8/28/2022
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The Spokesman-Review
The Journal of Business
RangeMedia
The New York Times
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The Spokesman-Review
Thu., Aug. 25, 2022
Pastor John Murinko poses for a photo at The City Gate on Aug. 16 in Spokane. (Tyler Tjomsland/The Spokesman-Review)
Long before homelessness became an ever-present topic at City Council meetings, long before newer nonprofits began advocating for a solution, John Murinko walked among the broken and the hurting on the streets of Spokane.
Thirty-five years ago, he and several local pastors banded together to create the City Gate, a church specifically for Spokane’s inner-city dwellers and focused on ministering to the physical and spiritual needs of homeless individuals.
From a site on First Avenue to a location at the Otis Hotel to its present home on South Madison, the church has evolved into an enterprise offering a social drop-in center, hot meals, a food bank, clothing bank, life skills and social services, as well as low-cost housing and emergency shelter.
At its heart is Murinko, a soft-spoken man whose sturdy stature reflects the high school wrestler and football player he was in Deer Lodge, Montana.
His empathy for those in need stems from his early life.
“I grew up in a family of nine. Dad was a miner and an alcoholic and so was Mom,” he said. “Dad was abusive and died in a mining accident when I was 13. Mom died when I was 12.”
He lived with relatives, including a sister, but ended up sleeping in a variety of barns.
“I worked for a lot of ranchers and stayed in their barns,” Murinko said. “Sports kept me in school.”
And there was a girl.
“She was one of those ‘church girls,’ persistent and kind,” he said.
When he took a job out of town, she wrote him a letter.
“It was the first time I cried. I was 16. I discovered somebody really cares about me.”
Her name was Shirley and he married her two years later. They spent 44 years together. She died three years ago, but her picture hangs next to the kitchen at City Gate.
“I still have that letter,” he said.
They moved to Spokane in 1978 and Murinko worked as a cabinet maker.
“I saw all of these people asking for handouts downtown,” he said. “I kind of broke. I cried about it for a long time.”
Then, with Shirley’s support, he decided to do something besides weep, and the City Gate was formally incorporated in 1988.
Murinko had moved from cabinet making to plumbing and purchased Bill the Fauceteer from its owner. The job supported his family, but he spent many hours downtown, befriending those on the streets and inviting them to City Gate. His wife and sons, Eric and Shawn, spent countless hours there and Eric now works in administration for the nonprofit.
The ministry grew, but so did the need. In 2000, Murinko saw the site on Madison for sale and presented the idea of purchasing it to the board. A contractor looked over the building and told them they’d need $1 million to purchase and renovate it.
“Ruth Pearson, an amazing person, was on our board. She wrote us a check for the full amount,” he said.
The additional space meant they could increase their services.
“Now, we can offer long-term housing and emergency shelter,” Murinko said. “Our mission has always been to reclaim, rebuild and restore lost and broken lives – and it’s a long process.”
For Murinko, that process begins with discovering what the most urgent need of an individual is and meeting it. Is it a meal? A hot shower? Clean clothes? Medical assistance?
The City Gate networks with a host of agencies from the VA to Frontier Behavioral Health. A nurse who once volunteered as a student now comes in as needed. An AA group meets daily, and their food and clothing bank provides necessities.
While the news is filled with stories about how society is failing the unhoused, Murinko sees success stories wherever he looks.
Sitting in the dining room at City Gate, he pointed to a man sweeping the floor.
“He was the worst heroin addict I’ve ever seen – meaner than a junkyard dog,” Murinko said. “Now, he’s married and on staff, in charge of the food bank.”
He pointed to a man at the front desk.
“He’s a former gang leader who followed a girl up here from Arizona. Now, he’s married, got his kids back, owns his own home and manages our volunteers.”
Though City Gate is a church, it doesn’t require anyone in need of assistance to attend a service.
“If you’re trying to reach people with the Gospel, it’s not about your words, it’s more about what you do,” Murinko said. “I don’t spend a lot of time in here. I’m out there, befriending.”
He shrugged.
“They know me.”
For all his gentleness, he insists that those accessing services at City Gate be respectful of the community.
“I’ve closed the dining room for two weeks when there’s been tussles and squabbles. We want them to be part of the community,” he said.
After spending 35 years working with this vulnerable population, Murinko said everyone’s story is different and a one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work.
At 64, he has no intention of slowing down. In fact, he sold his business to spend more time with the work he feels God called him to.
“Why would I ever go anywhere else?” he asked. “I don’t get discouraged, but sometimes it breaks my heart.”
Murinko invites those who’d like to be part of the solution to come and see what City Gate is all about.
“Come visit,” he said. “If you do, you’ll probably have a different view of the homeless.”
For more information about the City Gate, visit www.thecitygatespokane.org/
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The Journal of Business
City deserves robust action …
Chris Patterson
Despite activity on various fronts by business, government, and nonprofit sectors, Spokane’s homeless population remains at 0.685% (1,559 individuals), nearly three times the national average of 0.2%.
Of those in Spokane, 485, or 31%, are experiencing chronic homelessness, as compared with the national average of 19%. This offers potential for a strong return on investment by focusing on a unified response to chronic homelessness with a coordinated plan to address all forms of homelessness. International and national data reflect cost-saving to cost-neutral returns when cities focus efforts on this subpopulation that accounts for highest costs.
Hello for Good is hosting a free symposium on Sept. 1 to engage in dialogue with a panel of national experts on this issue. Sign up at www.helloforgood.org.
Areas of growing concern for Spokane include safety for all, property destruction, lack of accountability in our systems, crime, and lack of leadership to take bold steps to address the issues—not to pander to them.
Lack of housing options is a significant contributor to homelessness in Spokane. The market for homes below $750,000 is nearly sold out. The median Spokane-area home price this year through July has increased 18.1% compared with the year-earlier period, according to Spokane Association of Realtors’ data.
Apartment rents continue to climb as well. To meet the recommendation of spending no more than 30% of one’s income on housing, a Spokanite will need to earn $31,800 to afford a one-bedroom unit, and $41,320 for a two-bedroom unit. Because 1 in 4 residents are at or below the poverty line, this becomes problematic.
The discrepancy between wages, housing costs, and housing selection are high barriers to overcome in any city. This imbalance will need to be addressed over a multiyear timeframe and will require input and participation by the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Identifying a key non-governmental stakeholder to help shepherd this process of creating more balance between income opportunities and housing costs across sectors might be valuable.
Enticing developers with tax credits and other housing solutions can support our community’s need for growth, revenue, social programs, and the opportunity for all to have a chance to change the stars.
Spokane is a beautiful city with a homelessness issue that deserves a robust plan of action. We have the partners, providers, and local leadership to do just that.
There is no single thing we can do to solve this challenging issue, but by combining existing resources and programs with new initiatives and streamlining and coordinating efforts, we can make significant progress over time. This means bolstering efforts that currently work, eliminating programs that don’t, and better engaging partners, providers, elected officials, and local business and neighborhood leadership to rally around proven solutions and best practices.
It takes political and community will—and compromise. Our efforts will suffer if we sacrifice good ideas in search of perfect solutions. We have ideas already in process that are proven to work, but we must be willing to be agile and pivot when adjustments need to be made. This is easy to say but hard to do. It’s not inexpensive, and won’t happen overnight, but our community is worth it.
Chris Patterson is the community solutions adviser for Washington Trust Bank.
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RangeMedia
Carl Segerstrom
Some residents consider it a worst-case scenario. Many say they won’t go at all.
Where Mission and Trent Avenues meet, cars speed through an uncontrolled crosswalk. The industrial zone is lined with machine and auto body shops, printing services, a combat training center, dog food factory, mini-storage and a lingerie coffee stand where the baristas go topless twice a week.
Soon, it will also be the site of Spokane’s newest homeless shelter.
The Trent Shelter has been a centerpiece of the city of Spokane’s response to the rising unhoused population and the growth of the 600+ person Camp Hopealong Highway 90 east of downtown. With a lease that runs more than $26,000 a month, and more than $8 million slated in operating costs for the next 16 months, the shelter is a massive bet that having these beds will make a difference for the unhoused community.
As soon as Friday, Sept. 2, we could begin to see if the bet pays off. That’s the soonest the shelter could be running according to Mike Shaw, the founder and CEO of the Guardians Foundation, which the city is contracting with to run the shelter.
Eight days before the potential opening, RANGE visited the converted warehouse, then went to Camp Hope to talk with camp residents about their interest in moving to the shelter. Everyone I talked to at Camp Hope expressed skepticism if not outright opposition to moving to the shelter. This echoes previous surveys conducted by Jewels Helping Hands that found that only 51 of 601 residents surveyed would go to a shelter depending on the operator. It also calls into question the investment the city has poured into this out of the way location.
Exterior of the proposed shelter (showing Trent Avenue traffic) at 4320 E. Trent Ave on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022 in Spokane, Wash. (Erick Doxey for RANGE Media)
The first thing you notice at the Trent Shelter is just how isolated this area is. It’s a place where people come to work, not to stay. The closest store, Oriental Market, is more than a quarter mile down streets with dicey intersections and sketchy to nonexistent sidewalks. The closest transit stops are a couple blocks away in each direction. Both lines require riders to transfer at Spokane Community College. Nothing about the area is pedestrian friendly.
The feel of the warehouse is much the same as the environment outside. After all, it wasn’t designed for people to live, it was built for products to move.
There’s a newly paved parking lot, a large concrete warehouse space and empty offices in the front of the building. On August 25 the construction company retrofitting the space with new insulation and interior siding was waiting on pieces to finish the accessibility ramp into the building. The port-a-potties and portable showers that will be on the outdoor loading docks have yet to be installed. There is at least one internal bathroom that RANGE saw in the building.
Wood dividers section off the large concrete floor that will be the main sleeping area. These chest-high walls will provide a modicum of privacy in the open warehouse. Eventually, the city is planning on framing in small pods inside the space to provide more privacy and security for people staying in the shelter. That concept—individual or two-person sleeping pods– have been popularized as pallet shelters by an Everett, Washington company and is something all the people surveyed at Camp Hope said they’d be interested in living in.
But in this first phase, that won’t be an option: For now, people are left to decide between the privacy of a tent or RV out in the elements at Camp Hope or a clean, warm, but wide open space at the warehouse.
Upper left: Stack of material to be used as the ADA ramp inside of the proposed shelter. UR: Interior of the proposed shelter showing the privacy barriers (and Carl Segerstrom as reference). Bottom left: Exterior loading dock area of the proposed shelter. BL: Interior of the proposed shelter. (Erick Doxey for RANGE Media)
At Camp Hope, Jewels Helping Hands has created a community newsletter pamphlet. This week’s edition encourages people to clean-up the camp, highlights options for identification restoration services and points men to Truth Ministries if they’re interested in leaving the camp for a shelter. Despite the drama over the unpermitted cooling shelter, it continues to operate without a permit and the city has yet to fine the state or attempt to remove the tent.
While not much has changed at Camp Hope, Jewels Helping Hands employee Regina Thompson said she thinks many people are ready to move on from the camp. “Winter’s coming — they’re scared,” she said. Even if it means staying in a warehouse, she thinks people will go to get access to a warm place to stay.
The idea of going to the shelter as a worst case scenario was something RANGE heard repeatedly from people living at Camp Hope.
For Angel, who manages the supply tent at Camp Hope, the shelter isn’t an option she’s planning on or interested in. She said past experiences in shelters, which included curfews, chores and mandatory religious services were overbearing and made her uninterested in going back to a shelter.
That doesn’t leave many good options, and Angel said that she feels scared and lost. “I’m hoping and praying my mom picks me up,” she said. She’s hoping the support of family will help her get her life moving forward.
Standing with Angel outside the supply tent was a camp resident named Jewlz (not to be confused with Julie Garcia the founder and executive director of Jewels Helping Hands). Jewlz said she didn’t think people would go to the shelter after I showed her pictures of the open warehouse with wooden dividers.
“Nobody’s going to do that, there’s no privacy,” she said. “Tiny homes and the motel, that would be good,” Jewlz said, referring to the planned conversion of the former Quality Inn off of Sunset Highway into transitional housing. “I would give anything to be able to get up in the morning, lock my door and then go to a job.”
When I showed James, who was sitting on a chair outside an RV, the pictures of the warehouse, he said it looked like a “new concentration camp.” He said going there would be a last resort. “A motel would be better,” he said. “I like to be independent, do my own thing — I don’t like being around a lot of people.”
Xavier, who was heading from the cooling tent into the main area of camp, said his interest in staying at the shelter depended on how many people were staying there and how cramped it felt. Like everyone I spoke with, he said he preferred a hotel or tiny house.
Another man, who wouldn’t give his name, said that going to the shelter would only be out of desperation. “It’s hard enough just being here [at Camp Hope],” he said. “It’s still good weather now. If I get desperate enough — maybe in winter — I might go.”
Joe, who spoke to me outside the cooling tent while smoking a cigarette, said the biggest issue for him was what kind of sleeping arrangements he could get. He said he has spinal issues that prevent him from laying flat. In the past, other shelters haven’t allowed him the option to sleep in a chair, as he said he needs. “I would go there if I could sleep sitting up,” he said. “I want to check it out first.”
For Laron Robinson, the most important deciding factor was getting direction from Camp Hope’s main champion, Julie Garcia. “We’re rolling with Jewels,” he said. “She’s been with us the whole time. Whatever she says that’s what we’ll do,” Robinson said. “Jewels held it down for us.”
While Robinson said he was placing his faith in Garcia for guidance, the idea of having a place to call his own, like a hotel room, would be an important step for him. “I want to be able to wake up in the morning and just splash water on my face,” he said. “I’m fighting to get out, but it’s hard right now. My self esteem is low and I just feel like I have no options.”
Chris Senn, who just got a job working at a convenience store near Camp Hope, said he’d check out the shelter. For Senn, the most important factor in moving anywhere is security for his belongings. “Everytime I go to work I’m not sure if I’ll come back to anything,” he said. “I need to be able to lock stuff up. It seems like the Quality Inn is a better option.” Shaw, the shelter operator, said that each person will have two totes for personal storage in their bed area and the ability to store two totes in a safe locked area.
Shaw said the opportunities for the Trent shelter are exciting. “It’s a miracle to find so much square footage,” Shaw said. Right now at the Cannon shelter the organization operates, he said they have about 100 people per night staying in a 3,000 square foot building, which is the size of a large home. The Trent Shelter has more than 4,000 square feet of space, Shaw said.
Shaw acknowledged concerns about the shelter, including the lack of nearby food options and the general isolation of the location, but he believes they’ll be able to address those concerns and make the shelter a place people want to be. The operators are planning on running two 16 passenger vans, four SUVs and distributing bus passes to help people move from the shelter to other destinations like jobs or libraries. They also are working to put together a miniature convenience store to offer EBT (federal food stamp) eligible snacks and drinks on-site. There will also be three meals served a day at the site.
“I believe that once someone comes from Camp Hope after a day or two they’ll realize this beats the dirt lot,” Shaw said. “It’s a matter of time before we get into a rhythm and get to where we need to be. All we’re doing is trying to create opportunities.”
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The Center Square
The City of Spokane has allocated $300,000 of American Rescue Plan funds to help people being evicted for nonpayment of rent due to pandemic-related financial losses. Another $400,000 will soon be awarded to help people formerly incarcerated train for employment opportunities in construction and the trades.
Matt Rourke/AP Images
(The Center Square) - The City of Spokane is seeking to spend federal pandemic relief funding on programs that offer assistance to people who are facing eviction or trying to get a job after incarceration.
The city has allocated $300,000 of American Rescue Plan funds for eviction defense and education, and another $400,000 for pre-apprenticeship programs targeted towards individuals involved in, or at risk of being involved in, the criminal justice system.
Funding for either pot of funding will be awarded through the official Request for Proposals process that requires submission, review and evaluation of applications. Materials submitted through the city’s online portal, my.spokanecity.org/ARPA, will be screened for alignment with eligibility requirements and competitiveness. The deadline for submissions is Sept. 26.
“Many individuals, families, and businesses in our community require a little help to stabilize and rebuild as we climb out of the pandemic,” said Michelle Murray, accounting director, who manages the proposal process, in a statement. “Applying for federal funds may be a new experience for some and we are here to help organizations and agencies through the proposal process.”
Not-for-profit agencies interested in eviction defense funds need to be able to represent lower-income residents within the city limits. Work will be related to statutory eviction actions filed in Spokane County Superior Court due to nonpayment of rent associated with pandemic-related loss of income.
Pre-apprenticeship funding will be awarded to not-for-profit agencies that can offer dedicated spaces to participants in building and trades construction opportunities for residents recently released from incarceration.
Spokane received $80 million in ARP funds and has allocated all but $13.5 million to date, according to spokesperson Brian Coddington.
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The New York Times
Aug. 24, 2022
Encampment residents in Seattle receive snacks from an outreach program.Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
Opinion
Something Better Than a Tent for the Homeless
Encampment residents in Seattle receive snacks from an outreach program.Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
Ms. Szalavitz is a contributing Opinion writer. She covers addiction and public policy.
The needs of homeowners and businesses and those of people who are unsheltered often conflict. Community leaders, faced with increasing crime and disorder, frequently see police sweeps as the only answer, while advocates for homeless people argue that this response is merely a stopgap that does more damage than good.
But what if there was a way to stop shifting people from encampments to jails to shelters to hospitals and back again? In Seattle a unique collaboration among businesses, neighborhood groups, the police, advocates and nonprofits is fighting cynics and misperceptions driven by politics to cut homelessness.
Tiarra Dearbone, Seattle/King County LEAD program director for the Public Defender Association, center, works with representatives of partner organizations to plan an assessment of the Third Avenue area.Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
The coronavirus pandemic presented Seattle with a crisis and an opportunity. In early 2020, authorities closed congregate shelters, emptied jails and stopped new arrests for minor crimes. Lisa Daugaard, a lawyer, saw a rare chance to develop a new approach to addressing homelessness that didn’t involve law enforcement.
She’d already had success in getting officials to cooperate across siloed systems: In 2019, she won a MacArthur “genius” award for helping to create a program originally called Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, which has now been replicated in over 80 jurisdictions across the United States.
Instead of re-incarcerating homeless people who typically already have long histories of minor arrests, police departments that participate in LEAD refer them to case management services. The program has an overall philosophy of harm reduction, which, in addition to securing shelter, focuses on improving health, rather than mandating abstinence from drugs and other risky behaviors. LEAD originated as a collaboration of public defenders, the police and prosecutors, who put aside differences to work on solutions.
Peer-reviewed research published in 2017 by the University of Washington found a 39 percent reduction in felony charges for participants (a group of over 300 people suspected of low-level drug and sex work activity in downtown Seattle) in LEAD compared with controls and an 89 percent increase in the likelihood of being permanently housed for participants after they started case management.
Nichole Alexander, who coordinates the JustCare field team for the Public Defender Association, center, and Ms. Moen, right, help a resident of the Dearborn encampment sort out medical transportation and care.Photographs by Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
Paige Killinger, a case management supervisor, works to build relationships with residents of an encampment under the intersection of I-5 and I-90.Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
Nhan Dinh Truong hugs Ms. Alexander while loading a van before heading to a hotel room supplied by JustCare,Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
At the height of the pandemic, when the police were ordered not to make minor arrests or referrals to LEAD, Ms. Daugaard decided to try something new. With federal pandemic funds becoming available and desperate hotel owners newly open to being paid to house nontraditional guests, she said she saw “our chance to show that there is another way.”
Ms. Daugaard and her colleagues created a program now known as JustCare. JustCare staff members, rather than police officers, would respond to urgent calls about encampments. After building trust with local homeless people, the workers would move them into housing without strict abstinence requirements and then help clean up the site. The police would be contacted only as a last resort.
An early success involved an encampment on a major thoroughfare, Third Avenue, where around two dozen tents were erected directly outside the popular local restaurant Wild Ginger, which had closed under pandemic restrictions. A co-owner, Rick Yoder, wanted to reopen the restaurant in the summer of 2021, but he told me, “I couldn’t get the windows repaired because the guy said, ‘I’m not going near those tents.’”
Michelle McClendon, an outreach worker, chats with a repeat resident, Taylor Bohm, and her partner, Michelle, as they fill out paperwork.Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
Katrina Ness, of Community Passageways, which provides LEAD services, lived in a tent when she was a teenage runaway.Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
The glazier’s fear was not unwarranted. According to Jon Scholes, the president and chief executive of the Downtown Seattle Association, which represents local businesses, there was active drug dealing inside the encampment. A retail theft group was also operating in it. Liquor and other items had been stolen from the shuttered restaurant.
Outreach workers from JustCare managed to house those living in the encampment and clean up the site without police reinforcement. (I interviewed Mr. Yoder at the reopened restaurant, which was buzzing on a Tuesday night, but is not yet back to its prepandemic numbers.)
Many outreach workers previously lived in encampments themselves. Katrina Ness, for example, lived in a tent as a 16-year-old runaway. She says her past allows her to connect with those still unsheltered, even if they often curse her out. “I’m an abrasive person myself,” she said, smiling, adding that she sometimes brings her friendly dog as a way of connecting.
The work begins with no-strings offerings of items like food, water and clean needles. These regular visits help demonstrate trustworthiness and defuse fear about coercion. Creativity is also a must: Conflicts arise over everything from open drug use to burning items for heat. Workers neutralize tense situations with humor and compassion and by recognizing that often bizarre behavior is driven by fundamental needs like hunger, thirst and exhaustion.
A shared kitchen at a JustCare facility where residents can eat healthy snacks and make food with the help of a stocked fridge and the staff.Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
A mural by artist, Gretchen Leggitt, with a quote by the poet Amanda Gorman on the side of a JustCare facility.Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
Alison McLean owns a condo in the Pioneer Square neighborhood and contacted JustCare for help dealing with tents that started being pitched against her building during the pandemic. One drug dealer set up a giant tent and a grill where he cooked sausages and played loud music. “Homeless people were using our alley as their bathroom,” Ms. McLean said, adding that food and other debris also attracted rats.
JustCare began its outreach. “Maybe two weeks later, they were like, ‘We found housing for everybody,’” Ms. McLean said. After moving day, the area was spotless, but soon another encampment arose. This time, after campers were housed, homeowners set up outdoor dining tables and chairs to “activate” the space, as suggested by JustCare. Now, residents and tourists regularly use the furniture, making it unattractive as a campsite.
Between the fall of 2020 and this past spring, JustCare closed 14 encampmentsand placed over 400 people in hotels and other lodging. Of the 135 people who had not found permanent homes by March, about two-thirds have now done so and 21 percent are in various stages of getting the documents and the access to housing they need. Preliminary numbers suggest that results are superior or equivalent to other programs for keeping people with mental illness and addictions housed.
Critics’ main concern is cost. Seattle’s former mayor issued a report in 2021 saying that JustCare cost $127,376 annually per person housed. JustCare disputes this, claiming that its actual costs per person are approximately half of that or less, and comparable to the yearly cost for incarceration plus arrest costs. Regardless, JustCare has won over the business and homeowner groups that typically strongly oppose such measures, like the Downtown Seattle Association and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. Consequently, the state recently agreed to fund and expand the program.
Taylor Bohm and her dog Lilly settle into their room at a hotel with the help of JustCare.Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
The biggest obstacle to scaling such initiatives is politics. Even though violent crime has risen across the United States — and the homicide rate increased more in red states than blue — Republicans are using dramatic images of homelessness in cities like Seattle and San Francisco to claim that progressive approaches have failed. (Houston, in fact, has already housed more than 25,000 of its homeless people since 2011 using harm-reduction housing like JustCare does.) Democrats, on the defensive, pour more money into policing.
But when business and neighborhood groups and advocates for homeless people collaborate, mutual distrust tends to decline and innovation is sparked. Even corporate and bureaucratic obstacles can disappear when people who know each other can just pick up the phone and work it out. As one former outreach worker told me, if harm reductionists want to argue that homeless people can transform their lives, they must also recognize that the police and businesses can reduce their own harmful behavior, too.