(The Center Square) – Spokane opened a new medical respite facility on Monday as part of its scattered-site homeless model, sparking support and criticisms from the city council around its sudden arrival.
The Lilac City started leveraging the model in October as it decommissioned the Trent Resource and Assistance Center. The Trent Shelter once housed hundreds of individuals, but its closure left many without a roof overhead as temperatures dropped and the new model lagged.
Empire Health Foundation, which operates Spokane’s homeless navigation center and largely controls the new model, told the council in November that things were off to a slow start. The lack of scattered-site shelters proved a barrier to transiting people out of the navigation center.
EHF President Zeke Smith updated the council again on Monday as the respite facility opened downtown. The entire council expressed support but disagreed over outreach. Council President Betsy Wilkerson said it’s not their responsibility to inform everyone before opening.
“I understand the business owners and the outreach, and when we have really tried to engage them, the pushback has been so fierce and not quite correct information,” Wilkerson said. “I think [EHF] did as good a job in the window of time they had to get this out there. I don’t know if it’s our responsibility to inform every single person, every single business, as much as we can.”
The city announced the respite facility last week; however, Julie Garcia, executive director of Jules Helping Hands, which operates the site, told The Center Square on Dec. 11 that she planned to open the facility. Councilmember Jonathan Bingle found out about two weeks ago.
Bingle and Councilmember Michael Cathcart support the facility but not the process that placed it there. Both continually advocate for higher standards around siting comprehensive support services, especially when opening up across the street from a high school, as they are now.
“The quickest way to see misinformation spread is to not share information,” Cathcart said. “You keep things secret. You don’t go out and communicate to the stakeholders, the community, the neighbors.”
The conservative minority has repeatedly called on the city and Mayor Lisa Brown to take steps toward transparency, especially around homelessness and spending. They said the lack thereof causes people to speculate and assume the worst, spreading the narrative along the way.
Cathcart said Spokane needs these facilities, which is why the city should implement higher standards around siting them. Requiring providers to follow those requirements allows for transparency and an assurance that the neighborhood won’t suffer due to the new service.
The city had trouble relocating another provider last year, primarily due to a lack of support from the neighborhood and transparency issues. Around that time, Cathcart pushed an ordinance to implement higher standards for providers, but the council’s majority tabled it for now.
“Nobody’s satisfied where these facilities go,” Councilmember Lili Navarette said Monday. “If they go in one district or another, nobody’s happy, so how are we going to support our homeless?”
In December, the council concluded a series of community roundtables on homelessness and several related ordinances that the majority of the council had tabled. Cathcart’s ordinance on siting facilities was among them, and the majority of participants supported adopting it.
Smith said the scattered-site model now supports three emergency shelters, two operated by Garcia and another by Truth Ministries, for 110 beds. The navigation center provides another 30, and the respite facility supports 30 more, bringing the total to 170 beds.
He said the model will support 205 beds by as soon as February. Smith told the council EHF is considering two proposals to open a new shelter in the East Central neighborhood and expand another existing one in the Chief Garry Park neighborhood for four or five families.
“We anticipate, if the negotiation with those providers goes well, that we would have those online by the end of the month,” Smith said. “Neither of them are under contract or providing those services yet.”
Information on the total bed account across the city’s entire homelessness system is available at Shelter Me Spokane.