9/2/2022
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The Spokesman-Review
KREM
KXLY
The Center Square
RangeMedia
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The Spokesman-Review
By Greg Mason
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Months in the making, the city of Spokane’s new homeless shelter on East Trent Avenue is set to open Tuesday.
Dozens on Thursday attended an open house to tour the Trent Resource and Assistance Center at 4320 E. Trent Ave., which can fit 150 beds with space for mats to handle additional capacity as needed, said Mike Shaw, CEO and founder of the Guardians Foundation, the facility’s operator. Brad Baker, a Guardians program manager, will serve as director of the shelter, which will have limited entry requirements for guests.
The Trent shelter is an element of the city’s plan to relocate people from the Camp Hope homeless encampment on state Department of Transportation land at Second Avenue and Ray Street. The shelter will also be used as needed during heat, cold or smoke emergencies.
And while the Guardians Foundation intends to have vehicles Tuesday afternoon at Camp Hope to transport anyone who wants to go, Shaw and city officials are unsure how many people in general – let alone from the encampment – will take to the shelter from the get-go.
“I truly believe that most of the people at Camp Hope, 45 to 50% of them, are in that outdoor transient lifestyle,” Shaw said. “I believe another 20% are there because they’re not being harassed for their motor homes and whatnot. And I believe another 10% there, that they wouldn’t go to a shelter no matter what.
“But I do believe there’s a population there that don’t want to be there anymore. It’s just getting old,” he continued, “and when they come in here and see a bed and food and peace and quiet, I think they’ll realize, ‘Yeah, this is a good thing for me.’ ” Ellen Smith, the Guardians Foundation’s director of administration, said she anticipates the population to build over time as other shelters have.
“Word of mouth for any shelter is huge,” she said.
In the months since the property was identified by Mayor Nadine Woodward as a potential shelter in April, Spokane officials temporarily changed the city’s zoning regulations to allow shelters in heavy industrial zones, entered into a five-year lease with the warehouse’s property owner and went through a hiring process that ended with contracting the Guardians Foundation to run the facility.
City officials are still looking for an agency to provide social services for shelter residents, such as case management and help with finding mental health resources or job training.
John Hall, director of the city’s Neighborhood, Housing and Human Services department, said negotiations are continuing with Revive Center for Returning Citizens to provide those services. Hall said he anticipates introducing a services contract to the Spokane City Council during the council’s Finance and Administration Committee meeting Sept. 19, with hopes of a council vote the following week.
“We’re hoping as many people from the WSDOT right of way will come over on Tuesday, but realistically, it’ll probably be a small intake of people,” Hall said. “But if 150 people show up, Guardians will be ready. If it’s 20 or 50, they’ll be ready.”
The majority of the warehouse space Thursday was occupied by groupings of beds separated by partition walls based on the following demographics: Men, women, couples/ families, workers and LGBTQ individuals. Sections have changing tents for privacy.
The city is hoping to obtain funding from the state Department of Commerce to expand the Trent shelter with 60 two-person enclosed rooms as well as upgraded bathrooms, showers, kitchen and laundry facilities.
Until those renovations take place, however, Trent Jonathan Bingle
Spokane City Councliman
is equipped with a dozen portable restrooms and six stalls in a shower trailer, said city spokesman Brian Coddington.
The showers in the trailer are not Americans with Disabilities Act compliant, however, Hall said. As such, Shaw said anyone with mobility issues will be transported to the Cannon Street shelter – which the Guardians also operates – to shower there, and will be asked to stay there.
Conversely, anyone staying at the Cannon Street shelter who doesn’t have mobility issues will have to move to Trent, he said.
“What we’re going to focus on is the sick and lame over at Cannon and the elderly. … We hope to get them over to Cannon where we have all of those handicapped services there for them,” he said. “This is all handicapped (accessible) too. It’s just not as handicapped compatible as Cannon.”
Beyond building up the shelter’s stock of beds, Shaw said other major improvements needed include installing internet and cable infrastructure as well as security cameras in the building.
Councilman Jonathan Bingle described the warehouse as “warmer” than what he imagined after touring the facility before the improvements.
“It’s still concrete and metal, and it probably should be considering what happened to the convention center downtown,” he said, referring to the damage sustained by the Spokane Convention Center when it was used as a warming center last winter. “I’m just glad that it’s going to be open and they’re going to have a space. Winter is coming, and it’s going to be cold.”
Councilwoman Betsy Wilkerson said, “It is a start. How confident I am that it’s going to produce the type of outcomes we were hoping for, I’m still very unsure about that.”
Randy McGlenn, chair of the East Central Neighborhood Council, said while Thursday’s open house gave the impression that the Guardians Foundation has a lot more work to do ahead of Tuesday, he’s hopeful the shelter will work out – as are a lot of East Central businesses, he added.
“I certainly would like to come back when it’s operating and more complete to see what that’s really looking like,” he said. “I know this isn’t a perfect solution, but at least it’s something that’s going in the right direction … This is just one piece of the puzzle, obviously.”
Greg Mason can be reached at (509) 459-5047 or gregm@spokesman.com.
Visitors walk through the entrance of the city’s new homeless shelter, the Trent Resource and Assistance Center, at 4320 E. Trent Ave., on Thursday in Spokane. The former warehouse is being set up to accept those needing shelter as soon as Tuesday.
JESSE TINSLEY/ THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
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KREM
KREM 2 had the chance to speak with Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward during a tour of the shelter. It is the first time anyone has seen the inside of the shelter.
SPOKANE, Wash. — The new homeless shelter on Trent Avenue in Spokane has been in the works for more than a year, and the shelter will officially open its doors on Tuesday.
However, the project is far from finished.
It is still unclear how many people who are currently staying at the homeless encampment on I-90 and Freya Street will go to the shelter. Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward said the new facility is meant to be another option for those campers, but added it isn't the solution to clear out the camp.
KREM 2 had the chance to speak with Mayor Woodward during a tour of the shelter. This is the first time anyone has had a chance to view the inside of the shelter.
First look: Trent homeless shelter
Below is a full transcript of the interview.
Whitney Ward
Do you have indoor plumbing yet?
Mayor Nadine Woodward
Inside plumbing for the offices.
Whitney Ward
So not yet for showers or restrooms?
Mayor Nadine Woodward
No. You can see the Porta Potties right here. There will be a dozen Porta Potties, two ADA compliant. And we will have shower trailers out here.
Whitney Ward
Is that going to be the permanent solution? Or is this just temporary?
Mayor Nadine Woodward
It's temporary. We are hoping that Commerce will fund restrooms that would be constructed inside, along with laundry facilities.
Whitney Ward
How much of the Commerce funding will eventually go toward this Trent facility?
Mayor Nadine Woodward
We don't know yet. So right now they're looking at a reimbursement program. They want to make sure that the people who are coming here are coming from the encampment on the WSDOT property. That's not a permanent solution, so they won't get to stay there permanently.
Whitney Ward
What kind of outreach have you guys been doing already to try and entice some of those campers there? To get them here?
Mayor Nadine Woodward
Well, the outreach has been with the street teams, the outreach teams with different providers. But it's the assessment that will happen first. Some of them will be amenable to coming here. Some of them won't, but we do believe that once people start coming here and the outreach teams come here to see what we're offering that more people will accept the shelter as an option for them.
Whitney Ward
So clearly, this is just part of the equation with the ultimate goal, of course of trying to get that camp cleared out completely. What is the timeline for some of these other alternatives like the Sunset Hill project?
Mayor Nadine Woodward
Well, it sounds like as soon as the Quality Inn purchase closes, that would be transitioned within 60 days.
Whitney Ward
Do you think you're going to be able to enforce "sit and lie" after this?
Mayor Nadine Woodward
Oh, absolutely. And we are getting close with the council to move over the finish line and a revised illegal camping ordinance as well.
Whitney Ward
Do you feel like you and council are communicating well, and negotiating and compromising on that issue?
Mayor Nadine Woodward
There has been compromise because we had different ideas on what that should look like. But we have compromised and we've leaned in on the common ground. I think there's going to be more work to do. Even though this is a revised ordinance, it can be revised again as we move along and see if this is working. Is it enough? Are we seeing the impact that we want to? If not, we can go back to the table and talk about it.
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KXLY
Posted: September 1, 2022 1:41 PM Updated: September 1, 2022 8:01 PM by Erin Robinson
SPOKANE, Wash. – Two members of the Spokane City Council have put forward a new proposal to update the city’s camping code.
Council President Breean Beggs and Councilwoman Lori Kinnear say the city’s existing camping code needs to be brought into better alignment with the Martin v. City of Boise ruling.
Martin v. City of Boise was a 9th circuit ruling in 2019. It maintains that cities cannot enforce anti-camping ordinances if they do not have shelter beds for their homeless population.
“The City of Spokane has not updated its illegal camping code since Martin was decided and has been unable to enforce illegal camping in public rights-of-way because the City has not provided an adequate number of shelter beds,” a release from the Council said.
Beggs and Kinnear’s proposal includes the following:
Prohibits camping at all times, regardless of the availability of shelter space, underneath or within 50 feet of any railroad viaduct located within the Spokane Police Department’s Downtown Precinct boundary and within three blocks of any congregate shelter;
Prohibits camping at all times, regardless of the availability of shelter space, anywhere in the City where an officer can document that the activity poses a substantial danger to any person, an immediate threat, and/or an unreasonable risk of harm to public health or safety, or a disruption to vital government services; and
Prohibits camping along the banks of the Spokane River and Latah Creek unless there is no available shelter space.
Councilmen Jonathan Bingle and Michael Cathcart, with the support of Mayor Nadine Woodward, put forward a proposal earlier that had some similarities but was a bit stricter on where camping would be banned.
In their proposal, they suggested camping be banned anywhere in the downtown police precinct district, within a half mile of any shelter or in the business improvement districts. The council voted to defer a vote on this suggested ordinance indefinitely.
“This ordinance gives our police officers the authority to enforce illegal camping downtown and throughout our neighborhoods, especially in situations where it poses a threat to public health and safety,” said Kinnear. “This proposal is the result of months of collaboration and compromise between Council Members, City Administration, and community stakeholders. I’m confident these updates put our community in a better position to enforce illegal camping.”
“The easiest path forward is to provide adequate shelter beds in Spokane,” said Beggs “But until the City accomplishes that, this allows Code Enforcement and Police to promptly address demonstrated safety and public health concerns in a manner that is sufficiently tailored to comply with the Ninth Circuit’s standard of when it allows criminal prosecution for illegal camping.”
The announcement of the latest proposal comes on the heels of the City Council finalizing a deal with The Guardians Foundation to operate a new homeless shelter on E. Trent Ave. That shelter is set to open within a few days.
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The Center Square
A large homeless camp has been set up on state Department of Transportation land along East Second Avenue in Spokane. Called “Camp Hope," the site has drawn 400 to 500 people. Spokane County has been offered $24.3 million by the state Department of Commerce to relocate people from the camp to shelters and other locations.
Photo courtesy of Sheldon Jackson
(The Center Square) – Spokane City Councilor Michael Cathcart doesn’t believe 30 days to come up with a plan to move more than 600 people out of a homeless camp on state land was enough time to address the concerns of residents and government leaders alike.
He has drafted a letter to the state Department of Commerce, which offered $24.3 million to relocate the people in Camp Hope, asking to reopen the discussion about how that funding can be used.
“I’m not necessarily asking anything stops, comes to a halt. I don’t think there’s any language in the letter that says that, but, really, just let’s have a conversation,” he informed members of the Public Safety & Community Health Committee on Monday.
His move to restart the conversation about where to place hundreds of homeless follows backlash by many West Hills residents against Catholic Charities’ plan to transform the Quality Inn on Sunset Highway into emergency housing. They have expressed fears about crime activity growing as it has around Camp Hope, and property values being driven down.
Catholic Charities’ project involves turning the motel into apartments for 100 to 120 homeless men and women. Some of them will come from Camp Hope, which is located on Washington Department of Transportation property near Interstate 90. The new facility will not be a walk-in shelter, the occupants will be referred from area service providers and screened and selected based on their likelihood of success in the housing situation.
The Department of Commerce announced last month that Catholic Charities would receive a $6.5 million award to buy the property from Surmohin Hotel, LLC. The organization has requested an additional $7.3 million for property rehabilitation and operational costs.
Cathcart said Monday he would like to see a meeting between Commerce and local government leaders and residents in any and all areas that would be affected by relocating the homeless. He would then like a second meeting involving regional partners because homeless people came from many different locations.
“Most importantly, I think we have heard a lot of concerns from folks who don’t feel like they’re being heard,” he said. “Not saying any outcomes would be guaranteed to change, but I think that they deserve a voice and I think that it makes sense that we reengage and have this broad-based conversation.”
He said the letter was not written to represent the entire council and other members could sign on if they agreed.
Only Councilor Jonathan Bingle offered support for the letter at the Aug. 29 meeting. Others expressed reservations about what it would accomplish.
Councilwoman Betsy Wilkerson said she doubts anything would change with another conversation.
“I don’t think there would be any other different outcomes than what there are now because that train has truly left the station and there’s no going back,” Wilkerson said. “The biggest challenge that we have as a city, council and administration, is making sure these people are getting the right information because the information out there is inflammatory.”
Councilor Lori Kinnear was concerned about sending the wrong message to Commerce.
“It feels a little disingenuous to ask for help, but say, ‘No, we don’t want that kind of help; we want it done this way,’” she said.
Commerce announced in June that Spokane County was eligible for the funding. A 10-day deadline for an application about how the millions would be used was set initially, but then extended to 30 days. The county and city scrambled to develop a plan in partnership with Spokane Housing Authority and other public/private entities.
The final plan submitted by Spokane officials to Commerce asked for $34.5 million to house 1,447 people if all projects are approved.
Councilor Karen Stratton said she felt some of the concerns expressed by residents over the Quality Inn included not knowing where Catholic Charities planned to site “House of Charity 2.0.”
The organization and Mayor Nadine Woodward announced in late April that plans were underway to relocate the current House of Charity to a larger campus outside of downtown Spokane, although no location was given.
If moved to a larger site, Catholic Charities anticipates the relocated facility providing shelter for 250-300 men and women instead of being limited to the current 135 beds.
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RangeMedia
Carl Segerstrom
As long as shelters in Spokane have empty beds, the city can remove encampments and issue citations to people sitting, lying and camping on public land.
With the new Trent shelter set to open soon, Spokane’s unhoused people may face even more scrutiny from city enforcement of sit-lie and camping ordinances.
On August 29, the Spokane City Council approved an operating agreement with the Guardians Foundation for the new shelter on Trent Avenue. The converted warehouse is set to open in early September. In this initial phase there will be capacity for about 150 people, or less than a quarter of the residents of Camp Hope.
While the shelter cannot accommodate all of the people living at the encampment, it could allow the city broader authority to criminalize homelessness. As long as the Trent shelter or other shelters in the city have empty beds, the city can remove encampments and issue citations to people sitting, lying and camping on public land and stay in compliance with the Martin v. Boise decision. That 2018 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — whose jurisdiction spans nine western states including Washington — found that criminalizing resting or camping on public property is a violation of the eighth amendment when unhoused people don’t have access to adequate shelter. In late 2019, the US Supreme Court upheld that ruling by refusing to review the Ninth Circuit opinion.
In Spokane, there are two parallel laws that determine where people can legally stay on public property: A 2014 sit and lie ordinance, and a camping ordinance that the city council and mayor’s office have been deliberating updating over the last two months. While council president Breean Beggs said the sit and lie ordinance isn’t currently being considered for revision by the council, updates to the camping ordinance are.
Spokane’s 2014 sit and lie ordinance, which was crafted before the Martin v. Boise decision, already complies with that court ruling. Under the ordinance, people are prohibited from sitting or lying in public areas in the downtown core between 6 a.m. and midnight. However, an exception in the ordinance says the law does not apply to anyone “who is homeless during a time frame when shelter space is unavailable.”
At a July 6 press conference held by Mayor Nadine Woodward, flanked by council members Jonathan Bingle and Michael Cathcart, and alongside downtown business owners and workers, Woodward announced her vision to update camping and sit-lie laws.
“We make it easy to be homeless, and I know that’s not a popular thing for some people to hear,” she said. “These ordinances and their updates are not to push people around, but it is to push them into assistance and into the services that they need to get them off the street, out of viaducts and off of fields.”
During the July press conference, the mayor proposed expanding the footprint of places where camping, sitting and lying were prohibited to encompass additional areas north of the Spokane River that weren’t covered by the 2014 sit-lie law. Following the announcement, Beggs pushed back on the breadth of the mayor’s proposal, telling KREM News that the extent of the proposed bans could violate Martin v. Boise and that the mayor’s proposal was done without adequate collaboration from the council.
After the city’s legal department had serious concerns about both the mayor’s proposal and a separate proposal from the council majority, the city is now considering a new camping ordinance.
In a public safety committee meeting on August 29, Beggs explained the changes in the camping ordinance, which was drafted in collaboration with the mayor’s office. “The main thing that city legal moved away from was these black and white areas where you can’t camp and instead moved to a situation where the police can document why [camping] is a substantial danger or an unreasonable risk to public safety or health,” Beggs said. “They felt like that was going to be way more defensible under the Boise v. Martin standard.”
With the potential of a new camping ordinance on the horizon, the attention shifts to the availability of shelter beds in the community. According to Beggs, there’s generally some shelter availability for men but rarely availability for women and families. The city does not have a public-facing way to track shelter availability in place, which Beggs noted restricts the ability of law enforcement to enforce camping and sit-lie laws.
Beggs says council has been pushing either Spokane Police or shelter operators to report availability and make it publically available, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Right now, the only person actively tracking shelter availability publicly is a community member who posts those updates to a Camp Hope group on Facebook.
The opening of the Trent Shelter next week will add more capacity for women, men and members of the LGBTQ community. With added shelter capacity comes the potential for the city to increase enforcement of sit and lie and anti-camping measures.
That potentially sets up a perverse incentive: If the city administration decides to prioritize the enforcement of sit-lie and anti-camping measures, they’ll be able to do so, as long as there’s nominal capacity at the Trent Shelter. City communications director Brian Coddington confirmed that extra shelter capacity will allow the city to enforce these ordinances: “if the available capacity matches the demographic of the individual(s).”
While the Trent shelter could give the city more leeway to disband camps throughout the city, it isn’t likely to impact the dissolution of Camp Hope. That’s because the encampment is on Washington State Department of Transportation property and the city cannot sweep the camp regardless of available shelter space.
In response to a question about the impact the Trent shelter could have on the city’s response to Camp Hope and the disbanding of the camp, Coddington wrote in an email, “The City is continuing to communicate with WSDOT about how best to connect people camping on its property to safe, healthy, and humane spaces indoors and is awaiting a response from the state Department of Commerce on the totality of the plan to house 650 people.”
The challenges of the Trent Shelter, and a firestorm of resentment from the West Hills community to the proposed conversion of the Quality Inn into a supportive housing facility, are testing the ability of the city and Commerce Department to work together to fund permanent housing and shelters for Spokane’s unhoused community. Despite these challenges, Beggs said he’s optimistic that the city can create housing options for between 600 and 800 beds through the Commerce right-of-way initiative. In addition to that state funded program, he said the city is also making progress on creating 1,000 more permanent affordable housing units within the next two years.
For now, Beggs said, “we're just trying to get there and keep people alive and keep people engaged, and [keep] the community from not losing faith that we can be the city we want to be.”