At Spokane homeless encampment, the choice is between freezing or using dangerous fuels

A normal bottle of high-alcohol hand sanitizer will burn away in just a couple of hours, but Daniel Rose knows how to fashion a container so that it provides about six hours of heat.

Now, he’s thankful a local church gifted him a small propane heater.

“For a while, I was combining alcohol and cooking oil to burn, but it wasn’t safe,” Rose said. “I kept having so much smoke.”

The ground beneath his tent is frozen and impenetrable, so Rose has tethered it to a nearby tree, lassoing counterweights around the branches to keep it upright amid harsh winter winds.

Like others at the Spokane encampment near Thor Street and Second Avenue, Rose has to be creative to survive, as overnight temperatures routinely drop below freezing.

Here, hand sanitizer isn’t used to deter the spread of COVID-19, but as fuel for a flame by which to keep warm. The noxious fumes are the price paid for the fleeting heat that quickly escapes an uninsulated tent. Every candle needs its wick, so residents use materials like cardboard or even tampons to keep the flame alight.

Residents of the encampment on the vacant state-owned land know that burning fuel inside a tent is unsafe, but question what other choice they have as temperatures plummet.

Last week, a camp fixture who goes by “Big Mike” woke up to find the tent around him on fire, started by the unattended fuel he was burning to stay warm. Near the remnants of his tent later that day, he told The Spokesman-Review he was able to get out just before it was fully engulfed.

Mike made it out without serious injury – and pointed to a slightly singed beard – but it was a close call.

Blankets are layered atop one another, and many tents are covered in tarps to enhance insulation and keep out moisture. But residents of the encampment say they face a choice between two inherently unsafe options: burn fuel or freeze.

In this close-knit community that popped up in December, people often share tents and rely on the body heat of others to stay warm. They also rely on donations of fuels like propane and hand sanitizer.

Last Sunday, police responded to a reported death at the encampment. The Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office has not released a cause, but his neighbors at the camp believe the cold may have been a factor.

Dozens of residents live at the encampment, which has a set of rules and a council of leaders. For now, it’s a relatively stable place to be for people who would otherwise lack one.

Some – but not all – used the emergency shelter opened by the city in the Spokane Convention Center as a deadly cold snap settled in late December, with plans to accommodate up to 150 people.

At one point, it had as many as 343 people inside.

The temporary shelter closed on Jan. 9, two weeks after it opened, with city officials pointing to upcoming events at the Convention Center and the need to repair damage to bathrooms and carpeting.

Nothing has opened in its place.

The city acknowledges that it does not have an adequate number of beds in low-barrier shelters – meaning they do not impose requirements like sobriety or adherence to a religion on guests – to meet the persistent need.

The administration is trying to open a temporary emergency shelter to make it through winter, then refocus its search on a different long-term solution if necessary. Either way, the monthslong search has yet to bear fruit.

“The work continues,” Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward told The Spokesman-Review on Tuesday. “If I could speed it up any faster, I would, but there are just things that we have to do to get this going that take time.”

Woodward said she would like to analyze the city’s shelter capacity report and find if there are open beds into which it can direct people. The capacity report showed little to no bed availability last week.

The encampment’s existence is tenuous at best, acknowledged – but not endorsed – by public officials.

The state Department of Transportation has twice issued 48-hour notices to vacate the premises, only to later rescind them and acknowledge that there is inadequate space in existing shelters into which they could move people.

Although the encampment has been there for weeks, Woodward has told The Spokesman-Review she won’t sanction a tent city. She fears that it would be more difficult to connect those living in a tent city to services than those in a shelter.

Even if the city opens a new shelter, not everyone at the encampment is interested in packing up their entire camp and moving into a shelter that is inherently temporary. Some reject living under a set of strict rules. Others fear having their belongings stolen.

Rose has anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, he said, and can’t be in a crowded shelter environment.

Whether by choice or due to a lack of shelter beds, being outside is dangerous, according to people who treat those living unsheltered.

As of Jan. 19, the Spokane Fire Department had responded to 107 calls for frostbite or exposure this year, according to Spokane Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer. Numbers for previous years weren’t immediately available, but “anecdotally, it’s higher than numbers in years past,” Schaeffer said.

When people are in the cold, “everything slows down,” including cognitive functions and motor skills, he said.

“You feel tired. All that you want to do is curl up in a ball and stay warm, and it takes a lot of energy to stay out in the cold,” Schaeffer said.

If present, alcohol and drugs in a person’s system can only exacerbate the issues caused by the cold, Schaeffer said.

In the past, Schaeffer said there have been bodies covered in snow, literally frozen to the ground, discovered by first responders.

“It is one of the most sad situations because it’s completely predictable and equally very preventable,” Schaeffer said. “(That) they die alone is the frustrating piece. Sometimes they’re in plain view next to a building and probably hundreds of people drive by and it’s become a common sight for us in our area, us that work in the downtown core, to see people huddled up inside doorways of buildings.”

Freezing to death is a risk, but it’s far from the only one.

Last month, a propane tank exploded at an encampment near the Spokane River, sending two people to the hospital.

Accidents like that come as no surprise to those who conduct outreach and those who’ve experienced homelessness.

CHAS Health deploys doctors to city streets four days a week.

Its street medicine team can bandage wounds, provide fresh pairs of socks, or simply offer a few temporary handwarmers.

In the winter, what the doctors find is that frostbite, and its less severe counterpart, frostnip, “are extremely common” among the unsheltered, said Deb Wiser, chief clinical officer for CHAS.

Extremities get cold, usually starting with the feet. The tissue that’s coldest eventually starts to die off, and when that happens it can go one of two ways. The person finds a way to get warm, encourage blood flow, and eventually it can heal, or they don’t, and the tissue turns black, starts to die off and often gets infected.

“People can lose those digits or those parts of their limbs,” Wiser said. “The reality is with these types of cold injuries in particular, if you can’t get the consistent warmth, you’re not going to be able to heal it.”

Cold temperatures are an obvious risk, but so is moisture.

“People only have so much access to be able to dry their clothes,” Wiser said.

Respite beds are available at local shelters for people to recover, but that access has been limited by COVID, Wiser noted.

Meanwhile, those still outside plead for more fuel – even more than a hot meal.

“Warm food, it’s going to feed you, it’s going to help for a little bit,” Rose said. “But it’s not going to keep you warm all day.”