Despite criticism of the city’s handling of homelessness, data shows citations are up

While some politicians, business groups and their supporters accuse the city of Spokane and the Spokane Police Department of not enforcing laws on the homeless, one patrol officer is spending his time in the area around Second Avenue and Division Street sometimes 10 times a day.

Spokane police Officer Jackson Henry is one of many on a list of Spokane law enforcement who are on a first-name basis with the people living on the street.

“We address it every day,” Henry said. “We want to help … We aren’t here to ruin people’s day. We’re here to respond to people’s needs.”

Statistics back up claims that police have significantly boosted enforcement in downtown Spokane this year. Officers issued 194 citations for unlawful camping from August through November – more than six times the number issued in the same period in 2023. More than 800 citations have been issued this year for pedestrian interference, well over twice as many as were issued last year.

Henry said he prefers to be proactive, even between taking emergency calls for service because “being a presence helps deter crime” and is valuable for businesses dealing with damaged property or theft. If he can, he will attempt to give someone resources for rehabilitation or a shelter and talk through their problems with them to determine the best route forward. Sometimes that ends in a warning, he said, and sometimes it could end in a ticket. Sometimes it could start instead with the confiscation of drug paraphernalia or an arrest, he said.

And every time there’s a new law or ordinance about crime or homelessness – like a law approved by voters in 2023 and prevents people from camping near schools, parks and day care centers – “We talk about what we see,” Henry said.

“We meet with the sergeant, talk to businesses, to community members and individuals,” he said. “We try to see what we can do or can’t do and what would work better.”

While officers like Henry are interacting with the homeless population every single day, others are critical of the department not doing enough. Just last week, local business leader Sheldon Jackson wrote in an email chain to other local leaders that “we now have zero checks and balances” and “A Mayor and Police Chief that won’t arrest criminals that are destroying our city.”

But unlawful camping citations have been up nearly every month this year since spring, with a large spike after a voter-approved city-spanning homeless camping law began to be enforced in August. The proposition passed with about 75% of the vote last November, but given how many of these facilities exist in the city, it effectively bans the homeless from sleeping in much of the city, with notable exceptions on the outskirts.

Though overwhelmingly popular with voters, the law was ensnared in legal challenges and sparked a bitter political debate over the city’s management of homelessness. Police didn’t begin citing or arresting people violating the law until this summer after the legal issues were largely settled by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that clarified that such a law was constitutional.

While a review of the rights of homeless people wound its way through the courts, Spokane police were still regularly issuing tickets, though less so for camping and more for “pedestrian interference” or the blocking of sidewalks.

The increase in arrests has not been enough to dramatically change conditions in the city or people’s perceptions of downtown in particular, however, acknowledged Spokane police Chief Kevin Hall – and he doubts they ever could, without other interventions.

“I think the vast majority of people out there understand that just arresting people is not going to fix this complex problem – it’s going to take the same complexity in resolution to achieve visible progress,” Hall said in an interview. “The police department in and of itself is not going to fix this, it’s an all government, all community issue.”

Henry said people can perceive homelessness however they want, but police and crisis intervention teams are left to deal with the “reality” that he says face Spokane streets, which is that they aren’t the end-all-be-all to the homelessness problem because police are bound by the law and not public opinion.

“I’ve asked people before, in a perfect world, what would you want? People say they just want them gone,” Henry said. “ … These are people’s kids. Or people’s parents. I’m not here to kidnap them.”

The data

There have been 801 citations this year for pedestrian interference, up from 321 last year. Though the law against blocking sidewalks can apply to anyone, it is primarily the homeless who received those tickets. The bulk of these citations, 502, were handed out between May and August, corresponding with a surge of police activity downtown during Expo ’74 anniversary celebrations but continuing after those events concluded on the Fourth of July.

Enforcement of sit-and-lie, which essentially prohibits sitting or lying down in downtown Spokane on anything but a bench, did fall during the same time period. Citations dropped about 85% from 141 in 2023 to 24 this year. It has been more than replaced, however, by citations for pedestrian interference, functionally a much broader version of sit-and-lie, as sit-and-lie can only be enforced in a portion of downtown and only if homeless shelters are full.

Arrests of all kinds are also up this year, with 8,792 by the end of November compared to 7,255 in the same time period in 2023 and 5,919 in 2022, according to data Hall presented to the City Council on Dec. 2.

Unlawful camping citations also increased with the launch of the city’s Crisis Outreach, Response and Engagement initiative, or CORE, in October. Originally a 30-day pilot that deployed police, behavioral health units and service providers downtown to engage with people who are homeless and tackle public drug use, that initiative has since been extended.

Early data from the recent CORE program indicates that homeless people living on Spokane’s streets have starkly unequal criminal records. Police made contact with 143 individuals over four weeks who collectively had 2,192 prior local arrests – but half of that arrest record belonged to just 22 “frequent flyers,” as Hall described them. The roughly 71 people with the highest arrest records accounted for 2,033 of those arrests, or 93%.

It’s not immediately clear from this data, however, how many of these arrests were for crimes intrinsically tied to a person’s homelessness, such as for unlawful camping, and how many were for crimes against other people such as burglary or assault, or so-called “crimes against society” such as public drug use.

Hall said that detectives and police analysts are using data from the pilot program to identify and investigate people in the area with a specific focus on those who may be trafficking fentanyl into the city, as opposed to street level dealers.

Data presented to the City Council also shows that, of the 143 people contacted, there were only 13 successful referrals to longer-term services, whether for their mental health or for substance abuse disorders.

While Hall said this was fewer than had been hoped for, he also expressed that successful referrals take time.

“The officers are very well aware that folks suffering from behavioral health issues or substance use issues, there’s always going to be a window of opportunity that’s generally going to be very narrow and it’s catching them at the right time at the right place where they will hopefully accept services,” Hall said.

‘A fundamental misunderstanding’

Hall noted research he had seen from Arizona – he previously served as assistant chief of the Tuscon Police Department – that showed it often took about 60 contacts before someone was willing to enter treatment. Councilman Jonathan Bingle, however, argued waiting for that moment wasn’t a good solution.

“My obvious response to that is that there are impacts to the rest of the community while we’re waiting for someone to engage in services,” Bingle said.

In an interview, Hall noted that most of the crimes associated with the homeless are misdemeanor offenses.

“I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what enforcement looks like for these low level crimes,” Hall said. “It’s a citation, and even if we wanted to take them to jail, the jail will not accept them, or it’s a book and release.”

Henry said other officers have spent up to six hours waiting in line to take someone to jail because of staffing or capacity issues. He’s had to wait about 30 minutes, he said.

“There’s a preference people want the street clean and the business to shine, which I get. But the reality is, I will take them to jail, wait in line, they’ll be booked and released and then they turn around and go back the way they came,” he said.

The CORE initiative tracked crime reports block-by-block in the downtown area, showing that increased police presence had led people to simply migrate a few blocks away from the troubled intersection of Second Avenue and Division Street to the Ridpath Hotel.

“We’re just pushing these people around,” Hall told the City Council.

Henry, who said he’s seen fewer people in the area of State and Pacific avenues, acknowledged like the chief that people are migrating elsewhere. He added, however, that if someone isn’t committing a crime there are no arrests to be made. If a business owner is frustrated with a homeless person outside their space, Henry said other resources are better prepared to respond, such as code enforcement or the Homeless Outreach Team that consists of two officers and a clinician that will provide information about a shelter or drug treatment.

But even if police were to send people to jail anyway, Hall said, they won’t stay there, and he doesn’t think it’s “the right approach.”

“Some of these folks, yes, there’s criminal behavioral, and jail might behoove them,” he added, “but the vast majority, they just need somewhere to go.”

Deputy City Administrator Maggie Yates articulated some of these gaps in the broader system in a Thursday presentation to the City Council, with top priorities including more housing, expanded access to mental health crisis stabilization centers, medically-assisted treatment for addiction and sobering beds. She also noted a need for better systems to stabilize someone once they were in jail and to lower their risk of recidivism as they’re getting out.

Another “critical gap” identified was a behavioral health or psychiatric specialized emergency room.

“There’s no place for us to take these folks, either voluntarily or involuntarily, for that missing piece of crisis or substance use detox,” Hall said.

“We can’t force somebody into treatment, that’s called kidnapping. We have to have a reason to transport somebody, generally because they’re under arrest,” he added. “At that point, as a stopgap measure, the officers take them to the ERs, but the ERs are ill-equipped to handle these folks and they want them out as fast as possible, and often they’re back out on the same street corner two hours later.”

Bingle and Councilman Michael Cathcart have continued to argue that increasing the capacity at the county jail should be prioritized.

“Particularly so we can more effectively utilize the diversionary courts and alternatives, which really I don’t think can be as effective when there’s no risk of jail,” Cathcart said.

Like others, Henry believes the homelessness problem is larger than just arrests.

“What’s the plan now? Well, that’s the issue. There is not a permanent solution,” he said. “The problem is, where do they go? I don’t have an answer for that.”

Editor’s note — This article has been changed to correct the spelling of Sheldon Jackson’s name.