SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane City Council is pumping the brakes on the formation of a regional homeless authority.
The Spokane Regional Collaborative (SRC), also known as Spokane Unite, has been exploring creating the coalition since early this year.
"We're still committed to the concept," said council member Zack Zappone. "This doesn't mean we're just stalling to prevent it from happening. There's still a commitment to the idea of a regional homeless authority."
Spokane was on track to join with Spokane Valley, Medical Lake, Airway Heights, Cheney, and Liberty Lake to launch the collaboration. Though that track was moving too fast for some.
"You only get one chance to do it right," said Maurice Smith of Spokane's Homeless Coalition.
The coalition and other service providers for Spokane's unhoused population sounded the alarm about SRC's proposal, which was released as a draft charter in June.
One of the main issues was a perceived lack of input from service providers and a shortage of spaces on the governing board for those providers or people with lived experience of homelessness.
"If you want to meaningfully address homelessness in Spokane County, you've got to work primarily with the people who do it on a daily basis," said Smith.
He says service providers should make up a majority of that board.
Another issue: what Smith and some members of council believe is a lack of transparency.
"Transparency in everything that's done," Smith said. "When it comes to budget, when it comes to expenses, who's involved. We need to be able to see the big picture and know what the details are."
The resolution passed Monday says the city hasn't provided council with a complete accounting of the costs and funding for homelessness initiatives or housing.
"If the data were good you'd probably be sharing it so maybe there's a problem we need to know about," Smith said.
Greater transparency and sharing of data is now central to council's agreement to participate.
The resolution states in part that council,
"[...]will not undertake to evaluate or approve the City’s participation in any regional authority unless any and all City statistical data, information, accounting, financial or other information pertaining to its homelessness, housing, public safety or health programs, personnel and strategies that is shared with either the SRC or any persons or entity working in furtherance toward the study, creation, and/or funding of the Authority is fully and simultaneously shared with the City Council."
Other conditions to agreeing to a short-term agreement, including funding, for next year include the SRC providing a detailed operations budget for 2024 and the revision of the current draft charter to focus on housing and homelessness, not public safety and incarceration, among other conditions.
Council member Jonathan Bingle voted no, saying it put an already delicate agreement in jeopardy.
"I promise you we're not moving fast on this," Bingle said. "We've spent six months working on this and haven't come anywhere near an agreement because there are so many issues."
Council member Michael Cathcart called the resolution a guardrail for the ongoing negotiations. He believes that could be hammered out into a regional authority implementation sometime next year, though says it may come under a different city council.
"And let's continue that public discussion," Cathcart said. "I think this is actually helping to guide the discussion."
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