(The Center Square) – As temperatures drop in Spokane, its homeless residents are struggling to find safe places to sleep despite the city’s new housing navigation center up and running.
Mayor Lisa Brown proposed the housing navigation center earlier this year as the core of her scattered-site shelter model. The new center and model replace typical congregate shelter settings that can house up to hundreds of people daily but often under subpar living conditions.
The Trent Resource and Assistance Center, or TRAC, closed on Halloween after serving as the city’s largest shelter for roughly two years. While once capable of housing more than 450 people, the final beds went offline less than two weeks ago, with around 30 now at the navigation center.
Empire Health Foundation and Revive Counseling, which operates the navigation center, updated the city council during Monday’s committee meeting. The center opened a month ago, but EHF President Zeke Smith noted there’s only so much they can do with the limited bed space.
“Part of our challenge as a system is that we’ve got blockages all the way through,” Smith said. “The reality is that it’s hard for me to imagine without significant additional resources built in when we would get to a place where we have two to three day [stays].”
The idea was that people would stay at the center for a few days before the operators referred them to other scattered-site shelters. The problem is that getting the new model up and running will take time. Some scattered sites are already up, but not enough for the current population.
Spokane’s 2024 Point-in-Time count recorded over 2,000 homeless individuals in January, but providers have cautioned that the number could be even higher now, especially with TRAC offline.
Brown allocated another $800,000 toward inclement weather beds the day before the closure, but $1.05 million is only enough to provide 133 surge beds across five shelters for 143 nights.
Layne Pavey, clinical director of Revive Counseling, said they’ve transitioned two people out of the center into permanent housing so far, but two others left on their own accord. Like some city staff, she noted it could take up to a year to leverage the model efficiently.
There’s a waitlist of hundreds of people with countless calls every day looking for a spot to sleep. Pavey said the center is referring people toward inclement weather beds when available, but other than that, it’s a waiting game as they attempt to put more beds online.
“For us to be in a position that’s similar to Houston,” Smith said regarding three-day turnovers, “would require that our local government and state government invest quite a bit more in the different kinds of services that are required.”
The $3.85 million contract initially awarded to EHF helped keep around 120 beds online across two providers, but it’s not expanding availability. A news release from last month noted around 1,000 emergency shelter beds across Spokane, down from 1,630 in January.
Smith said Spokane needs to increase connectivity across the spectrum to address the backlogs. EHF and Revive are in talks with other providers and faith-based organizations to bring another 50 to 60 beds online soon, but like with any contract, it requires funding.
“Hopefully, in a year, we’ll be able to say more effectively, as a system, not just us,” Smith said, “here’s where we’re doing things well and here’s where we’re not doing things well.”
The city council is slated to approve another $2.58 million contract amendment for the housing navigation center in the coming weeks.
