Groups Weigh In On Housing Woes Affordability Worries Bring Non-Profit Organizations Together
At times it sounded more like a hot political strategy session than a housing conference.
Spokane housing activists discussed how to motivate the poor to vote, how to “document human pain” and battle the “Congress from hell.”
One woman at Saturday’s “A Roof Over My Head II” conference on Spokane’s affordable housing crisis even advocated civic protests such as activists chaining themselves to housing administrators’ desks.
The conference at Spokane Community College was held to better coordinate services for the poor and combat federal cuts in social programs.
Hearing the political beat in the crowd of about 110 people, state Rep. Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, encouraged the activists to consider political office.
The legislature could use a housing firebrand, she said. “Please help me and others identify these people” in your movement.
Along with the political war talk, Spokane activists from more than a dozen nonprofit groups poured out sobering observations about Spokane’s housing crisis.
More families are doubling up in homes or living on the streets, unable to pay the rising rents.
A growing faction of the city’s working poor now spend 60 to 80 percent of their income on rent.
The average three-bedroom apartment costs $750 in Spokane - 80 percent more than in 1989.
Jim Bamberger, director of the Spokane Legal Services Center, kicked off the conference declaring that Spokane must stop looking to state, federal and other outsiders to save its poor.
“The federal government is gone. We cannot rely on the federal government any longer,” he said.
He also predicted the housing crisis might have to get worse before it jolts the city’s influential people to action. “Until the graffiti hits on the South Hill, until the Uzis hit on the South Hill, we’ll be comfortable.”
Bob Peeler, of the homeless project for the Spokane Neighborhood Action Plan, said he sees different people looking for shelter these days.
“I’m seeing larger families,” he said, noting a recent visit by a family with eight kids.
Peeler tried to help people imagine trying to hold onto dignity while keeping their families off the streets.
“If I move my three kids into your home - no matter how great of a person you are - within three weeks you’re going to kick me out. … What does that do for my self-esteem?”
Peeler also took shots at stereotypes, noting a recent survey of his homeless crowd found that 63 percent are in school or working full time “trying to get back on track.”
In between speeches, activists huddled in groups and plotted ways to try to improve the city’s affordable housing blight.
A select group from the conference, sponsored by the Greater Spokane Coalition Against Poverty, intends to meet in two weeks to craft a plan that counteracts cuts in public housing dollars.
“It looks like the ‘90s are going to make the ‘80s look like the good old days,” Maureen Howard, director of the Idaho Housing Coalition, told the crowd. “I think it’s right to be filled with righteous rage.”
Howard suggested a variety of counterattacks, including convincing the public that low-income housing construction helps the economy.
“We must come to terms with political power,” she said. “It’s time we looked around the room and said who among us would be good for public office.”
, DataTimes