Challenges ahead as Spokane transitions from homeless depot

A Trent Avenue warehouse that housed more than 400 people and served as the backbone of Spokane’s response to homelessness under former Mayor Nadine Woodward is expected to be decommissioned by the end of October.

By then, the city will have begun its pivot to Mayor Lisa Brown’s signature alternative, a more decentralized, personalized and, her administration believes, more efficient model of housing the homeless with a central “navigation hub” that connects people to shelters small scattered and other services such as addiction or mental health treatment.

Brown’s plan, which her administration says is based on research and data, is that this new model will get more people currently sleeping rough into housing and use the long-term services needed to keep them sheltered.

But in the short term, at least, it may mean that some people currently sleeping in shelters will no longer have a bed available.

Many in the business community have sounded the alarm about the consequences if these people end up back on the streets of Spokane. Darin Watkins, who is director of government affairs for the Spokane Association of Realtors, asked the city council Monday to consider the repercussions.

“On a personal note, I want to warn you that … with the closing of the shelters, one operator said, you will see Fallujah,” Watkins said of the Iraqi city devastated in 2004 during the Marine-led battles Americans and the US military.

Watkins wrote in a text Friday that he was referring to comments made by Rob McCann, president and CEO of Catholic Charities Eastern Washington.

McCann, also in the message, wrote that he actually supports the decommissioning of the Trent shelter and Brown’s transition to a new model and believed Watkins intentionally misrepresented his comments to advance a political agenda.

“… I fully support the mayor and city’s efforts to address homelessness and am more hopeful now than I have been at any time in the past 5 years…” he wrote.

Emilie Cameron, president of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, an organization that advocates for downtown businesses, said in an interview that partnership members are concerned about people currently housed on Trent Avenue who will no longer have beds.

“Spokane cannot decommission Trent without having a plan for every person who is currently there,” Cameron said.

Asked if the city was committed to preventing anyone staying at the Trent shelter today from being involuntarily pushed onto the street, Brown initially said yes during an interview Friday, but later backtracked, clarifying that the city would try to connect those people to alternatives, but they could not promise that each of them would have a bed available.

“As with any transition, there could be some short-term challenges,” she said.

There will be fewer beds in the shelter system during and after the transition to a new model, not only as the Trent shelter is decommissioned, but also as other shelters see less funding available, said Dawn Kinder, Brown’s cabinet official. tasked with, among other things. things, overseeing homeless services. With the end of pandemic-era funding that supported that large congregational shelter, the city can’t afford to continue operating at the capacity it had been, she said in an interview Thursday.

“There’s an unfortunate reality here that we’re going to lose beds as a system,” Kinder said, adding in a follow-up that the administration plans to ask the City Council to amend an existing law that prohibits reductions in city-run shelters. beds.

By the time the contract to operate the Trent shelter, which currently houses up to 250 people, expires at the end of October, Brown’s administration expects to have launched its navigation center, possibly on the site of the current Cannon Street shelter, and a Several of its smaller “scatter” shelters, Kinder said. Several of these smaller shelters are expected to come online in the coming months.

How many beds will be available in each shelter will depend – one site that accepts people with higher needs may only accept 20, while another may accept up to 30 – but with current plans to create five to eight such shelters, there will not be enough standard beds at these new shelters to accommodate everyone currently staying at the Trent shelter.

With the launch of a navigation center, Kinder expects to more effectively get some of the people currently on the streets or in the Trent shelter to the next step, whether it’s a dispersal shelter or something further away. along the way out. of homelessness, such as a supportive housing program such as Project Catalyst or an Oxford House recovery program.

And while Brown expects to be out of the city’s contract with the Salvation Army to operate the Trent shelter by November, the city is still locked into a five-year lease for the facility. That facility could be used in a variety of ways, including as surge capacity for the shelter system, Brown added.

Despite the possibility of short-term difficulties during the transition, Brown argued that the new system will be more efficient. She noted that the city would have been forced to close the large congregational shelter anyway because operating that facility, which costs up to $1 million a month, was not financially sustainable without the massive influx of COVID-19 relief funds that they were before. used, especially since the city is facing budget problems.

Taking out a multi-year lease on the former truck depot and operating it as a shelter housing up to 400 people in one building was one of the worst fiscal and policy mistakes of the previous administration, Brown argued in last year’s election campaign.

Brown also argued Friday that the previous model was designed solely to absorb enough people so the city could freely enforce its laws to prevent homeless people from sleeping on public property. About 6 percent of those who have stayed at the Trent shelter are confirmed to have transitioned out of homelessness, either into housing or some kind of transitional facility, according to data provided by the city.

While Brown said the city has committed to enforcing its laws more often than before she took office this year, she also believes the new model will more effectively get people off the streets for good.

The rollout of Brown’s new model will initially be based on two grants totaling about $8 million that will fund operations for a year, and her administration hopes this pilot will convince the state to provide more funding and convince other local governments in the region, such as Spokane County, that the model is worth duplicating in their communities.

It’s not yet clear where the city’s small, scattered shelters will be located, as those decisions still need to be made with the help of providers, Kinder said.

The city’s development guidelines call for the smaller shelters to be spread “evenly throughout the neighborhoods,” and Kinder said the city is trying to be careful not to place shelters in areas that already disproportionately bear some of the burden of services in proximity. As was the case with the shelter location that was eventually created on Trent Avenue, the city also has to wade through significant pushback when considering sites.

“Citing them is incredibly complicated,” Kinder said. “There is an incredible pressure to have (these shelters) and an incredible disinterest in having them near most people. So we’re in a battle there in a lot of cases.”