Shawn Vestal: Homeless volunteers get to work through Goodwill Hope Works program

It’s 9:30 a.m. and a chilly 29 degrees when we set off into the city, looking for panhandlers.

“They have to be actively panhandling,” says Amanda Boyer, riding shotgun. “They have to be holding that sign.”

Boyer is a case manager with the Goodwill Hope Works program. Twice a week, she and Patrick Sullivan drive around downtown Spokane in their van with a trailer full of work gear, finding panhandlers and offering them a deal: Volunteer for a few hours in exchange for a $50 stipend and as much help as program workers can find for them, from getting a new ID to arranging transportation to finding a place to live.

We head south on Division, cross to the east and head back downtown on Browne. It’s the first week of the month – not long after the arrival of benefits checks – which means the corners are not quite as busy as they’ll be later in the month.

South we go on Maple, east on Fifth …

Amanda and Patrick point out people by name. Men who have turned down the offer in the past. People they see regularly out haunting the corners and alleys, flying signs, huddled with their things. They spot a man panhandling near the freeway entrance to Interstate 90 at Walnut; when the man sees the van, he waves it down.

“That’s Martin,” Sullivan said. “We’ve worked with him several times.”

In minutes, Martin Burgess, a bearded 44-year-old who spent the previous night outdoors, climbs into the van along with a man who asks to be identified only as Reed. A few blocks later, Greg Glover climbs in. A 35-year-old who says that he finds it hard to stay in shelters, in part because of anxiety, Greg is quiet in the back, while Martin and Reed talk up a storm.

We stop in the parking lot at Dick’s, where 52-year-old Tom Kohler climbs in, holding his gloved hands in front of the van’s heaters as they blow. We’re almost full now, and will be heading out to pick up trash around downtown.

“Y’all hungry?” Reed asks. “Want a donut?”

He pulls out a plastic bag, reaches into a half-empty bag of Doritos and pulls out a cinnamon twist covered with bits of chip, which he hands to Tom.

“Sorry about the chips,” Reed says, but Tom is already happily scarfing it up.

Amanda passes out bottles of water, other snacks. In the back bench seat, Greg talks to Martin about feeling disoriented.

“I haven’t had anybody care about me like this for a long, long time,” he said.

‘They feel forgotten’

Hope Works is run by Goodwill in partnership with the city of Spokane, Catholic Charities and the Downtown Spokane Partnership. The goal is to reach out directly to panhandlers, gather information about them and try to connect them to services that might help them get off the street. Surely some of the support for the program is meant primarily to move panhandlers off the corners, but for the Goodwill team, it’s chiefly a humanitarian mission that has helped people who really need it.

“They feel forgotten,” Boyer said.

Launched in March, the program is an 18-month pilot with a budget of more than $100,000. In that time, nearly 300 people have volunteered on 48 separate days, and 242 of them have been “connected” to some sort of services to help them – whether it’s employment services, mental health care, substance abuse treatments or others.

Five have been moved into housing as a result of Hope Works.

The program has overturned a few assumptions that some might have about the panhandling population. One is that many of them are not really homeless, Alexander said. But the folks who have climbed into the van are overwhelmingly homeless – 98 percent of the volunteers say they are on the streets.

Another is that most of that population won’t work if it’s offered, but the Hope Works Team say it’s relatively easy to find six people interested in volunteering.

“It’s really rare if someone says no,” Boyer said.

Alexander said that the Hope Works van has become a familiar sight to the people on the corners, and some of the initial wariness among the homeless has worn off.

“It doesn’t take very long for the van to fill up,” she said. “They’re ready and willing to work and they trust the program.”

It’s also clear that they know each other well.

“One of the things that has struck me is how these individuals are sharing with each other,” Alexander said.

That was apparent in the van this week. Reed shared food and advice with the other passengers, letting them know where the day’s meals could be had, where the clothing banks were, where to get help.

At one point, Amanda was talking one of the workers into sticking around for the day.

She stuck her head in the van.

“Does anybody have a smoke?” she asked.

Reed immediately held out a hand-rolled, partly smoked cigarette.

I asked if that was his last smoke.

“It was just a rollie,” he said. “I’ll get more.”

Ground zero

The Hope Works van passed a lot of the places that are at ground zero for the current homelessness crisis in Spokane. We started at the Goodwill building on Third, passed several areas where those without a place to live have been much more visible lately – under the freeway entrance, on some of the central corners, near the I-90 entrances and offramps.

We stopped at the House of Charity on West Pacific and picked up two men who wanted to work. That block was, for many months, a scene of crowding, safety and nuisance complaints and other problems as the shelter was overrun with more people needing help than the shelter could safely help.

The shelter had been taking in everyone, as part of the city’s commitment to a 24/7 shelter system, but was overwhelmed. In September, the shelter and city scaled back the number of available beds there – meaning about 150 fewer indoor spots for homeless people.

Since then, street homelessness has been as visible in the city as it’s been at any point in recent memory, and a lot of people are clamoring for solutions – both from the humanitarian desire to help the homeless and from the frustration over problems associated with gatherings of homeless people. Until a new permanent shelter is built next year, the city is scrambling to find temporary options; Salem Lutheran is one of the latest locations to open its doors to homeless people.

Until then, though, we’re well into winter weather and the sense that we’ve lost our hold on the problem, after years of improvements and ambitious goals, is pervasive.

Perhaps no place exemplifies that more right now than City Hall, where more than 30 tents are set up, crowding the plaza outside the entrance to the council chambers and stretching down the block to the front of the Mobius Children’s Museum and Science Center.

Our day in the van took us past all of these places – from the House of Charity to City Hall, past the viaducts and doorways and street corners and parking lots where you can see people with all their belongings piled into grocery carts.

After the House of Charity, we stopped on Short, just east of Division, by a large retaining wall against which some homeless people had huddled overnight. The van crew put on orange vests, took up grabber tools and garbage bags, and started cleaning up.

After a while there, we headed off to pick up sandwiches at Rosauers and then stopped at a parking lot across from City Hall at Riverfront Park, where Amanda and Patrick set up a little table and chairs and served lunch. The men ate gratefully, and talked about what they might do with their stipends, answered a few of my questions.

They said they appreciated the chance to get out of the cold, the chance to do some positive work and earn a little money, the chance to find other ways to get help. They said they especially appreciated the Hope Works team, and the care they had shown them.

“The best thing is Amanda and Patrick,” Greg said. “They’re really personable and they really seem to care.”