Homelessness in Washington State’s Inland Northwest
Monika Kriebel
Tucson is only one of the hundreds of cities across the US recently experiencing an increasing shortage of affordable housing. This problem is not new but has lingered for decades on the margins of our elected officials’ awareness and has been ignored, perhaps, in favor of other problems. I live half of the year on our farm in Eastern Washington State between Spokane, 65 miles to the north, and Pullman, a university town 27 miles to the southeast. Spokane, with a city population of 230K and metropolitan area population of 465K, has a large visible population of residents living in small tents, under tarps or in cardboard shanties, on downtown sidewalks, under its many bridges and in its parks, as I have observed for years when visiting the city for construction and farm supplies. The city claims it has a homeless population of 2390 people according to a Point-in-Time (PIT) count this January, compared to PIT counts of 1457 persons in 2022 and 720 in 2021. The count of those living in shelters in 2024 is 1578, compared to 1435 persons in 2023. Under Mayor Lisa Brown, Spokane is closing the city-run Trent homeless shelter, according to several recent media articles in The Spokesman Review, the local daily newspaper. Since September 2022, the Trent shelter offered free 24-hour shelter, including breakfast and lunch, for 400 people. The city wants to re-locate these unhoused persons to several different areas of the city, but it is unclear what kind of housing will be available. It seems that the city of Spokane is just in the beginning stages of addressing the growing problems of providing housing for its poorest residents, not unlike Tucson. Other, smaller cities in the state have been addressing this problem for many years, however, progress is slow, just as The Homing Project has found. One example is the city of Walla Walla, located in central Washington near the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers.
Walla Walla is the center of a productive wine growing region and the location of Whitman College. The area attracts tourists interested in the vineyards and how wine is produced, and many vineyards operate wine tasting rooms in downtown Walla Walla. Residents living on the city streets present an eyesore, and a challenge for tourism. In 2015, surely to accommodate the wineries, the city decided to reduce the number of unsheltered people who were hanging out downtown by providing shelters on the outskirts of town.
According to the blog on their very informative web site, the Walla Walla Alliance for the Homeless created a shelter community featuring 37 Conestoga Huts. These huts were designed in Eugene OR and sell for about $3500. They are 6 by 10 feet and 8 feet high inside with a covered porch large enough to place two chairs. The door is lockable and an operable window in the rear of the hut provides ventilation and light. A large lockable box for personal belongings is mounted on the hut’s rear wall. The huts have no heat source but are insulated on all six sides and sit off the ground on a platform. Huts are assigned to single individuals, or couples, who can remain in residence in a hut so long as they occupy the hut at least 5 nights a week. There are also two modular buildings on the premises; one serves both as staff office space and as a meeting room for residents, and the other building provides restrooms and showers. The shelter community does not provide cooking facilities but does provide coffee and hot water as well as cereals for breakfast in the meeting room. Those food items are handed out by a volunteer on request between 7 and 9 AM. Lunch and/or supper meals are provided by local non-profit organizations who deliver them daily on a rotational schedule, according to a volunteer I talked with during my visit to Walla Walla in July.
The Walla Walla Shelter Community is located in an industrial area where many construction and transportation companies, and the city of Walla Walla, maintain warehouses, trucks and implements. Nearby, across a three-lane highway, is the Washington State Penitentiary, which according to the prison’s website is the largest correctional facility in WA, and houses 2400 men, and which, with 1100 employees, is the 4th largest employer in WW County.
Unfortunately, I was told I could not enter the shelter village for a closer look beyond the reception office, due to privacy issues. I could only peer through the office window, but I later climbed an electrical box and peeked over the 8-foot perimeter fence, topped with barbed wire, and took a few pictures across the fence. As I was looking at the shelter community’s location and surroundings, I felt uncomfortable with its location so close to a large prison and tucked between trucking company yards. There was a bus stop about a quarter mile away, but I didn’t see even a convenience store or a fast-food place within a few miles. Perhaps there were some job opportunities nearby, but I couldn’t get any information on that question from the volunteer or security guard.
My impression overall was positive. I liked the secure fencing and that food was brought in, so no expensive cooking facilities were needed, which saves funds. The shelter community was presently expanding into an adjacent property and had acquired several somewhat larger Pallet Shelters, similar those THP purchased, for $15,600 each according to their blog, to host small families. I noticed that a raised-bed garden has been started in the new area. I was told that only service animals were allowed on the premises.
So there is a snapshot of what another project, much like The Homing Project, is doing, in another western city, to address the problems of homelessness.