Sue Lani Madsen: Of hope, hopelessness and rumors of hope

The ongoing protest over Spokane’s housing and homelessness challenges was dubbed Camp Hope 2.0 by its organizers in December 2021 when it was first planted in front of City Hall. The city stood firm on the misuse of city-owned property and the camp moved to one of WSDOT’s empty lots at Second and Thor.

Ironically, the right-of-way exists as a blocks long stretch of nothingness because a large swath of affordable housing was purchased and removed by WSDOT to avoid attracting squatters to boarded up houses. It didn’t work.

For the neighborhood, it might better be named Camp Hopeless. Calls for response to the Spokane Police Department are up 72% compared to the average of the prior four years, 76.9% over the year prior to the camp. EMS calls in the immediate neighborhood increased from five in 2021 to 123 year to date, with an additional 13 fire calls from a baseline of zero in 2021.

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich prefers to call it Camp WSDOT, a geographically descriptive name for the hundreds of people illegally camped along Interstate 90 in the Department of Transportation right of way. Knezovich says he’s been hearing from business owners who have stopped filing property damage claims for fear of having their policies canceled. “People are losing livelihoods. Normal everyday working people are trapped in this socialist experiment.”

It’s not just property theft but fear as public safety takes a back seat to other concerns. There has to be compassion for both the itinerant campers and the settled neighbors. “Businesses and residents need a timeline, they’re looking for hope,” said Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl. “No easy answers, but we haven’t gotten any timeline from the state.”

Meidl did get a letter last week from Transportation Secretary Roger Millar. No mention of the concerns of the neighborhood along the empty WSDOT right-of-way, but plenty of justification for why the state has little sense of urgency. Millar spent most of its eight pages defensively outlining the state’s version of the past six months, with a majority of the letter describing the Spokane Municipal Code chronic nuisance ordinance as unconstitutional so they don’t have to comply anyway.

Meidl reported the format and tone of the city’s letter enforcing the chronic nuisance ordinance were the same as any property owner receives. “The ordinance has been enforced, taken to court and successfully upheld many times.” The chronic nuisance abatement hearing is scheduled for Nov. 10.

While rehashing the past, Millar’s letter states that “WSDOT immediately contacted the Spokane Police Department” in 2021 and claims SPD “advised WSDOT they were directed not to respond to trespass calls involving WSDOT.”

According to Meidl, law enforcement can only respond to enforce a charge of “trespass” if there is a property owner willing to press charges. Meidl said his understanding is WSDOT did originally call regarding trespassing, then withdrew support for the request. That left an alternative charge of “unlawful camping” which “has an exception that says it can’t be enforced if there are no shelter beds available,” Meidl said. “We can now say with a clear conscience that we have sufficient shelter for everyone at the camp who wants it.”

Unlike other municipalities offered funding under Gov. Inslee’s Rights-of-Way Safety Initiative, Spokane County’s efforts are being coordinated through a local nonprofit. Empire Health Foundation is under contract with the Department of Commerce for “outreach, engagement and services” as a convener of stakeholders, said Zeke Smith, president of the foundation. “It is not our intent to stay in this role. Our goal is to stabilize the process and hand this off.” He noted Jewels Helping Hands is now being paid to stabilize operations at the camp.

There is a downside to stabilizing the chaos where it is instead of focusing on moving campers out. While agreeing permanent shelter is everyone’s ultimate goal, Meidl pointed out winter is coming. “Is it more compassionate to let people live in a hub of crime about to turn into a huge frozen mud pit?” There is no downside to moving people to temporary shelter while arranging permanent shelter.

Private security contracts for Camp Hope have been signed by the state for six months with an option to renew. Smith pushed back on rumors the state was deliberately slowing down the process to influence the 2023 mayoral race in Spokane, saying he hasn’t seen any slow-walking. His understanding is the ROWSI funding is intended to become part of the state’s baseline budget starting next biennium.

That doesn’t sound very hopeful for neighborhoods feeling the impact of illegal camping on public property. It’s treating the problem by fishing people out of the river instead of going upstream to keep them from falling in.

Contact Sue Lani Madsen at rulingpen@gmail.com.