Misery in the meanwhile as Spokane shifts shelter system and beds are limited

It’s a bit above freezing on Christmas Eve, and the persistent drizzle pushes people without homes to squat under leaky railroad viaducts, where they are expressly forbidden from being but are also offered some limited relief from the rain.

Under the dripping concrete roof, an older man named Donny tidies up his things, organizing them into piles on a tarp that’s drenched after he had to drag it a few blocks when made to leave from beneath a business overhang.

A block away under another section of the same viaduct, another man named Joshua shuffles around soaked and discarded clothes, a steaming cup of hot water and some powdered coffee brought to him by two men, one wearing an elf hat. At 38 years old, he nods off midconversation, cries when he comes to, and, unprompted, brings up Jack, a young man also living on the street, who Joshua fears will get hooked by something.

Donny would be in a shelter if there was a bed for him, he said, but there were none available when he spoke with The Spokesman-Review. Joshua, who said he was raised in a Brazilian orphanage until he was adopted at age 10, would avoid a shelter one way or another, saying he did not like feeling like he was living in an “institution.”

This time last year, hundreds were crowded into the warehouse-turned-shelter on Trent Avenue. The facility was plagued with problems: overcrowding, frequent drug use, accusations of theft, deteriorated and poorly maintained portable toilets, and foot-pump washing stations that froze. Poor communication between operators and City Hall led people to be turned away as the temperature plunged well below zero.

It was an unsustainable cost for the city, which had in recent years found itself on the hook for homeless services as funding structures and laws were in flux, but had no dedicated way to pay for it. The city depleted federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds that had propped up the tenuous facility. At its peak, it ran the city about $1.2 million every month.

Mayor Lisa Brown had called the facility one of the biggest mistakes of her predecessor and pledged on the campaign trail last year to close it and transition to smaller shelters scattered throughout the city.

The Trent shelter was shuttered for good at the beginning of November, doing away with its myriad problems and deficiencies – but also its roof and modest beds. Some of those scatter-site shelters have launched, as has a center that serves as a small shelter and a provider that helps the homeless navigate other available services, creating around 150 new beds – though that is far fewer than what was available at the Trent shelter, particularly during the winter.

“There were, last winter, up to 400 to 500 people in Trent, and this year there are many, many fewer beds,” said Barry Barfield, administrator of the Spokane Homeless Coalition. “We haven’t even gotten to the really cold winter … The horror of people sleeping outside really hits when the snow falls, and so far we haven’t had much.”

The winter has been warmer than usual, with 35 nights below freezing from Sept. 15 through Monday, down from the historic average of about 44. That has been a double-edged sword, making it a little less dangerous to be outside, but also limiting the number of beds available. The city pays to expand the number of beds available at shelters during dangerous weather, and the city’s recently approved biennial budget doubled the funding for that particular purpose, but those beds are only offered when the weather dips below freezing.

“Without those inclement weather beds online, it drastically reduces what is available in terms of low-barrier (shelter),” said Arielle Anderson, the director of the city department responsible for homeless policy. Low-barrier shelters have the fewest restrictions, making them an option of last resort for people who do not fit the criteria or cannot follow the sober requirements of other facilities.

As of Christmas Eve morning, there was only one unoccupied low-barrier bed available for a homeless person who was not either underage or fleeing from domestic violence. Weather forecasts crept downward throughout the day, and by the evening, the city’s warming shelter beds were being activated, opening up more than 80 additional spots that would be taken offline again when the forecast next rises above freezing.

“The providers and people out there are frustrated that one day you have 100 extra beds and the next day you don’t,” Barfield said. “And I know – where’s the money going to come from? There isn’t any.”

More shelter beds are expected in the coming months, and as many as another 80 beds could be up and running before the end of the winter, according to a statement from Zeke Smith, president of Empire Health Foundation, the organization tasked by the Brown administration to stand up the scatter-site shelters.

“Is it going to solve the need for emergency shelter beds? No, not necessarily,” Anderson acknowledged. “Having worked in the homeless system since 2015, emergency shelter beds were always and have always been lacking … it’s always been a struggle in terms of funding.

“We do have a remarkable number of street outreach teams that deploy daily to check in with folks, and at that point, it’s about general welfare. At the end of the day, I’m not sure where the city can provide more funding. There’s not more funding, and that is the paradigm we’re faced with.”

Donny has lived in Spokane since 2016 and says he has, at one point or another, stayed in just about every one of the city’s shelters. Fentanyl, which he said he and many other homeless people avoid like the plague, has made life on the streets significantly worse, exacerbating factional conflict between different groups living outside and leading to the dramatic rise in thefts.

He had little nice to say about the Trent shelter, immediately noting the problems with the “commodes,” but added that many of its former residents are now back on the streets.

There are vanishingly few public bathrooms, so people go in the alleys or behind businesses and cannot wash their hands or face, he said. There are few public trash cans, essentially none north of the viaduct, so people leave their garbage on the ground, he added, pointing to nearby bottles that weren’t there the night before.

He understands the frustration that many people feel toward the homeless, but feels like he’s constantly being chased away from one area to another as a reaction to behavior he doesn’t exhibit.

He said it’s increasingly difficult to find covered areas to stay.

He’s outlasted many Spokane winters, but he said he hopes to outrun this one and go somewhere warmer and kinder.

He doesn’t appear to have anywhere particular in mind.