SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane City Council will vote on how to spend $4.9 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act that needs to be contracted by December 31st.
The original proposal slated $2.65 million to be used on a new housing model according to the City Council’s June 3rd advance agenda. Those funds were reserved to help move the House of Charity out of downtown Spokane.
Councilmember Jonathan Bingle said that this will not happen in the near future, so the council has proposed four amendments to potentially reduce the amount of money going towards homelessness.
Barry Barfield with the Spokane Homeless Coalition said there is little agreement across city leaders and the community as a whole on where this money should go.
“I don’t think there is sufficient community support or input into how that money should be spent,” Barfield said.
The original plan to move the House of Charity and Mayor Lisa Brown’s goal to close the shelter on Trent Avenue is all part of a larger effort to move away from large scale shelters into smaller, more full service places such as the catalyst house in the west hills neighborhood.
Barfield said that finding the right place to place these smaller housing facilities can be difficult.
“There’s probably no one in Spokane that would say, ‘Oh please, give me that building.’ You know most people don’t want a homeless facility in their area,” Barfield said.
Councilmember Jonathan Bingle said that the move from large congregate housing to more full service spaces is smart in concept, but comes with drawbacks.
“Like anything, you need diversification. To say we’re not going to have any congregate shelters, I think, is a bad move. The reason being is that there’s only so much surge capacity with the scattered site models for when it’s very cold or very hot,” Bingle said.
For the current funding being voted on tomorrow, four amendments were proposed on how to adjust the spending of this money now that the money likely will not go towards moving the House of Charity out of downtown. Bingle introduced an amendment that would reduce the money going towards homelessness by more than a million dollars while moving those funds to other city needs.
“Mine is again sort of that middle road where there is one point, whatever [Million] for homelessness, but it gets us sidewalks, it gets us youth sports, it gets us fire improvements, and community justice services. It gets us that stuff. And then there is the original proposal that’s dead on arrival that has absolutely no chance of passing,” Bingle said.
Bingle and Barfield both mentioned the possibility that this vote gets postponed, as it already has been. To get the plans approved and contracted by the December 31st deadline in order to not lose the funding, Bingle said this decision needs to be made no later than September.
Barfield is supportive of another postponement as it allows new ideas and a more concrete plan to be established before being voted on.
