SPOKANE, Wash. — With the deadline looming, local leaders say they have a plan to deal with the growing homeless camp off I-90 and Freya.
The proposal details how Spokane County leaders could use $24.3 million in state funding to house people at the homeless encampment off of I-90.
Couples at the camp say the don't want to be at a shelter if they can't be together.
"We had to go somewhere that we could be together," I-90 camper Nicholas Pillar said. "That's a big thing for us, we have to be together and so we thought Tent City would be our best option."
Spokane County leaders are proposing 60 two-person pods in the East Trent shelter. That would be in addition to 120 beds, which would house up to 240 people.
"It would mean just to be able to get on our feet," Pillar said. "To find long term housing."
Another option is for Catholic Charities to purchase the Quality Inn on Sunset Highway and turn it into a shelter. People say they would consider living in an apartment-style shelter over the state-owned land near I-90.
"In a hotel, you got direct bathroom, you can shower, bathe, you got electricity, you got heat," I-90 camper Willie Cody Jr. said. "Out here, you're just camping out here. Out here, you're just surviving."
Private shelter housing would give them a greater sense of ownership and security.
"Something we can have as our own space," Pillar said. "Not somewhere that if we leave for a night or two, we don't come back to our tent gone or someone living in it... a real home and a stable environment."
The building could have space for 110 people within 90 says of funding. The hotel also has the potential to become permanent housing. There's also a possibility for a rental assistance on R-V campgrounds for people living in R-Vs.
At last count, almost 600 people were living in the homeless encampment. According to the City, a deadline has not been established for reviewing or approving the plan. But, if the county gets the funding, action would be expected by August.
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