(The Center Square) – Spokane is considering two programs that could mitigate the impact of homelessness and addiction on the community, but one focuses on accountability through incarceration while the other is mostly voluntary.
The Spokane City Council was slated to discuss Councilmember Michael Cathcart’s proposal during a Monday committee meeting. However, due to a request from the Office of the City Prosecuting Attorney, the item was moved to next month for more discussion.
Cathcart’s high-utilizer program would identify the city’s top 75 repeat offenders and expedite their court proceedings. It would make the high-utilizers ineligible for Community Court and exempt from the county jail’s “red-light status” when overcapacity.
“High Utilizers shall not be subject to booking restrictions applicable to other municipal defendants,” according to Monday’s agenda. “High Utilizers shall be given priority for booking into jail for any arrestable offenses, outstanding warrants, or other legal actions.”
Typically, the Community Court handles cases dealing with illegal camping and other low-level offenses. Those defendants are typically cited and released, but some fall through the cracks and have other warrants or similar charges within the last few weeks, months or years for which they could also face time.
Cathcart’s program attempts to remedy that by also setting limits on the number of times that a defendant can be referred to Community Court even if they aren’t identified as a high-utilizer.
“No defendant shall be referred to community court more than once in any 8-month period, nor more than three times in any 36-month period,” according to Monday's agenda.
The ordinance isn’t just about serving time or providing accountability through those means; it also includes a provision requiring the city and county to collaborate with addiction treatment programs, mental health services and housing providers to help the high-utilizers.
Mayor Lisa Brown is also pushing for her own version of a high-utilizer program called Hot Spotters Community Care Coordination. Her approach focuses more on case management and outreach services, standing ready whenever someone decides it’s time to get help.
Spokane issued a Request for Proposals for the mayor’s program last month, due on Oct. 14. The RFP aims to find a contractor “interested in facilitating data sharing and extraction to identify high utilizers across medical, housing, and criminal justice institutions.”
Then, the contractor will provide case management services for up to 50 “Opioid Use Disorder” high-utilizers while meeting with providers to address clients’ needs and barriers to care.
“The team will work with the patient until the care coordination outcome is achieved or for up to three months,” according to the RFP. “Hot Spotters care coordination is voluntary, the patient can disengage from services provided by the team at any time.”
Spokane currently provides a similar initiative with Consistent Care under Brown’s emergency declaration back in June. This new RFP attempts to expand the idea of the program.
However, unlike Cathcart’s program, Brown’s RFP doesn’t mention provisions to alleviate the strain on the Community Court due to rising case volume outside of that case management. The only mention of the Community Court in the RFP is for monthly case conferencing meetings.
Under the RFP, the contractor could provide interventions through outreach-based care coordination, contingency management, medications for opioid use disorder, “housing first model,” long-acting injectable antipsychotics for schizophrenia and overdose care coordination.
“Patients who cannot be contacted for two weeks will be unrolled to make room for cooperative patients awaiting care coordination services,” according to the RFP.
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