(The Center Square) – As Spokane’s Hope House funding dries up, Mayor Lisa Brown proposed pulling savings from the Trent Resource and Assistance Center on Thursday to bail out its homeless shelter geared for women.
Hope House is an emergency shelter operated by Volunteers of America. According to its website, the shelter served and housed more than 500 women last year. However, due to a lack of funding from the state, local and private sector partners, it’s facing economic collapse.
Brown wants to prevent the shelter from closing with a one-time grant of $1.2 million. That money originates from the federal pandemic relief that the city already allocated toward emergency shelters and would’ve likely used for the Trent shelter, the city’s largest congregate shelter, or others.
“When the City of Spokane learned that Hope House might have to close its doors, leaving 80 women out on the streets, we knew we could not, in good conscience, say ‘no,’” Brown wrote in a news release. “We knew we must step in and do whatever it took to keep these women safe.”
Communications Director Erin Hut told The Center Square that the funding was no longer needed for the Trent shelter due to negotiations that reduced costs. The $1.2 million is separate from the $4 million allocated by the Legislature to help decommission the Trent shetler.
When asked whether Spokane could’ve used that $1.2 million to help decommission the Trent Shelter, Hut replied, “It was specifically allocated for emergency shelter services.”
According to the release, Brown’s administration renegotiated the Trent shelter contract to cap monthly costs at $620,000. This is after the prior administration failed to include monthly caps, which led to invoices totaling more than $1 million a month at times.
Given that the resulting surplus is sitting unspent, Brown wants to use it. According to the release, 95% of the city’s resources for mitigating the homelessness crisis come at the state and federal levels, leaving little to no other options, especially considering Spokane’s structural deficit.
“Volunteers of America was facing the difficult reality of having to close Hope House’s doors as winter approached,” VOA CEO Fawn Schott wrote in the release. “With no additional investment from [the Department of] Commerce, Spokane County or the private sector, the City of Spokane rose to the occasion and invested in the lives of these women.”
The caveat is that Hope House, like the Trent shelter, is also a sizeable congregate shelter, providing around 100 beds. According to the release, VOA will transition away from the format over the next year and toward a new system more aligned with Brown’s scattered site model.
“The City of Spokane is looking forward to being a partner as they transition to a new model that we know helps women get back on their feet,” Brown wrote.
Spokane’s city council will vote over whether to award the $1.2 million grant in the upcoming weeks.
