City Outreach
On June 18th, 2018, the Spokane City Council met to vote on Special Budget Ordinance ORD C35636, which proposes allocating $160,000 to the creation of four full-time outreach positions which would aid with homelessness outreach services and encampment response. Currently, the city supports two part-time positions which are stretched thin due to the increasing number of encampment responses and are unable to provide the one-on-one assistance that many of our homeless need in order to build relationships that will generate positive housing outcomes. The ordinance was met with a few protests from concerned citizens in the public forum who expressed their concerns that the funds would be wrongly allocated or ineffective at creating positive housing outcomes.
These concerns were met with an emotional response by Council President Ben Stuckart who affirmed “We’ve been asking for more homeless outreach dollars for the past seven years because we know it works”, citing his father’s thirty-eight years of homeless outreach experience at SNAP and witnessing first-hand how outreach programs work. His sentiments towards this ordinance were paralleled by Council Member Karen Stratton who expressed how she ‘aches’ when she gets calls from her constituents about homeless people sleeping out in the cold on park benches knowing that she has no City resource to call to go reach out to that one person. “If you sit, like I do, everyday and get these calls and these pictures…if there is a way to pick up the phone and have one human being drive over and visit that person to find out what their needs are and why they’re living on the street, to me, that’s money well spent.”
By a vote of six in favor, the ordinance was passed by the City Council, marking yet another step taken by the City of Spokane to help end homelessness and provide services to those in need. If you or someone you know is in need of housing services, counseling or assistance, please visit our resources page for a list of local resources and national hotlines. You can watch the City Council Meeting below, which addresses the new special budget ordinance starting at around 49:30.
