Spokane approves $3.9M for homeless services ahead of new scattered site model

(The Center Square) – Spokane’s elected officials approved nearly $4 million in funding on Monday to prop up emergency shelters and other services for the city’s homeless population.

The city council approved 12 funding requests for roughly $3.9 million across eight providers. While it originated from federal relief initially intended for emergency shelters, the state reappropriated the funds, shifting some guidelines to allow for more uses.

Most of the money is still for emergency shelters, with smaller sums allocated for permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, street outreach and transitional housing projects. However, according to Monday’s agenda, the goal was to utilize the funds for a new scattered site model.

“The [Request for Proposals] highlighted this funding as an opportunity to fund shelters that were smaller and aligned with the community push to rethink congregate shelter[s],” according to the agenda. “At the same time, we recognize that congregate shelters have a critical role in supporting some of the most vulnerable populations in Spokane.”

Last month, Mayor Lisa Brown proposed using $1.2 million from the pool to prevent Volunteers of America’s Hope House, a women’s congregate shelter, from closing. That proposal came after months of Brown pushing for her new model and the end of congregate shelters.

Brown’s scattered site model seeks to prop up various shelters and services around the city that are comparably smaller than congregate shelters. The large congregate model instead focuses on housing hundreds of people at once, but in turn, often in less than satisfactory conditions.

The Hope House proposal marked a shift in her approach as Spokane grapples with a housing and opioid crisis that’s left more than 2,000 people living on the streets and in shelters. However, VOA withdrew the Hope House request and asked the city to fund its Young Adult Shelter instead.

The YAS shelter only houses around 44 people per night and is nowhere near as big as Spokane’s largest congregate shelter, the Trent Resource and Assistance Center. The Trent Shelter is slowly decommissioning with a tentative goal of October but could house more than 450 people as recently as January.

With roughly 200 beds left, the Trent Shelter did not receive any of the $3.9 million, which the city would’ve likely used for it had Brown’s administration not renegotiated the contract. The most significant award on Monday was for the YAS shelter at $1.2 million, with the smallest amount being $68,225 for Home Yard Cottages, a permanent supportive housing project.

House of Charity, another congregate shelter, did receive funding. Catholics Charities, which operates the shelter, was awarded $525,262, the second largest amount. Another VOA facility also received funding, along with three other emergency shelters and another operated by Jewel’s Helping Hands, which previously helped run the infamous Camp Hope .

“I think that it’s going to take the community at least a good year to really have this conversation and get a more robust response for the scattered site model,” said Arielle Anderson, director of Spokane’s Community, Housing, and Human Services Department.