9/27/2022
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The Spokesman-Review
Corrections officer shortage could force Geiger closure
Fed study shows remote work drove housing, rent price jumps
KREM
KHQ
KXLY
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The Spokesman-Review
Corrections officer shortage could force Geiger closure
By Quinn Welsch
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
A staffing shorting may force Spokane County to close the Geiger Corrections Center in Airway Heights, Detention Services Director Mike Sparber told Spokane County commissioners last week.
As more corrections officers are moved from Geiger to cover shifts at the Spokane County Jail, the department is faced with a problem that, if left unchecked, could shift all of the officers and inmates from Geiger into the already overcrowded county jail, either incrementally or all at once, he said.
“It’s not a very rosy picture, but that’s what it would come down to ... just managing the bed space,” Sparber said.
As the jail reaches pre-COVID numbers in 2022, more officers are also needed, Sparber said. But without those new hires, the jail will need to consistently pull from its ranks at Geiger to staff the jail, which is its main priority, he said.
Detention services programs at Geiger, such as its work crew program, and different floors of the facility would eventually be shut down as a result, he said.
Geiger typically houses lower-level offenders.
“The new hire process is not keeping pace with our attrition,” he said. “It really boils down to what we can handle with the resources we have.”
The Detention Services Department will begin consolidating the two facilities if it loses as few as three or four more corrections officers, Sparber told the commissioners.
The Spokane County jail population reached 844 this August for all of its facilities. Last August that number was 774, and in August 2020 it was 708. In August 2019 it was 934.
“Because of our housing, we have to prioritize the charges and some are released from the jail and some aren’t,” Sparber said.
Sparber added that he would not put the public at risk.
The number of open corrections officers positions has reached an alltime high of 35, he said. Twelve are in the hiring process, but it takes nine months before they are ready for solo duty.
The department has a total of 330 positions with 56 vacancies, which includes corrections officers.
Despite the sign-up bonuses of $7,500 for new hires and $10,000 for lateral hires, fewer people are willing to take the job, Sparber said. Only about 12 or 13 people will show up for the preliminary corrections officer tests, whereas that number used to be 50 or 60, he said.
“It’s a cultural thing,” the department’s human resources director Ashley Steward Cameron told county commissioners.
The job is becoming harder with longer hours and more violent offenders coming into the corrections officers’ care, she said.
“I don’t know if a signon bonus does a whole lot more for us,” she said. “People are tired and burning out quickly.”
The pay for corrections officers ranges from $67,000 to $90,000.
Spokane County Detention Services is also competing with other law enforcement offices for new hires. Sparber said the department is “easy pickings for law enforcement” because they already have some training and background tests.
“We’re more of a feeder for law enforcement, and that’s where people want to be,” Cameron added. “Because so many jobs are opening, we’re just not seeing the level of interest in the correctional facility when there are so many law enforcement positions open.”
Many of the corrections officers are also aging out of the role. More than one-third of the corrections officers in Spokane County are over the age of 50, Sparber said.
Cameron said that many of the department’s staff are taking advantage of the recently provided Washington state paid family leave. As much as 25% of department staff are on leave at any given time, she said.
The problem is compounded as many of the inmates awaiting trial at the Spokane County Jail are not cycling through quickly enough due to a backlog of court cases caused by COVID-19 restrictions from the past two years, Sparber said.
Quinn Welsch can be reached at (509) 459-5469 or by email at quinnw@ spokesman. com.
Fed study shows remote work drove housing, rent price jumps
From staff and wire reports
The shift to working from home drove more than half of the increase in house and rent prices during the pandemic and will likely drive up costs and inflation going forward as the shift becomes permanent, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
“The transition to remote work because of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a key driver of the recent surge in housing prices,” economists Augustus Kmetz and John Mondragon, of the San Francisco Fed, and Johannes Wieland of the University of California, San Diego, wrote in a note published Monday.
House prices increased 24% in the two years ended November 2021, Bloomberg News reported the authors wrote. More than 60% of that increase is attributable to the rise in work from home during the pandemic – a trend that has persisted, with 30% of work still being done from home as of last month.
“This suggests that the fundamentals of housing demand have changed, such that the persistence of remote work is likely to affect the future path of real estate prices and inflation,” the economists wrote.
The authors, who adjusted housing data to account for the migration from expensive cities to more affordable areas that occurred during the pandemic, found that each 1 percentage point increase in remote work results in about a 0.9 percentage point increase in house prices. The impact on rent prices has been identical.
In Spokane County, the median closing price for homes and condos on less than 1 acre was $416,450 in August, a 7.6% increase from $387,000 in August 2021, according to data from the Spokane Association of Realtors.
The rise in remote work and out-of-area residents moving to the Lilac City added to a pandemic homebuying frenzy in Spokane, which the National Association of Realtors predicted in 2020 to be one of the nation’s top-performing housing markets post-pandemic. The Spokane area also saw an increase in remote-work job postings during the pandemic, with the most in-demand industry sectors in professional, scientific and technical services, health care and social assistance and finance and insurance, Michael McBride, business and industry analyst for the Spokane Workforce Council, told The Spokesman Review in June.
The Spokane Workforce Council monitors monthly job postings to determine labor demand via Emsi Burning Glass, a tool that tracks thousands of job-posting websites and companies’ internal web portals. In addition to increasing housing costs, rents in Spokane are up by 38.2% since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, according to rental data tracking site Apartment List. The median rent in Spokane is currently $970 for a one-bedroom unit and $1,310 for a two-bedroom apartment. Spokesman-Review staff writer Amy Edelen contributed to this report.
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KREM
In a weekly newsletter from Jewels Helping Hands, the non-profit said its immediate focus is cleaning around the border of the camp and rearranging RVs.
SPOKANE, Wash. — Jewels Helping Hands is working with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to install a fence around the homeless camp located near I-90 and Freya Street.
This comes after Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said he plans to clear the encampment by Oct. 14.
WSDOT told KREM 2 on Monday the goal is to start setting up the fence later this week. Until then, Jewels Helping Hands is working with people at the I-90 homeless camp to clean up the border to make space for the fence.
In a weekly newsletter from Jewels Helping Hands, the non-profit said its immediate focus is cleaning around the border of the camp and rearranging RVs. That work is nearly done, according to Julie Garcia, the executive director of Jewels Helping Hands.
“As you go around the camp, you'll notice all three sides have moved in three feet,” Garcia said
Once the fence goes up, Garcia said a curfew from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. will go into effect. Those who miss the 8 p.m. curfew will be taken somewhere else for the night.
“We'll have people here who are able to transport people to different places,” Garcia said. “The UGM has offered to help.”
Jewels Helping Hands will also handle security within the camp perimeter.
The city of Spokane just extended its private security contract with Crowd Management Services (CMS) through the end of October. This third-party security focuses on the neighborhood immediately outside the homeless camp on WSDOT property.
In the meantime, the Jewels Helping Hands newsletter is encouraging people staying at the camp to attend upcoming classes in the cooling tent focused on getting everyone “housing ready.”
They’re also helping people replace their social security and identification cards.
Empire Health and the Department of Commerce are currently working with three service providers, including Jewels Helping Hands, to build an assessment tool. This will be used to gather data about each person living at this homeless camp and help determine what resources they need.
At this time, the assessment tool is still being created.
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KHQ
SPOKANE, Wash. - Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich made a bold statement declaring Camp Hope would be cleared in the coming weeks, prompting the twocandidates running for his position gave their insights into the situation on Monday.
“If the people in Camp Hope were living peacefully, then there wouldn’t be a problem with Camp Hope being there, but that is not the case,” Spokane County Undersheriff John Nowels said.
Nowels works alongside Sheriff Knezovich, and said Knezovich’s recent statement about clearing the encampment has brought this issue to the forefront of the community.
“From my viewpoint here, in this entire rhetoric, public safety has to be first,” Nowels said.
Nowels’ opponent, former detective Wade Nelson, agrees the camp needs to close, but when and how is the million-dollar question.
“Nobody wants that camp there, especially the people who live around there,” Nelson said. “But here’s the problem you have: if you just go in there and remove them, where do they go?”
Where do they go? It's a question the city and local law enforcement have been working to answer, especially in recent months while Camp Hope continues to grow, nearly 10 months after its formation.
“Logistically, this is going to be very challenging, and it should have never been allowed to get to this point in the first place,” Nowels said.
With $24 million granted to the City by the Department of Commerce, Nowels believes there are funds to create more shelter options throughout the region for people experiencing homelessness.
“We have the ability to erect temporary structures for the men and women who lived in the armed forces, structures that allow them to be safe, warm, comfortable and sanitary. Why are we not doing that for the law-abiding people inside Camp Hope who just happen to be suffering from homelessness?” suggested Nowels.
Nowels believes the state money needs to be used soon to avoid further crimes inside and around the camp.
“It’s about time that the citizens have said, 'We have enough, we need to have law and order restored into our communities, we need to feel safe in our communities,'” Nowels said.
But Nelson said if the camp is cleared as soon as Sheriff Knezovich intends, the people inside will have nowhere to go, and the problems will migrate to a different part of the city.
“I don’t expect another community member to take on my problem because it’s in my area. We have to come up with a solution so we can really solve it, and not just move it,” Nelson urged.
However, Nowels argues against taking more time. He wants to see productive action taken.
“I want us all to get down and sit down at the table and come up with a solution that says, 'We can do this in the next six weeks, we can provide a safe place for these people to be.' Not a, 'In the next six weeks we’re going to start implementing a solution that’s going to solve the problem in 10 months,'” he said.
On the other hand, Nelson said if he were sheriff right now, he would support the City in their plan to gradually clear the encampment.
“I’m all for letting the plan continue, because it’s already in place. The money is already there, it’s already been funded,” Nelson explained. “ If the plan doesn’t work, then we need to come back together and say we need to find a better solution.”
Both candidates agreed if Camp Hope is cleared and the people living inside want to go to a shelter, there will be resources there to help them move forward in life and out of homelessness. And if those living at the camp choose to not move into a shelter and continue to commit crime, law enforcement will have the right to arrest them.
“If they can’t not commit crime, then they can go to jail,” Nowels said.
Nowels wants to see the need of Spokane's law-abiding citizens put first.
“We have to start putting the safety and our community ahead of the people who would otherwise disrupt that safety,” Nowels said.
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KXLY
September 26, 2022 12:47 PM
Copyright 4 News Now
SPOKANE, Wash. – Notices posted around Camp Hope on Monday show Jewels Helping Hands has no plans to move people off the Department of Transportation property anytime soon.
The notices say JHH and people living at the camp are working with the Washington State Department of Transportation to “stabilize the camp with an immediate focus on cleaning up trash and re-arranging RVs in preparation” for the security fencing.
“The fence will go up sometime this week,” Executive Director of Jewels Helping Hands Julie Garcia said. “They think it will start Wednesday. That’s our date we’re hoping.”
The City of Spokane and now Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich are hoping to clear the camp sooner rather than later. Despite the city setting a deadline, WSDOT has said they have no plans to clear the camp until stable housing is provided to those living there.
Meantime, Knezovich says he will clear the camp by mid-October through a warrant of abatement that is currently being prepared.
“There’s a lot of talk circulating on the news and in social media about the Camp, most of it wrong,” the notices say. “While politicians, law enforcement, and lawyers argue, lets [sic] stay focused on cleaning and organizing the Camp, and building your personal pathway out of homelessness and into something better. If anything important happens, we’ll be the first to let you know.”
The notice also outlines steps JHH is taking to help those living at the camp become “housing ready.”
“With the gate, there’s a curfew, if you aren’t working and don’t have a work release, you can’t leave the camp,” Garcia said. “If you leave, you can’t come back. We have to lock down the facility to ensure the safety of the neighbors as well.”
They offer information on housing resources for those who want to leave the camp. JHH says they have sign-up sheets for both the Trent Shelter and Truth Ministries Men’s Shelter available in a resource tent in the encampment.
“Talk to the staff and put your name on the list of your choice. We’ll arrange to get you there,” the notices say.
JHH is also helping those at the camp sign up for social security and ID cards, which they note is a necessary step for becoming housing ready.
JHH says it is also working to set up several classes – like responsible renter courses and employment expectation classes – to aid in housing readiness.
Read the letter below:
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated WSDOT had already started putting up fencing around the camp. Plans are still in the works. They hope to have them up on Wednesday.