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Spokesman-Review
IN SCATHING LETTER, STATE CHIDES CITY ON CAMP HOPE RESPONSE
Council passes emergency air quality ordinance
KREM
KHQ
KXLY
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Spokesman-Review
IN SCATHING LETTER, STATE CHIDES CITY ON CAMP HOPE RESPONSE
By Colin Tiernan
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
In a scathing letter, state agencies on Tuesday harshly criticized Spokane’s homelessness response and accused the city of caring more about its public image than helping people living at Camp Hope.
“The city – starting with the Mayor – is more preoccupied by optics than action,” state officials wrote. “Continuing to blame the state does not actually make that narrative true no matter how many times you repeat it to the press and elsewhere.”
The letter, penned by the heads of the Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce and State Patrol, was a response to a Sept. 8 letter from Spokane that threatened to declare Camp Hope a nuisance property.
Spokane can sue property owners in Spokane County Superior Court if they violate the city’s nuisance laws and, with a judge’s approval, force them into compliance. City nuisance laws are often used to prevent property owners from accumulating trash and other materials.
Camp Hope is a homeless encampment on Department of Transportation land located off of Interstate 90 in east Spokane. It formed in December after the city broke up a group of protesters outside City Hall who were demanding more shelter space for homeless people. The Department of Transportation hasn’t attempted to disband Camp Hope because Spokane lacks the shelter space to house the more than 600 people staying there.
In its Sept. 8 letter, Spokane threatened to seek $350,000 to recoup costs spent by the city at Camp Hope since March 1 for activities such as police enforcement and waste removal.
The city’s letter also said it expected people living at Camp Hope to start leaving by Friday and vacate the site entirely by Oct. 14.
Based on its response, the state appears unlikely to comply with that deadline.
“These deadlines are arbitrary and completely misleading,” state officials wrote. “Not only are these deadlines completely unrealistic given the scope of this issue and current lack of housing capacity, but without time to provide adequate outreach, it sets up those living within the camp for failure.”
The letter, signed by State Patrol Chief John Batiste, Department of Commerce Secretary Lisa Brown and Department of Transportation Secretary Roger Millar, also rebukes the city for failing to do its part to help house the homeless.
“You threaten fines and legal action on multiple fronts for a problem created by both your actions and your continued inaction,” the letter says.
State officials also noted that the state has made $24 million available to Spokane to provide housing for Camp Hope residents. Any costs associated with removing nuisances – trash and other detritus – from Camp Hope will represent a mere fraction of that amount, the letter notes.
“The state will not entertain reimbursement discussions,” the letter says.
Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward pushed back against the assertion that her administration has done little to address homelessness and noted the city has established four new shelters during her two and a half years in office.
“To make an accusation that the city’s not doing anything is completely inaccurate,” she said. Woodward said she believes the state needs to act faster to pay for surveys of individuals staying at Camp Hope. Those surveys will assess the residents’ needs, which will allow the city to craft housing plans for them, she said.
The mayor also stressed that winter is approaching and people must be moved away from Camp Hope quickly.
“We also need to create an expectation for individuals in the encampment that at some point they’re not going to be able to camp there any longer,” Woodward said.
The three state agencies said that finding housing for people at Camp Hope will take months, not weeks.
Unrelated to the letter from the state, the Spokane Fire Department on Tuesday issued a notice demanding the homeless services provider Jewels Helping Hands take down the tent at Camp Hope that it uses as a resource access hub.
The fire department has said that Jewels Helping Hands did not receive a permit to construct the tent.
If Jewels Helping Hands fails by Thursday to remove the tent, which served as a cooling center during the heat of summer, the city will begin assessing a fine of $536 per day for every day it continues to be occupied.
Jewels Helping Hands Executive Director Julie Garcia said she has no intentionof taking the tent down.
“I’m unwilling to put the progress that we’ve all created down because of money,” Garcia said. “We’ll figure out the money part, but those 600 peoples’ lives and their experience exiting homelessness matters. These people can no longer be pawns in this political garbage game.”
The city of Spokane and state agencies will meet Wednesday to discuss their Camp Hope response. Colin Tiernan can be reached at (509) 459-5039 or at colint@spokesman.com.
Council passes emergency air quality ordinance
By Colin Tiernan
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Two weeks ago, Spokane’s skies turned gray as wildfire smoke from afar wafted over the city and plunged the region’s air quality into the “very unhealthy” range.
Blue skies have returned, but this month’s smoke convinced the Spokane City Council to amend city law and make it easier for people to seek refuge when the air outside becomes unhealthy to breathe.
On Monday, the council unanimously approved an emergency ordinance that requires the city to provide shelter space when air quality reaches 201 on the Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality index. Air quality is considered to be “very unhealthy” when it exceeds 200.
Under the previous version of the law, Spokane didn’t have to provide shelter space until the air quality index hit 250. Officials often cancel outdoor school activities and youth sporting events at the 150 threshold, which marks the beginning of the “unhealthy” category on the air quality index.
“Two-hundred-and-fifty is really too high,” Spokane City Councilman Zack Zappone said.
Monday’s ordinance updates the emergency weather law the City Council passed last year, which is primarily aimed at protecting homeless individuals. The city has not had to activate any safe air centers since the ordinance was adopted.
Spokane’s emergency weather law doesn’t just require the city to provide shelter when air quality plummets. It also requires the city to provide individuals with shelter during times of extreme heat or cold. Spokane must activate warming shelters when temperatures fall below freezing and low-barrier shelters, those that don’t impose a requirement of sobriety on guests, are at 90% capacity. The city has to open cooling shelters when temperatures are forecast at 95 degrees or higher on two consecutive days.
Zappone said an emergency ordinance lowering the threshold for activating safe air centers was needed because air quality could fall to “very unhealthy” levels again before the end of the year.
“We are still in smoke season,” he said.
When air quality reaches the “very unhealthy” category, the city will provide shelter space in the Trent Resource and Assistance Center, a newly opened facility designed to provide housing for the homeless. Colin Tiernan can be reached at (509) 459-5039 or at colint@spokesman. com.
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KREM
SPOKANE, Wash. — After the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) sent a letter to the city of Spokane stating they would not clear the homeless camp near I-90, neighbors in that area have been left disappointed.
Neighbors living near the I-90 and Freya homeless camp have been living with increased crime, increased noise and an increased mess for months.
In an effort to dig deeper into the story, KREM 2 spoke with one woman living near the camp to get a better understanding of what neighbors are forced to deal with. She asked to not be identified due to fear of retaliation.
The woman KREM 2 spoke with lives less than one block from the homeless encampment. From the first day she moved in less than a year ago, she's been experiencing problems. According to her, living near the homeless encampment is turning into a crisis.
"Early in the morning, it is pretty disgusting when the RVs go around the block before daylight and have the valve to their sewer open to let all that sewage out as they drive around the block," she said. "It's a bad place. The first week I was there I got batteries stolen off of my vehicles. Everything's getting broken into."
One of the more disturbing problems she encounters is raw human waste being dumped in the streets and, sometimes, in front yards.
"I had an RV parked alongside my house and they just opened up the valve," she recalled. "They'd let it go anywhere, and it's really horrid. I don't know what else to say other than it's gross. It's really disgusting."
According to the woman, this is a regular occurrence, happening at least two to three times a week.
"It's really ignorant, first of all, but then the city has to come out and clean and spray the streets down with bleach," she said. "It's pretty disgusting. I've had people that'll just puke all over my lawn or my yard and they don't care. And I reported it and it doesn't do a damn bit of good."
Police regularly patrol the area, but the woman KREM 2 spoke with said officers have continued telling her to report problems. However, she said nothing has changed and the problem is getting worse.
"This has escalated to where it is a hazardous health concern for all of us, even the homeless people," she said. "The city officers babysitting from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. is not enough. Because the minute that those officers leave at 7 p.m., it is firepits, loud music, parking lot of traffic, every little bit of nuisance that can go on does go on."
According to her, it's time for the city and the state of Washington to do more.
"I'm tired of being treated like I'm remedial, or I'm a nuisance because I call so much," she said. "I think that those people just need to move on."
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KHQ
SPOKANE, Wash. - While there's a lot of back and forth about the future of the Camp Hope in Spokane, one agency is putting its foot down.
Over the last 10 months, the people at Camp Hope have survived the winter and the unforgiving heat this summer, but now the Spokane Fire Department is putting an end to one piece of that, saying the 2,000 foot cooling shelter needs to be taken down by Thursday, September 22nd.
Jewels Helping Hands says the fire department sent them a letter, saying if the tent doesn't come down, there will be a daily fine of $536.
When the tent was set up back in July, the City Fire Marshal never issued a permit for it, because the Department of Transportation didn't approve for it to be on their land.
The city has been saying it's a fire hazard ever since, but the DOT said they wouldn't enforce the need to close it, because the nearest cooling shelter was more than a mile away.
We asked Julie Garcia, with Jewels Helping Hands, how she felt about potential fines if they kept the shelter up, and she sent KHQ a statement, saying "We will continue to work on providing meaningful solutions with all participating services. If they feel it necessary to fine us, so be it."
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KXLY
September 20, 2022 5:40 PM
Updated: September 20, 2022 6:12 PM
SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane Police are now clearing the streets downtown, but making meaningful change in addressing homelessness is still a challenge.
SPD can now enforce sit-and-lie rules and have even more power to clear camps. On Monday, the City Council voted to give police the authority to stop camping regardless of shelter space if they think it’s dangerous for the person or public.
For Officer Greg Thompson, “sit and lie is more or less just a tool.”
It’s a tool he’s using to help people living on the streets find something safer.
When 4 News Now went on patrol with SPD on Tuesday morning, we started off in the back alley right next to Hope House. The shelter was feet away from where tents were propped up. Some women told police they have a shelter bed but prefer staying out here instead.
With everyone they connected with, officers offered to give people a ride to the new Trent Shelter. One gentleman declined the offer and ended up getting arrested. Police say he had numerous other outstanding warrants.
On their daily patrols, officers say people usually pack up and move along most of the time, but that doesn’t mean they’re moving out of homelessness.
“It seems like they’re not wanting to make the change,” Thompson said.
Another big issue for officers is meeting the same people downtown. They just move to a different spot, and very few accept the offer to go to a shelter.
“A lot of them are drug addicted,” Thompson pointed out.
Needles line the ground, and police say drug use is rampant. Officers are also using these patrols as a welfare check. Downtown police recently found a man “in the alley, covered in a blanket, covered in flies.” Police say that man was on the brink of death before they found him.
So far, Officer Thompson hasn’t issued a single citation. He thinks the new enforcement is helping clear the downtown core but is worried about where it’s going.
“We’re seeing those people that were in the downtown core where it’s enforceable for sit and lie, we’re seeing them move outside of that,” he added.
He knows this patrol won’t fix homelessness on its own. Police can’t force people into drug treatment or into a shelter, but officers are still making rounds, meeting people who Thompson says he wants to help find a better life so they aren’t sleeping on the streets.