Erin Hut, Directors of Communications, 509.625.6740
Thursday, May 1, 2025 at 11:53 a.m.
Mayor Lisa Brown and members of the Spokane City Council on Thursday announced a comprehensive homelessness strategy, instituting a process and safeguards for siting essential services, and establishing a streamlined tool for engagement and enforcement of obstruction and unauthorized camping.
H.O.M.E Starts Here
The H.O.M.E. Starts Here Initiative seeks to create a unified strategy for the City of Spokane to meaningfully address the complex factors that contribute to housing instability and homelessness.
This proposal emerged from City leaders' recognition of the need for a city-wide guiding plan that focuses on healthcare, outreach, multidisciplinary engagement, economic stability and where these areas intersect. The ordinance will execute a comprehensive cross-departmental, data-driven, and evidence-based approach targeting these four areas to achieve housing stability, reduce and prevent homelessness, and ensure public health and safety.
This ordinance establishes key indicators of success:
Inclement Weather, Siting, and Good Neighbor Agreements
The Spokane City Council is putting forward an additional ordinance to codify best practices for siting and activating inclement weather centers, as well as emergency and transitional housing facilities.
This proposal will change the requirements for inclement weather activation from a temperature measure to an index measure, taking into account humidity, wind chill, and how hot or cold the weather feels.
This ordinance will also codify what the City of Spokane has already developed in relation to siting City-funded shelters. This includes community engagement and neighborhood notice requirements for any new shelters with more than 20 beds.
Finally, this proposal will set a requirement and outline a process for "Good Neighbor" agreements between the City of Spokane and shelter providers. It will facilitate communication between stakeholders, including neighborhood councils, adjacent business owners, providers, and the City.
Engagement and Enforcement
The final ordinance being put forward consolidates the intent of existing laws of disorder and unauthorized camping into a single, unified policy, and expands its application citywide.
This ordinance, crafted based on feedback from stakeholders, ensures everyone has access to public property and rights-of-way by regulating the conduct of individuals knowingly obstructing access to public property and prohibiting unauthorized camping with adequate notice and outreach.
This proposal prioritizes engagement first through connecting individuals subject to enforcement with proven, evidence-based navigation services and provides law enforcement with a clear and more consistent enforcement mechanism.
"Homelessness is a complex issue that requires a strong, multi-pronged plan that focuses on all the contributing factors that lead to housing instability. Today, we announced a comprehensive package that prioritizes multiple strategies to stabilize people, while also investing in tools that prevent homelessness from happening in the first place," Mayor Lisa Brown said.
“It is time for our city to reform our housing and homelessness policies and unite under one vision that focuses on both response and prevention,” said District 2 Councilmember Paul Dillon. “These ordinances address issues that for too long have presented challenges for previous mayors and councilmembers while frustrating residents, businesses and making it hard for individuals experiencing homelessness to find stability. This issue is personal to me and to so many others in our city and I look forward to the collaboration ahead to implement these improvements.”
"We are listening to the community," District 3 Councilmember Zack Zappone said. "Council worked with the Administration to incorporate feedback from dozens of community leaders that participated in the six round table discussions. We value the input of our constituents and look forward to this comprehensive strategy that will move Spokane forward."
"Complex problems take complex solutions. From our work with the C.O.R.E. Program and through implementing more bicycle and foot patrols, we know that in certain cases, engagement before enforcement is most effective. The Spokane Police Department remains committed to being a part of the solution and ensuring safety for everyone in our community," Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall said.
