Eviction removes homeless camp but homeless remain
City officials removed the homeless protesters from their prominent position at Riverside and Monroe, but the problem of homelessness in Spokane remains.
The 50 people chased off the grassy island in front of the Spokane Club were going to sleep somewhere come nightfall – and where a person sleeps means something, even if you’re homeless.
If the protesters stayed together as a group, they said, they’d be able to continue their protest at the risk of being arrested. If they went their separate ways, their movement might end just as they gained the city’s attention.
Police Chief Roger Bragdon let them know that camping on public property would no longer be permitted.
“They won’t last an hour if they do it again,” Bragdon told a core group of the protesters meeting Thursday afternoon at the New Opportunities apartment building on West Sprague Avenue.
Should the protesters decide to sleep in a homeless shelter, they could. At the Union Gospel Mission, 79 of 200 beds were available for men, said public relations coordinator Kari Reese. There were 33 beds available to women, either single or with children, at Ogden Hall. At Hope House, 28 beds for single women are first-come-first-served. On Wednesday night, 19 of those beds were occupied, said program director Rusty Barnett, who was betting the shelter would see at least some of the ousted protesters.
But accepting the relative safety and comfort of one of Spokane’s homeless shelter means giving up freedoms – at least to some of the people who had been camped at the Riverside campsite.
“They want us out of sight and out of mind,” said Junior Bland, who came to Spokane with his wife to find work and escape a drug culture that he believes kept him addicted. Shelters split up married couples, he said, and Christian facilities “force religion on us.”
Residents of the Union Gospel Mission are required to attend chapel.
After the protesters left their campsite on Riverside, many walked or were driven in a city van to the House of Charity, where they got something to eat and regrouped. The center provides meals and other services to the city’s poorest residents, but it does not have the funding to provide sleeping accommodations in the summer, said program coordinator Michael Cain.
He said a recent grant from the county will allow House of Charity, run by the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, to keep its 108 beds open an extra two months out of the year, from Oct. 1 to April 30.
The number of homeless people in Spokane is hard to pin down precisely. In 2002, a city survey found that 9,000 people had sought shelter or homeless services in the city. The number of people actually on the streets at any given time is lower – last June, city workers found 292 street people in a monthlong survey.
“We want to be open all year. But we’ve tapped out our donors, and now it’s the responsibility of the broader community to provide for the homeless,” Cain said. “A lot of very generous people are doing all they can.”
On Thursday, the House of Charity was not warned by the city of the impending flood of refugees from the Riverside camp until 9 a.m., Cain said. It was there that the protesters held a meeting to determine their next move.
“Where do we go from here?” asked Bilsland, who has emerged as a leader of the newly led.
The 47-year-old son of Aberdeen teachers, Bilsland’s first political experience was when his parents helped organize a school strike in 1972. A resident of Spokane for 7 1/2 years, he has been homeless since his girlfriend kicked him out of her apartment 2 1/2 years ago.
“These people are my family now,” Bilsland has said.
His family was in the midst of a domestic dispute at the House of Charity. Some wanted to go to Peaceful Valley; others back to the Riverside campsite. One even suggested Mayor Jim West’s front lawn.
Bilsland, whose vision of a permanent homeless facility on the city-owned Playfair property has been rebuffed by West, suggested it might be a good time to take the former race track. Later, Bragdon told him that would not be permitted.
But that site was not visible enough for protester Scott Stangler, the last to leave the Riverside campsite. Stangler, 53, who said he is an Army veteran, has been homeless since “family problems” cost him his home in Curlew, Wash., about a year ago. He advocated getting back in the city’s face.
“I was told I was fighting to defend our rights,” Stangler said. “I’m still fighting for them.”
Still another faction favored contacting a coffee shop owner rumored to have volunteered his parking lot if the protesters were ever ousted by the city. But no one could remember the owner’s name or even the name of the shop. Anyway, the very idea of sleeping on private property – with the permission of the owner – was reprehensible to at least one of the more militant protesters who wanted to keep the movement alive by moving back to public property.
In the end, there was no consensus, and it appeared the protesters’ worst fears were realized. They had been run off. The mayor said he would sign the anti-camping ordinance. The homeless demonstrators, it appeared, would melt back into the streets, their 10-day show of force spent out.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” said Jean Stoetzel, who has been homeless since she left a failing romantic relationship almost one year ago. Stoetzel struggled to hold onto her kids for awhile after that, but she eventually had to give them up and now struggles on her own.
She was one of the campers ousted Thursday. Bragdon said some of them are truly homeless, others homeless by choice.
Cindy Sehorn, 33, and her 8-year-old son Brandon have been in and out of shelters and on and off the street since Sehorn moved from Moses Lake to Spokane last September in search of a better life.
Sehorn said she’s had some apartments, but she has also had periods of homelessness since she was 20 years old. For the time being, she and Brandon will stay with a friend, but Sehorn didn’t know Thursday how long they could live there. As the two walked away from the Riverside encampment, a man rushed over with a small, hand-painted box they had forgotten. Pasted on top was a cut-out snapshot of Sehorn.
“My son made me that,” she said.
She said the protest was for a good cause – “a lot of homeless people and not enough services in Spokane.”
Shelters have rules, she said; one requires couples to be married, another separates couples even if they are married.
“Not everybody fits in their rules.”