SPOKANE, Wash. — Former Houston mayor, Anisse Parker will be in Spokane on Tuesday to speak on reducing homelessness.
Parker was the mayor of Houston from 2010-2016. During her time in office, she created several initiatives for reducing homelessness and delivered on many. According to numbers from Houston, the city permanently housed 30,000 individuals over the past 10 years. That move reduced homelessness in the city by more than 60%.
Parker will be at the Davenport on Tuesday to talk about those efforts and how the model she laid out could also work right here in Spokane. Former Mayor Parker was invited to speak in Spokane by Hello For Good.
The event will begin Tuesday morning and the symposium is free and open to the public.
Back in November 2023, KREM 2 sent anchors Channing Curtis and Whitney Ward to talk with authorities in Houston about how they tackled the homelessness problem.
This housing first initiative is what Mike Nichols, CEO and President of the Coalition for the Homeless Houston/Harris County, says is the cornerstone to their success.
”When we say housing, think of it as a three-legged stool,” said Nichols. “It's a real house or apartment, a place with a key and a lock and air conditioning and heating, and a refrigerator and stove. It’s places where you can live for a long time after you overcome the trauma of being homeless. In addition to that, there's a subsidy for the rent, to help people move ahead with their lives. And the most important leg, very important that's often forgotten, is case management, paid professional case management, to help people with all the problems that they would have moving from homelessness into a house, food, health care, mental health care, substance, all those issues, that people need to move forward with their lives.”
Their region has prioritized housing the most vulnerable people first, something that was a bit of a controversial decision at the time.