SPOKANE, Wash. —
The Washington State Department of Transportation reports the homeless encampment off of I-90 continues to shrink.
According to WSDOT, the camp is down 13 people from its last count in February.
Now, only an estimated 65 people still live on the state-owned land.
Executive director of Jewels Helping Hands, Julie Garcia, said the needle is moving in the right direction.
“Our end goal, ours, WSDOT, the city, Commerce, the East Central neighborhood, our goal is all the same. Decommission this camp and close Camp Hope,” Garcia said.
At one point, over 600 people lived at the camp, but Garcia said there have been no new additions since October.
“Everyone that’s still here has been here since before October,” Garcia said.
Despite this, she said people still come to the camp, looking for a way to get in and off the street.
“People who want to be a part of Camp Hope even though we aren’t taking new guests, they still come here every day,” Garcia shared.
She said she’s worried the potential Cannon Street shelter closing will put more people on the streets since they can’t come to the camp.
It’s going to impact the entire community to put 80 more people experiencing homelessness back on the streets,” Garcia said. “We cannot assume they'll just go to Trent. It's not a reality. We can try and force them, but we see what force does. It just makes them angry. It just deepens their trauma."
A current proposal presented at Monday’s city council meeting recommends closing the Cannon Shelter by May 31st and having the Trent Resource Assistance Center absorb 80 beds.
Garcia said doing this could add to an already visible problem.
“We’re doing the same thing as Camp Hope at the TRAC shelter to that neighborhood,” Garcia explained. We can see it by you no longer see police officers here because they’re all over there. No matter what group of people you bring into an area, when you bring 300 of them, it brings along everything that comes with adding 300 people to a new community. They’re seeing the impact of that at TRAC.”
According to Spokane Police, police activity has significantly increased with a ¼ mile radius of the shelter since it opened.
Between September 2022 and February 2023, SPD told KREM2 there have been 890 total calls for service with 79 of those calls turning into actual cases.
“I would just implore the city to not make rash decisions in closing places before we explore every option available because of the domino effect that it has,” Garcia said.
Garcia said closing the Cannon shelter wouldn’t directly affect progress at the I-90 camp.
However, she said if more people end up on the streets, her resources would have to devote more time supporting those unhoused.
“People shouldn’t be sleeping outside in our community and that’s where our focus needs to be,” Garcia said.
WSDOT said it is planning to decrease the perimeter of the fence in early April and continue taking counts of people on a bi-weekly basis.
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