Emilie Cameron: Status quo will not restore our downtown

By Emilie Cameron

By many measures, downtown Spokane should be flourishing. With its incredible natural and created spaces, access to outdoor recreation, top notch cultural amenities, world-class culinary experiences, and unrivaled urban shopping options, the quality of life and economic benefits powered by downtown ripple across every neighborhood in the Inland Northwest. While visitors excitedly make new memories and our city is showered with accolades on nationwide “best of” lists, we’re reminded how special our downtown truly is.

Yet, we know that’s only half the story.

Like most cities across the country, the pandemic left an indelible imprint downtown beyond shuttered offices and canceled events. Emptied streets gave way to deteriorating conditions while well-intended policies failed our community. Today, Spokane’s overlapping crises of violence, mental illness, addiction and homelessness at the gateways to downtown – and increasingly across our city – are visible reminders of the misery that have consumed the streets of Spokane.

After decades of transformational investment and concerted effort to elevate the living room to our community, the urban neighborhood we so carefully built is in jeopardy. Every day, we hear from merchants, workers and residents pleading for relief while our community tells us they feel unsafe. While we know that violent crime is disproportionately lower downtown than many of Spokane’s neighborhoods, brazen public drug use and damage to property threatens the perception of safety and the wellbeing of everyone.

Spokane cannot continue to put the needs of our community on the back burner while we struggle to engage and help a fraction of our population that continually rejects our compassion. This decadeslong struggle has created a cycle that is affecting the social health and quality of life for Spokanites and imperils the economic viability of downtown – the city’s largest tax base.

It’s time to end the status quo. No more excuses. Spokane must establish expectations and policies that this is a city where our small businesses can thrive, visitors can enjoy our hospitality, residents are welcome, illegal and threatening behavior will not be tolerated and those who accept a path out of homelessness can find it.

People’s day-to-day surroundings are critically important. Failing to keep our sidewalks safe is harming us all. The Downtown Spokane Partnership has boots on the ground seven days a week with security and maintenance staff providing supplemental services in the core of downtown north of the railroad viaduct. While our teams work diligently to mitigate the challenges threatening our public spaces, we know that cleaning alone can’t slow the destructive path that inaction fosters.

Spokane must maintain and enforce rules that keep our sidewalks and public spaces safe, clean and welcoming. This includes setting the expectation there will be fair and just enforcement of crimes that inhibit the ability for everyone to be safe. In particular, it’s time to be bold to address rapidly rising threats of illegal drug use cutting short too many lives locally.

Spokane must support law enforcement’s ability to intervene with legal accountability in response to public drug use and possession. By strengthening criminal penalties, we can hold those causing the greatest impact on our community accountable and save lives. It provides the leverage to incentivize participation in treatment-focused diversion programs to provide real help to individuals in need.

On the streets of downtown, drug use and homelessness are often inextricably linked. While we focus on changing behavior with enforcement actions, we can, and should, also work in earnest for a regional response to connect the unhoused with housing and wraparound services.

Spokane needs a multifaceted, universal commitment to improve the conditions that prioritize the wellbeing of everyone. It’s time to stop entertaining policies that don’t help the people they are intended to, in particular politically expedient exemptions or special privileges for some and not others.

Every Spokanite should be able to experience our great downtown and feel safe doing so.

Emilie Cameron is president and CEO of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, a private not-for-profit membership organization with a mission exclusively dedicated to enhancing the economic and community vitality of downtown Spokane as the foundation of a healthy region.