Sheila Morley, Community, Housing and Human Services, No Phone Number Available
Monday, September 28, 2015 at 2:30 p.m.
Homes for Spokane's Heroes has reached a milestone. I am happy to announce that as of today, The City and its community partners have housed 177 homeless veterans in Spokane.
In February of this year, we began working on the Homes for Spokane's Heroes Initiative as part of the national Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness. We formed a leadership team with staff from Goodwill, Heath Care for Homeless Veterans, Spokane Housing Authority and Volunteers of America. That team developed a plan and commitment to house 150 homeless veterans by September of 2015.
It's wonderful and encouraging to have now met and surpassed our goal, but our efforts continue until every homeless veteran is off the streets and housed. One of our next steps includes the development of a master list identifying each veteran in need of housing. This is a list that, with the veterans' permission, allows us to identify all of our homeless veterans and target our efforts and housing resources to find appropriate housing.
To aid in outreach, we have set up a community hotline. Our ask is simple: If you know of any person (or household) who has served in the armed forces and is homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, please call 509.828.2449. The City has also been awarding a $100 incentive to new landlords who work with our partners and rent to our homeless veterans. The program runs through the end of October so if you are a landlord or know of a landlord interested have them email staff at HousingVeterans@giin.org.
