SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — Thursday mornings at Reclaim Project Recovery are for sharing.
"How many people have got a second chance here in this room?" asks Aaron Allen, one of the group's co-founders.
Several hands go up among the seated sea of men before him. Allen calls on another man to share his thoughts on staying sober, thanking him for his vulnerability.
When the large groups break, some of the men go to work for the Reclaim Project's construction crew while others hang back to stack food boxes for distribution.
About a third of the men they work with, says chaplain and executive director Kenny Carlson, are coming out of addiction. Another third: incarceration. The remainder are facing homelessness.
It's why the group, including co-founder and CEO Shawn Kingsbury, are excited for the next big move.
"Yes," Kingsbury laughs. "We're pretty big here in Spokane, we do a lot."
Spokane Valley's city council recently awarded $4 million in American Rescue Plan Act money to five nonprofits to launch or expand programs that address homelessness and affordable housing.
Reclaim will get nearly $1.5 million.
"With the city awarding us that money, we're able to bring a seed, a piece of all our program we're already operating here in Spokane to the Valley," said Kingsbury.
Just blocks from Spokane Valley along East Mission, another nonprofit's expansion will target a different population facing homelessness.
"When we first started looking at moving Crosswalk to a different location, we made sure to talk to the youth in our program," said Rae-Lynn Barden, director of marketing and communications for Volunteers of America of Eastern Washington. "They really expressed the want to be out of downtown and be embedded in a neighborhood."
Volunteers of America will break ground this fall on a new, larger Crosswalk youth shelter. An investment of $500,000 from the Valley's ARPA funds closed the final funding gap on the $16 million project.
"We'll keep the bed capacity the same in the shelter at 18 beds and then we're going to add dorm-style apartments above for 16-20 year olds," Barden said.
About 19% of VOA's youngest clients are in Spokane Valley. The 45,000 square foot facility will house 13-17 year olds at all hours; teens up to 21 will be able to use the center during the day.
For Reclaim, a second facility in the Valley will offer more space than their building on Broadway. It'll serve as an operations hub and house their construction company, along with a new thrift store.
It's an opportunity to offer a couple dozen new jobs.
"We'll be employing people who are pretty hard to employ and we'll also be bringing recovery support out there," Allen said.
The group is still looking for a site for that building. The other part of the plan is to acquire some nuisance houses in Spokane Valley to renovate and use as transitional sober housing, a model Reclaim already uses in Spokane. They offer around 140 rooms in 25 different properties around the city where men who work together and work out together also live with one another.
"Not only help men reclaim their lives but we reclaim neighborhoods when we come in and clean up these places and these houses. We become like a lighthouse in those areas," Carlson said.
"We're just going to take a practical approach of getting people housed, getting people employed," Allen said. "Giving some pride back to people."
DOWNLOAD THE KREM SMARTPHONE APP
DOWNLOAD FOR IPHONE HERE | DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID HERE
HOW TO ADD THE KREM+ APP TO YOUR STREAMING DEVICE
ROKU: add the channel from the ROKU store or by searching for KREM in the Channel Store.
Fire TV: search for "KREM" to find the free app to add to your account. Another option for Fire TV is to have the app delivered directly to your Fire TV through Amazon.
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email webspokane@krem.com.