet. It was hard to tell that a disaster was unfolding around him, until he looked up and saw birds flying in a circle overhead, trapped by walls of wind.
Many still homeless five years after Harvey
After Hurricane Harvey, the number of people living on Houston-area sidewalks, in camps and in other places not meant for habitation jumped 42 percent, to 1,540 people from 1,084 the year before, according to the annual point-in-time count. It stayed stubbornly high for years, finally dipping to 1,473 during an annual count in 2022, after the pandemic and its influx of federal dollars.
When he went back to check on his RV, it had flooded. But while he had lost his home, he hadn’t lost his urge to make things homier. At the camp, he’d built a firepit out of pavers. He’d gotten hold of a small wooden table, which he had altered to make “coffee table height.” On top, he had spread a fleece blanket as a tablecloth and set a kettle, an ashtray and a copy of the Bible. He’d even installed a pole that he hung with the type of metal signs you’d find at a patio bar: “Lovely day for a Guinness” and “Beer! It’s what’s for breakfast.”
He’d also built infrastructure: trenches and berms to direct the flow of rainfall away from the tents.
But while he could freely shape aspects of his environment, other parts were out of his control. He worried that strangers coming through their courtyard of tents were not to be trusted, and he feared that Claws might get hit by a car.
So when a couple spotted Claws and asked if they could adopt her, Dehn considered. The couple lived on the other side of the underpass, in a cluster of tents by a hike-and-bike trail. It was quieter there. It seemed safer than their current setup.
“That’s a great idea,” he said.
Losing control
When Leeds realized he had lost Claws, his despair surged.
He could feel the line charting his state of mind plummeting toward the bottom of the graph.
He picked up a can of propane, which they used to heat coffee and cook meals on a camp stove, and flung it into the firepit. Then another. And another. Dehn, who also felt something within him snap, threw a can into the fire as well.
At first nothing happened. Then the fire roared.
A can flew out of the fire like a rocket and hit the underside of the freeway. Another hit Leeds. Cosper ran out of his tent and called the fire department. He was livid. Any apartment, no matter the neighborhood, was better than this.
The nonprofit he had been working with agreed to make an exception and reactivated his case. This time, he promised, he’d find an apartment by the deadline. He had weekly check-ins with his case manager to make sure of it.
In late January, Patricia Stevenson, a good Samaritan who regularly checked in on the camp, received a call in the night. It was Castillo, and he was afraid for his life.
He told her that a gang was offering money to anyone who killed him. There was a convoluted story about sleeping with the wrong woman. Stevenson asked what she could do. Together, they decided to buy him a bus ticket to Amarillo, where his family lived. There, he got back in touch with his brother and sister-in-law, who had been unaware that he was homeless. He described his happiness at the reconnection, and she felt at peace.
FEBRUARY
Stevenson received another call, this time from Castillo’s sister-in-law. Castillo had died from throat cancer.
She said that when she broke the news to Cosper, he cried.
Losing his grip
Leeds was taking small steps toward housing — he had his birth certificate and was working on his Social Security card.
But in the meantime, his mental health was slipping. The last time he tried to pick up his medication, the community health center was closed.
On Dehn’s 26th birthday, they celebrated with dinner at Saltgrass Steakhouse, Leeds’ treat. Like irreverent high schoolers, Leeds, Dehn and Cosper pocketed silverware they figured they could use at camp.
Then, on the walk home, Leeds lost his grip. Some small grievance with Cosper resurged. He hit Cosper, and Dehn tackled him. Leeds took out a Saltgrass Steakhouse knife and stabbed Dehn in the back. Cosper called the paramedics.
But the men who called themselves family stood by one another. They’d all done things they wish they could take back. A few days later, Dehn was putting a chipper spin on his birthday stabbing, despite the black stitches holding together a red gash beneath his shoulder and the bottle of antibiotics he kept forgetting to take.
“It was my first time in the hospital for a while!” he said. “And they were nice. When you’re stabbed, they’re nice to you. When you OD, they’re like — let him die.”
MARCH
As Dehn recovered, he also spent time trying to improve Leeds’ state of mind. He built Leeds paver-lined garden beds on either side of his tent and filled them with dirt and mulch that Stevenson had purchased. On the right side, they’d planted pansies and oleanders; on the left, a row of tomato plants.
“That’s his therapy,” Dehn said. Leeds loved tending the plants and the way they lit up the faces of passersby.
Alex Dehn built a garden outside of Gary's tent in an effort to help him with his mental health struggles.
Godofredo A. Vásquez/Staff photographer
The camp held a memorial service for Castillo on the 12th. They sat in a ring, with a cross that Dehn had built out of fleece-wrapped plywood. One by one, they shared stories of Castillo the boxer, the protector, the man who had made so many friends (whom he couldn’t pass without a hello) that a five-minute trip to Walmart could take hours.
“Lord God,” Stevenson said. “We’re all gathered around this campfire to honor Albert. Albert will never have to be homeless again. He’ll never not be able to speak again. He’ll never have his tent thrown away — any of the bad things that happened.”
Cosper wiped his eyes behind his sunglasses.
“I think he’s upstairs laughing,” he said. “And saying, ‘I can talk now.’”
APRIL
Spring arrived, breezy and hopeful. A friend found Leeds a new kitten, and the camp agreed to share the responsibilities of raising her.
Cosper looked into apartments. The phone number for the Yale Street property was still busy when he called, but he had another lead on a property management company. However, days came and went and Cosper still hadn’t reached out to the company. His first check-in with the nonprofit SEARCH Homeless Services came.
“Lance, don’t forget about SEARCH,” Dehn said, as Cosper’s appointment approached.
“I’m not in the mood,” Cosper said. “I have another three, three-and-a-half weeks. I’m not worried about it.”
But Cosper didn’t make it to the check-in. Nor the one after that nor the one after that. Finally, it was his deadline, and he hadn’t found an apartment.
“What’s the point of housing?” Cosper asked, sounding defeated. “If I don’t have my Social Security card, I can’t get my driver’s license. When I got arrested for a DWI, they took my whole wallet.”
He’d always said he wanted only temporary housing, something long enough for him to get another job in home construction that would allow him to rent something nicer. He wanted to regain a semblance of his previous life. But, he said hopelessly, he couldn’t get that kind of job without a driver’s license.
“Lance,” Dehn said, in his usual cheery tone, but with more of an edge to it than usual. “At least you were honest today. You don’t want housing.”
“I want a job.”
Over the months, Cosper had grown thinner, more resigned.
“I’ve been out here 23 months,” he said tiredly.
MAY
Ray Walker, a man with a white buzz cut and a soft-spoken, unflappable manner, thought Cosper seemed different. An outreach worker for the shelter Star of Hope, he’d been stopping by places where people live on the streets for years, offering to connect them to resources.
That day, Cosper sounded like he recognized that he needed more assistance to return to society than he’d previously thought.
Walker filed some paperwork and returned days later with word that Cosper had a spot on the permanent housing list and something else: a Social Security card that is the first step toward getting Cosper the driver’s license he needs.
When Cosper’s appointment came up to discuss his new application, Walker drove to the camp to chauffeur Cosper to his case manager.
“Ray basically had to kidnap him,” Dehn said happily. Walker also helped Dehn apply for housing.
Ray Walker, left, an outreach case manager with Star of Hope, distributes personal hygiene items to the men at the camp.
Godofredo A. Vásquez/Staff photographer
But when Dehn’s own housing appointment came around, he missed it. Cosper crowed at the opportunity to rag on Dehn — the tables had turned.
Dehn shrugged off the pointed questions.
“I thought I wanted to go but — I don’t know why.” He shook his head, then tilted it in thought and corrected himself: “I know why.”
Most people stay housed
Contrary to Alex Dehn’s perception, most people who receive housing stay housed, according to data from the Coalition for the Homeless in Houston and Harris County. Only 12 percent of people who receive short-term rental assistance — the option Cosper was first pursuing — return to homelessness within a year. For people who receive permanent supportive housing, that percentage is even lower.
After all, he’d been homeless for the five years since Hurricane Harvey. And if you counted a previous bout of homelessness and his four years in an orphanage, he had spent more than half his 26 years without a home.
“I don’t want to be thrown into the deep end of the pool,” he told Cosper. “Because I’ll drown.”
Once he got his housing appointment, he explained, thoughts of the future began crowding in. He wished he could ease his way into housing with a home not too far from the camp on which he relied.
“Lance, we have no good ‘I-got-housing’ stories. They’re all either dead or” — Dehn made a motion like he was swatting something away — “they’re back out here.”
A friend who’s stopped by said housing meant sitting alone in a room.
“You’ll get hungry in a house,” the friend continued. “You can’t expect people to bring food to your house.”
“You’re scared,” Cosper cut in, looking intently at Dehn.
“I’m not scared.”
“You’re scared.”
“I’m not scared,” Dehn protested. “It’s the transition.”
Cosper had fears to face, too. Walker had told him that he had a warrant for failing to appear when his court date for the driving while intoxicated charge finally rolled around. In order to clear his path for housing, he would have to turn himself in. And he didn’t know if they’d just let him go and reschedule his court date or if they’d take him to jail.
“I’ll tell you what,” Cosper said. “I’m scared. Because I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
In June, Cosper turned himself in, spent a night in jail and then went to court to plead guilty to the charge of driving while intoxicated. The night before going to court, he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he looked in on the tents of his friends, checking to make sure their chests were rising and falling the way he once did with his kids. Their tent doors were wide open in an effort to combat the summer heat, which hovered around 80 degrees at night. He, Dehn and Leeds — who injured his hip, landing him in medical facilities for weeks — are still awaiting housing. They occasionally ask the inspection crew whether their camp will be closed, with everyone living there offered housing, but have not heard that it will happen anytime soon.
Jon Shapley contributed to this story.