City Council hears from the homeless about how to help

When the Spokane City Council asked for input on solving homelessness, Shelly McLellan was one of about a dozen homeless people who stepped up.

McLellan spoke Monday night at three-hour council forum on homelessness, sharing her experience trying to stay in shelters with her cat, who she said saved her life by providing companionship when she was suicidal earlier this year.

Hope House, a downtown shelter for women, has “super soft and comfy” beds, she said. But her cat can’t always follow the shelter rules.

“Staying there is super impractical with my cat because she’s not allowed on the bed, and how do you tell a cat to stay off the bed?” she said, drawing knowing laughs from cat owners.

Council President Ben Stuckart called for the forum after the city received backlash for spending $150,000 to put basalt rocks under a section of Interstate 90 where homeless people had been camping.

He encouraged people to present solutions to issues and said any discussion of homelessness needed to focus on income inequality and housing affordability, which he called underlying issues.

“It’s not going to solve the problem unless we start looking at what the actual causes of problems are,” he said.

Nearly all of the two dozen people who spoke were opposed to the rocks.

House of Charity resident Richard Andall said moving that camp had pushed more people into the shelter, making it more crowded and difficult for people with mental illnesses who are stressed in large crowds.

“It’s creating an overburden on the shelters that I don’t think City Council members or anyone else is quite aware of,” he said. “It didn’t fix the problem, it just moved the problem.”

He added that services for homeless people in Spokane were better than in other places he’s been to, and said overall the city was doing a good job.

Speakers suggested a number of concrete policies to both reduce homelessness and improve services, including laws banning inquiries about criminal history on job and rental applications, construction of more affordable housing and repealing city ordinances that prohibit aggressive panhandling and sitting and lying on downtown sidewalks.

Jade Ann Annasta, a transgender woman, was one of several speakers who shared stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people being kicked out of shelters or made to feel unwelcome.

She said she was once kicked out of a shelter because another woman stole her clothes. When she confronted the woman, the shelter decided to remove her rather than the thief, leaving her nowhere to go on a night below freezing.

She eventually talked a police officer into arresting her for trespassing so she could spend the night in jail and avoid freezing to death, she said.

The fact that going to jail was her best option that night shows “we have issues,” she said.

She also said she’d been refused a meal at the Salvation Army because of her gender and made to feel unwelcome at the Union Gospel Mission, a private religious shelter that does not receive city funding.

In response, Salvation Army Major Ken Perine said their policy is not to discriminate.

“We actually don’t care what color your skin is or what you claim you are,” he said.

UGM director Phil Altmeyer said their goal is to create a shelter environment that’s safe for residents, and that transgender people “raise issues.”

“We can’t serve everyone,” he said.

Jonathan Mallahan, the city’s director of neighborhood and business services, said the city does not allow shelters that receive city funding to discriminate based on gender or sexual orientation, but he said he understood there’s a difference between an official nondiscrimination policy and feeling truly welcomed.

Shae Blackwell, a downtown resident, said she’s had bottles thrown at her and been threatened by homeless people who live near her.

“While being homeless is not a crime, many kinds of public conduct that I witness are illegal and scary,” she said.

She said there’s no reason her street should be a “de facto shelter” and said she supported the boulders.

Mark Richard, president of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, said better mental health services and other programs to address issues that cause homelessness before they start would help.He added he believed Spokane could make strides if everyone cared a bit more about finding a solution.

“Way too many people have strong opinions and don’t lift a finger to do anything about it,” he said.