9/8/2022
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The Spokesman-Review
Trent shelter quietly opens its doors
City resumes ban on sitting, lying on public sidewalks
KREM
The Center Square
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The Spokesman-Review
Trent shelter quietly opens its doors
By Greg Mason
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
The city of Spokane’s new homeless shelter on Trent Avenue saw 36 people stay there on its first night, according to the Guardians Foundation, the shelter’s operator.
That included 13 who indicated they came from the Camp Hope tent city in east Spokane, including at least a few transported via the Spokane Party Bus. While the Guardians Foundation has worked with the Party Bus in the past, this particular use has some calling for shelter operators and city officials to read the room.
Months in the making, the Trent Resource and Assistance Center at 4320 E. Trent Ave. officially opened Tuesday with 75 beds. The low-barrier shelter, which does not require sobriety of guests, is building up to 150 beds, with space for mats to handle additional capacity as needed. The facility can also be used in excessive heat, cold or smoke.
The Guardians Foundation is managing the shelter’s day-to-day operations as part of a contract with the city that will continue through 2023. That contract was approved by the Spokane City Council in late August, giving the foundation a week to get the facility up and running.
“According to what other staff members have said, this one has gone smoother than Cannon,” shelter director Brad Baker said. “Quite honestly, even though we had one week to prepare for opening, I guess that’s longer than we’ve had at other openings. Even though a week isn’t really enough time, we did the best that we could with the people that we had, and I think it went smoothly.”
Stephany Stallone, right, and her son, Ivan Stalbun, check the tags on their dog on Wednesday afternoon at the Trent Avenue homeless shelter in Spokane. They spent the night there on Tuesday.
DAN PELLE/ THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
Baker said the opening went without incident, though staff is still working out internet access for guests. There was also something wrong with the shower trailer as of 1 p.m. Wednesday; Baker said the Guardians Foundation is in the process of getting transportation to the Cannon Street shelter for showers until that issue is fixed.
The shelter’s population by 5 p.m. Wednesday had grown to 40, including 16 who indicated they were from Camp Hope, city spokesman Brian Coddington said.
That included Stephany Stallone, who was at the shelter with her son, Ivan Stalbun, and their dog.
The 64-year-old Stallone, who primarily speaks Russian, said she used to work as a caretaker for her mother until her mother’s death last month. Stallone said the family was turned away at one point by a shelter that doesn’t accept dogs.
While her time at the camp was “very good,” Stallone said she has thus far found the Trent shelter to be much better.
City officials identified the Trent shelter as a component in their plan to relocate the people living at Camp Hope into better housing.
Only 51 of 601 Camp Hope residents tallied in a Jewels Helping Hands poll in July, however, indicated they would be willing to go to a shelter, depending on the operator. In that same poll, 534 people reported they had previous interventions with a homeless support agency.
While Spokane officials and Guardians Foundation representatives weren’t sure coming into opening day how many people would initially take to the Trent shelter, they are expecting the center’s popularity to grow as word of mouth spreads.
Similarly, city officials and shelter operators have described Tuesday as a “soft opening,” as the city is working to land another agency separate from the Guardians to provide services such as case management, mental health resources and job training.
Mayor Nadine Woodward said Tuesday that negotiations are ongoing with the Revive Center for Returning Citizens to provide those services.
“I’m interested to see how it goes from here on out,” Woodward said Tuesday of the shelter. “A lot of work by staff, a lot of hours, planning, challenges, setbacks, compromises to process – to finally get here is a real achievement by all of those that have been a part of this.”
To get at least a few people from Camp Hope to the Trent center, the Guardians Foundation got assistance from the Spokane Party Bus – an arrangement that caused something of a stir, particularly across social media, due to the vehicle’s festive appearance.
Coddington said the bus was used Tuesday “as a one-time thing.” The foundation’s Americans with Disabilities Act accessible bus was in use Tuesday as part of another contract the Guardians Foundation has with Spokane County to shuttle people in need of Salvation Army isolation services, he said.
Coddington said the Party Bus was used not only as a method of transportation for people at Camp Hope, but with anyone else around the community who wanted to go to the Trent shelter.
The Party Bus is coowned by Chauncy “The Hillyard Hammer” Welliver and his wife, Sarah. Welliver reportedly works with the Guardians Foundation.
Requests for comment to the Spokane Party Bus were not immediately returned Wednesday.
Ed Stevenson, who founded Life Recovery Solutions, said while it’s important to get people to the Trent center, using the Party Bus is “probably about the blindest move anybody could make.”
“I think that’s a huge blunder to use a bus that says ‘Party Bus’ to transport people to a homeless shelter,” he said.
“My thoughts on the shelter is they’re never going to fill it up because … they’ve become a family there at Camp Hope, and I would be shocked if they got 100 people in there.”
Responding to Stevenson’s emailed concerns about the bus, Councilwoman Karen Stratton said she was “saddened and embarrassed” by the decision to use the Party Bus.
Coddington said anyone concerned with the Party Bus is “missing the bigger picture.”
“The bigger picture is we’ve got people living out in the elements, on streets … in unsafe and inhumane environments,” Coddington said. “This is all about moving people out of those unsafe environments into a sheltered location that provides them with a bed, a roof, meals and connectivity to services.”
Baker echoed those sentiments.
“I guess the important thing was to have people have the ability to get here and make it easy for them,” he said. “And yeah, I understand that there may be some difficulty with the optics. Ultimately, the intention was to help people get here and help them get here safely.”
Greg Mason can be reached at (509) 459-5047 or gregm@spokesman.com.
City resumes ban on sitting, lying on public sidewalks
By Greg Mason
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
The city of Spokane on Wednesday resumed enforcement of a ban on sitting and lying on public sidewalks for most of the day in a roughly half-squaremile part of downtown Spokane.
The ban prohibits sitting and lying on a public sidewalk – or on a blanket, chair, stool or any other object placed on a sidewalk – from 6 a.m. to midnight in an area that extends from around Maple Street to Division Street and Spokane Falls Boulevard to Interstate 90.
“We are setting an expectation that individuals take advantage of the opportunities available to them to receive services in a safe, healthy, and humane environment,” Mayor Nadine Woodward said in a statement Wednesday. “Our downtown needs to be a safe and healthy place for everyone and living on streets, alleyways, viaducts, and fields is not in anyone’s best interest.”
There are a number of exceptions to the rule, such as for anyone who operates a business with permission to occupy the sidewalk; people attending parades, festivals or similar events so long as those events are properly permitted; sitting in a bus stop zone; and anyone engaged in “constitutionally protected expressive activities.”
Anyone who is homeless is also exempt when shelter space is unavailable.
Woodward said Wednesday she decided to resume the sit-lie enforcement measures with the opening of the Trent Resource and Assistance Center, the new city-owned homeless shelter on East Trent Avenue.
The center, which opened Tuesday with 75 beds, is working toward a minimum 150-bed capacity with room for more as needed.
“Our first priority is to get individuals connected to services that will help them take their next steps in their homelessness journey,” Woodward said in her statement. “Adding the enforcement element presents those who are reluctant to accept help with an option and an opportunity.”
The sit-lie ordinance is separate from another city ordinance that prohibits unauthorized camping.
That ordinance, which the city is not enforcing at this time, bans camping on public property.
The city has not enforced the sit-lie ordinance or the unauthorized camping regulations for at least a year due in part to federal precedent set by Martin v. Boise requiring cities to have adequate shelter space to enforce such laws.
“Both of those ordinances are meant as tools, but they’re narrow tools. They’re for people who have options and willfully disregard them, and that’s only a portion of the population right now,” Spokane City Council President Breean Beggs said. “It’s not a panacea for homeless people trying to find shelter wherever they can.”
City spokesman Brian Coddington said officials decided to hold off on resuming enforcement of the camping ordinance since the City Council is set to vote Monday on major revisions to the regulations. No such revisions are planned at this time for the sit-lie ordinance.
“Rather than create additional confusion, we just emphasized sit and lie, but camping could be enforced as well because of that availability of shelter space,” Coddington said. “There’s already confusion on the two (ordinances) about whether they’re connected or separate.”
Enforcement of the sit-lie ordinance will be based on shelter availability the night before, or by a phone call by police officers to appropriate shelters.
“If (officers are) talking to an individual on the street and make a phone call to a shelter and there is space available, that documentation or that report is enough to enforce sit and lie,” Coddington said. “Provided that if they’re talking to a man, there’s space for a man, and if they’re talking to a woman, there’s space for women.”
With Trent open, Woodward said her administration anticipates the region’s shelter system will have enough capacity for all demographics to allow the city to enforce the sit-lie ordinance for the foreseeable future.
The mayor said Spokane police performed outreach last week to let people know not only about the opening of the Trent center, but that sit-lie enforcement would begin this week.
While the region’s shelter system has availability throughout the summer, Woodward said they have typically been available only to men.
“With women, we’ve struggled in the past to have availability. If there were two spots available for a woman last night, just as an example, probably the general rule would be that using last night’s capacity would not be enough. They’d want to check with the shelter to make sure those spots were available,” Coddington said. “If there were several dozen spots available, that would be different.”
Beggs, who was informed late Wednesday morning by the administration of the resumed enforcement, said shelter availability had been limited this summer for couples as well.
While the Trent center is open, Beggs said he hopes to see the shelter soon add a services provider, while the city has requested funding from the state to add more beds in the form of 60 two-person private “pod” units.
“It’s hard because people are in crisis, they’re poor and they can’t afford housing, and they’re going to be moved along from one spot in the city to another,” Beggs said.
“The most effective thing is more shelter, more services. The community is trying to come together to build that infrastructure. We just don’t have enough yet.” Greg Mason can be reached at (509) 459-5047 or gregm@spokesman.com.
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KREM
Under Spokane's current ordinance, camping is not allowed on public property and a person cannot sit or lie on the sidewalk between 6 a.m. and midnight.
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SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward announced Wednesday that the city will begin enforcing its new sit and lie ordinance in the downtown area effective immediately.
Under Spokane's current illegal camping ordinance, camping is not allowed on public property and a person cannot sit or lie on the sidewalk between 6 a.m. and midnight. However, the ordinance is also not enforced if there is no shelter space.
“We are setting an expectation that individuals take advantage of the opportunities available to them to receive services in a safe, healthy, and humane environment,” Woodward said in a statement. “Our downtown needs to be a safe and healthy place for everyone and living on streets, alleyways, viaducts, and fields is not in anyone’s best interest.”
Spokane police began telling homeless residents that the new shelter on Trent Avenue would be open last week, according to Woodward. Police also began informing people of the city's available resources.
“Our first priority is to get individuals connected to services that will help them take their next steps in their homelessness journey,” Woodward said in a statement. “Adding the enforcement element presents those who are reluctant to accept help with an option and an opportunity.”
Woodward announced proposed changes to the city's camping and sit and lie ordinances that will limit when and where people are allowed to camp on city property in July. During a press conference, she said Spokane makes it easy for people to be homeless and said officials need to focus on getting homeless individuals into assistance rather than pushing them around the city.
The city's camping ordinance has not been updated since 2018 and the sit and lie ordinance has not been updated since 2014. The current ordinance prohibits camping on city-owned public property when there is not enough shelter space.
Both the city council and the mayor's proposals called for removing the blanket exemption "when shelter space is unavailable." Both also allow for enforcement at all times in some specified locations.
Both proposals would also enforce the camping ordinance in the following areas:
Within 100 feet of railroad viaducts
Within 35 feet of the Spokane River
All city parks and city-owned property
Both proposals also have no effect on people camping on private or state-owned land, meaning the people camping in the lot near I-90 would be exempt from both ordinances.
The mayor's proposed changes, however, take the ordinance a step further. Woodward's proposed changes would expand enforcement to within a half-mile of city-supported congregate shelters, as well as within the boundaries of the Business Improvement District and the downtown police precinct.
Under Woodward's proposal, camping would be illegal from Cataldo Avenue to the railroad tracks near First Avenue, from Walnut to North Division, from the north bank of Riverfront Park to I-90 and from Sherman out to near Inland Empire Highway.
Spokane City Council is set to consider updates to the unauthorized camping ordinance during its next meeting on Monday night.
One homeless resident in Spokane, Oliver Stuart, says he is not worried about the sit and lie ordinances because he is disabled, an exception according to the Spokane Municipal Code. However, Stuart says he understands why the mayor is bringing the ordinance back.
"There are people that won't even move for people that are coming down the sidewalk and I think that's messed up," Stuart said. "Little kids being pushed in strollers and people will just leave their crap all over the place. If I was a parent and a regular part of society I'd be pissed too if I had to walk in the road."
When asked why he was still living in the streets and not in a bed at the Trent shelter, Stuart had this to say.
"I just don't like being around that many people because they are slobs," Stuart said. "So many of the homeless are just slobs and they are gross."
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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 Valley recently opted out of the scramble by area agencies to meet a 30-day deadline set by the Department of Commerce to submit plans for relocation of a large homeless encampment on state land.
The city was in the process of developing its own comprehensive plan to address homelessness and officials decided to stay on that course.
“A solution is a plan that is structured and implemented in a way that will get results,” said Councilor Arne Woodard when that decision was made in July.
The council was briefed by Eric Robinson, housing and homeless coordinator, about the development status of the city’s Community Homeless Action Plan Tuesday.
He said the plan was still being reviewed internally and then would be shared with community stakeholders for feedback. The purpose of the plan, said Robinson, was to outline goals and strategies to keep people housed whenever possible, help the homeless get needed services to stabilize their lives and assist businesses in mitigating the impacts of urban camping.
Robinson provided background about how data was being gathered to help the city determine its direction. He said the city’s GIS analyst had created two tools to track information about people encountered by Outreach Specialist Amanda Boyer, Deputy Josh Pratt, the sole officer assigned to work on homelessness issues, or other staffers.
The first survey tool is a phone app that allows the city to record information about where people they encounter come from and what type of situations they are in, i.e., sheltered, living in camps or vehicles.
The second tool, also a phone app, pinpoints the location of camps and helps organize cleanup efforts and code enforcement.
“These apps are critical for helping us understand the scope and details around who is experiencing homelessness and where in our community,” said Robinson.
He said 292 contacts have been made through the two apps and about 62% of respondents claim to have lived in Spokane Valley before becoming homeless. What outreach officials have learned, he said, is that there are not enough resources to assist people in Spokane Valley, most are forced to travel to Spokane for services, and that creates a hardship if they don’t have transportation.
Woodard gained agreement from the council that more conversations with county officials needs to take place about how Spokane Valley’s share of recording fees collected by the state were being used. These monies must be dedicated to getting people off the street. He said there needs to be more resources available locally for homeless people who identified the city as their hometown.
“I think we as a community have some work to do,” he said.
Robinson confirmed that discussion was taking place. He said that conversation was important given that the City of Spokane opening the new Trent Avenue shelter for up to 250 people – and more during extreme weather - near the western border of Spokane Valley was expected to bring more people into town.
In addition, the disbanding of Camp Hope on state Department of Transportation land in Spokane was also expected to send hundreds more people into surrounding areas.
One of the bigger challenges with local encampments, said Robinson, is that many are on DOT, Department of Natural Resource and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad lands, which the city has no jurisdiction over. He said conversations were taking place with the two public agencies about enforcing no-camping rules and covering the cost of cleanup efforts. Reaching BNSF for the same discussion had proven difficult given that its corporate headquarters and top administrators were out-of-state.
Spokane Valley collected 68,400 pounds of trash from camp sites across town between January and July of this year, so cleanup costs were not insignificant, said Robinson.
What the outreach team learned during interviews of homeless people, said Robinson, was that the lack of affordable housing in the area played a role in sending lower-income people to the streets.
That was one of the top concerns expressed in the annual Point in Time count last spring that found a total of 1,757 homeless people in Spokane County, 823 of which were unhoused.
Robinson said 13% of people counted indicated they had last been housed in Spokane Valley, which was in line with internal estimates of 100-120 homeless in the city at any given time. There are currently no shelters in the city and no options for long-term parking or pet care for homeless persons and families.
According to Robinson, a major focus this year has been on developing partnerships to address the many facets of homelessness. The chamber of commerce has helped create materials for businesses about what they can do stop people from sleeping in stairwells and address other problems. Various providers have helped coordinate transitional housing for people or get them into treatment for addictions and mental illness.
Pratt said the outreach team has helped 37 people who chose to stabilize their lives this year get the help they needed. He and Robinson felt optimistic that, with the right system in place, more people could overcome barriers that had sent them to the streets.