(The Center Square) – The Spokane City Council will take another look Monday at changing zoning rules to allow an emergency homeless shelter to be sited on commercial and heavy industrial properties.
Amending the code will enable the city to secure available space for a shelter. If approved, the zoning rule change will only be in effect until Nov. 25, which gives the city time to evaluate whether to make the new interim code permanent.
The council plans to revisit the zoning issue on May 16 follows last week’s report that the county’s homeless population has increased by 13% over the last two years.
The Spokane Neighborhood, Housing and Human Services Department released its findings from the Point-in-Time count on May 6.
Spokesperson Brian Walker said the study found that a total of 1,757 people in Spokane County are experiencing homelessness. According to the data, 934 people were sheltered and 823 were unsheltered. The study found the shelter count saw a 6% decrease from 2021. The unsheltered count increased 52% from 2020.
The count also found that 82% of those counted this year were over the age of 25 and 48% of the adults reported having a serious mental illness. It also found that 9% of adults reported being a survivor of domestic violence.
City officials say this marks the fifth consecutive year with an overall increase in the homeless population.
Walker said this year’s increase can be attributed to a change in the Point-in-Time Count methodology, the limited ability for operators of deposit and rental assistance programs to spend their budgets due to housing affordability and availability constraints and the increased cost of housing.
Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward is seeking to get 250 people off the street – and more during extreme weather events – by negotiating a lease for a 33,000-square-foot vacant warehouse at 4320 E. Trent Avenue.
She wants to renovate the property into a facility that can provide people with an overnight stay and the opportunity to stabilize their lives.
Toward that end, Woodward said the city would partner with area service providers to provide shelter guests with opportunities to get help for mental illness and addictions. In addition, they would be provided with job training options and resources for transportation and permanent housing.
In April, Councilors Betsy Wilkerson and Karen Stratton voted against Woodward’s proposal to rezone the Trent Avenue’ heavy industrial property to accommodate the shelter. They said the rezone couldn’t be supported because there were too many unanswered questions about how the facility would be used, the costs involved and whether the concerns of neighbors were being addressed.
Councilor Zack Zappone was not present at the April 18 meeting but later said that he, too, would have been a no vote.
Because the zoning change had been proposed as an emergency to get the shelter project rolling, approval required five favorable votes. Affirmative votes came from Council President Breann Beggs and Councilors Johnathan Bingle, Michael Cathcart and Lori Kinnear.
Beggs, Kinnear, Zappone, Stratton and Wilkerson then added another twist to the planning for a future homeless shelter. On April 25, they approved a requirement that the number of people it served be limited to 100 per acre
Cathcart and Bingle voted against the measure.
Cathcart reminded the council that the mayor’s staff had looked at 92 separate properties before finding one that Woodward felt would work and wasn’t in a residential area. He said it would be almost impossible to find multiple places to site shelters.
