An influential group funded a study to gauge residents’ perceptions of downtown. Spokane’s got big problems, respondents told them

Residents of Spokane County, inside and outside of the city of Spokane, have a pretty sour view of the region.

Respondents gave Spokane County a 3.6 out of 10 ranking and the city of Spokane a 3.7 based on seven metrics, including overall quality of life, optimism in the future and the state of downtown Spokane, according to a poll released Wednesday.

With many downtown businesses calling it quits after the COVID-19 pandemic and residents lobbing frequent complaints about homelessness in the city’s core, Greater Spokane Incorporated, a coalition of prominent businesses, hopes the poll it sponsored from the California-based firm EMC Research will be a baseline for local leaders to understand the fears of residents and to show whether those perceptions improve over time. The poll surveyed 600 registered voters, of whom 40% were residents of the city of Spokane, and had a margin of error of 4.4%.

“As the saying goes, you can’t improve what you don’t measure,” said Charlotte Nemec, CEO of Canopy Credit Union and chair-elect of the Greater Spokane Incorporated Board.

The same research firm has conducted nearly identical surveys in cities across the West Coast, including a series called the Index published every six months by the Seattle Chamber of Commerce since 2021. In the latest survey, published in April, registered voters in Seattle ranked their city 4.66 out of 10, up from 3.79 when polling began three years ago.

Respondents were more likely than not to feel the region was headed in the wrong direction whether or not they live within the city, but city residents were slightly less pessimistic about the region’s future and many of the issues facing it.

City voters overwhelmingly ranked homelessness and crime, drugs and public safety as their top two concerns for the region, with infrastructure and roads, once a primary frustration for residents, ranked a distant third. Two-thirds said they feel somewhat or much less safe in their neighborhoods now than they did two years ago.

Respondents from Spokane were most likely to name closing homeless camps as their top priority, while addressing property crime came in a close second, nearly tied with helping local businesses address public safety concerns. Among funding priorities, they ranked mental health and substance abuse facilities highest, followed by hiring more police officers.

City leaders have broadly said that coffers are empty and that more taxes are needed to improve those services and hire more officers, but the survey may offer an early warning ahead of the November election, when the city will ask voters to raise sales taxes to pay for a variety of community safety investments.

According to the poll, 63% of city voters feel their taxes are too high for the level of service the city provides, 78% believe the city has enough money to address its priorities but isn’t spending it wisely, and 74% believe their local government isn’t spending their tax dollars responsibly.

This isn’t necessarily an indicator as to how people will vote on specific tax proposals, noted Andrew Thibault, Senior Principal for EMC Research.

“There’s a disconnect there in voters’ minds,” Thibault said. “Voters aren’t black and white on these things, and they can and have supported tax measures in broad numbers in these kinds of environments.”

Furthermore, 77% of city residents don’t believe the city has an effective plan to address top issues like homelessness, affordability and public safety.

Downtown

A significant portion of the survey focused on downtown Spokane, asking residents within and outside the city whether they feel safe in the urban core, whether they worry about the future of downtown, and whether they blame city leaders for its current state.

The perceptions, at least, are grim.

Among all poll respondents, including those living outside of city limits, 89% worry about the future of downtown, and 74% believe recent policy decisions by the city are driving away small businesses. Asked whether they feel safe downtown during the day, 58% said yes; at night, that number plummeted to 21%.

More than half said that they visit downtown Spokane much less than they did before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. When asked what would bring them back to Spokane, reducing crime topped the list at 26%, reducing visible homelessness came in second at 19%, and better entertainment, nightlife and restaurants came in third at 14%.

Spokane is not monolith

In many cases, people polled for the Pulse expressed similar concerns, regardless of demographic or whether they lived inside or outside of the city. But in some key areas, answers diverge widely based on who responded, particularly based on their party affiliation.

Republicans made up 40% of those surveyed, while 31% were Democrats and the remainder labeled themselves independent or other.

Republicans broadly felt much more negatively about Spokane and the region, with 78% saying things are headed in the wrong direction compared to 35% of Democrats. Independents aligned more closely with Republicans on this issue, with 72% saying the region was headed in the wrong direction.

Democrats, Republicans and independents agreed on most issues, but there were some notable splits. Democrats were significantly less likely to say their top concern was crime, drugs and public safety in the region, at 32%, compared to 41% of independents and 46% of Republicans. High taxes were a top concern for 10% of Republicans, while 2% of Democrats agreed.

Republicans were overwhelmingly more likely to say they distrusted local government to efficiently spend taxpayer money or otherwise solve important problems, although even among Democrats, 68% don’t believe the city has a plan to solve its problems.

Republicans were also much more likely to believe their neighborhoods were less safe today than they were two years ago; 52% of Republicans said that hiring more police officers was extremely important, compared to 15% of Democrats.

Meanwhile, 56% of Democrats said that adding more mental health and substance abuse facilities was extremely important, compared to 28% of Republicans, though majorities from both parties agreed this was at least somewhat important.

Democrats were ambiguous about the state of the downtown economy, while most Republicans were pessimistic.

Republicans tended to say that improving crime and reducing homelessness would persuade them to come downtown more often, while Democrats listed those issues slightly behind better entertainment, restaurants and nightlife.

Notably, while 52% of Republicans expressed great distress over their personal finances compared to 26% of Democrats, they also reported higher incomes than Democrats who answered the poll.

Answers generally did not change significantly based on gender, though men overall had less trust in local government.

People of color were significantly less optimistic about the future of the region, more likely to have actively considered moving away and more distrustful of city government to spend money effectively or solve important problems.

Homelessness and crime were top concerns for both homeowners and renters, though significantly more so for homeowners.

Renters were more likely to express concerns about affordable housing, the cost of living and the economy than homeowners, while only 1% of renters said taxes were a primary frustration, compared to 9% of homeowners. Homeowners were significantly more concerned about safety downtown and more supportive of hiring more police officers.

Homeowners were also significantly less likely to support a wider variety of housing in their neighborhoods, with 40% in support compared to 64% of renters. Renters were also much more likely to believe public schools need more funding, with 52% strongly agreeing, while only 28% of homeowners, whose property taxes pay for those schools, strongly agreed.