SPOKANE, Wash. — As the region continues to grow, the city of Spokane is continuing to search for new ways to address homelessness and complaints that come along with it.
Last month, the city of Spokane expanded its Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) to improve and increase responses to complaints about illegal camping and other impacts. The number of illegal camping complaints reported to code enforcement have multiplied in Spokane. Instead of responding as one group across the entire city, Spokane's HOT is now operating in two teams: neighborhood and downtown.
By splitting HOT into two teams, the city hopes the number of complaints will decrease and the way the complaints are handled will improve.
"Homelessness is not just a downtown thing," said Luis Garcia, the director of Spokane Code Enforcement. "It actually is occurring citywide."
The downtown team operates inside the boundaries of the Spokane Police Department (SPD) Downtown Precinct, while the neighborhood team focuses on all areas outside of downtown. This new structure has been in effect since April, according to Garcia.
"It gives us the ability to get in, work quickly and safely, but also get to more sites in a daily basis," he said.
Individually, HOT typically responds to approximately a dozen cases every day. With two teams, however, Garcia said the daily rate has increased to 34 cases.
"We also open up cases proactively," Garcia said. "So if we know of certain locations, we'll go ahead and frequent those locations and open up cases as needed."
When responding to encampments, the team offers services to people they encounter. Beyond that, they work quickly to clear away garbage left behind at the camps.
Each team is accompanied by a Spokane police officer. Their focus is ensuring the public at large is safe.
Officers will act on any outstanding warrants they come across, but Garcia said their main intent is to make contact with people experiencing homelessness in an effort to get them into services.
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