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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Fire destroys pair of motorhomes in Hillyard neighborhood, highlighting precarious living conditions brought on by housing crisis

A Spokane Fire Department firefighter sprays water on a smoldering recreational vehicle fire that destroyed two RVs parked in a backyard on the 3700 block of East Rich Avenue on Wednesday in Spokane.  (COLIN MULVANY/THE SPOKESMAN-REVI)

Betty McDonald, 81, hardly recognizes her hometown anymore.

McDonald, who was born and raised in Spokane, said she can’t believe how much it’s grown over the past few decades, and how expensive it’s become to live here.

“It has gotten so hard that there’s not a chance for anyone to get on their feet anymore, get ahead or anything,” McDonald said. “Just to maintain and to have a place to live is just terrible.”

McDonald is speaking from firsthand experience, as the owner of a 900-square-foot trailer and a quarter-acre in the Hillyard Neighborhood. For over a decade, her two sons, her daughter and a few grandchildren have stayed in a handful of old recreational vehicles and campers parked on the back lot.

On Wednesday, two of the makeshift residences were destroyed in a fire, displacing two of McDonald’s children. The blaze started in her son’s RV while no one was home, before jumping to her daughter’s camper. Spokane Fire managed to extinguish the flames before all of her daughter’s belongings were destroyed, but her son was not as fortunate.

“He just lost it all,” McDonald said. “He has no clothes. He has nothing. Everything was in there.”

Wednesday’s fire marked the second recreational vehicle fire on the property in as many months. Spokane Fire responded to a blaze that destroyed her other son’s motor home in December.

“It’s just terrible,” McDonald said. “This last year has been so darn hard.”

While neither incident resulted in bodily harm, they highlight the often precarious circumstances keeping vulnerable Spokanites from living on the streets.

Of the estimated 2,000 people who were homeless in Spokane County last year, more than 20% were not accessing homeless shelters or transitional housing, according to city data. It’s unclear just how many of those people may be staying, in tents, exposed to the elements or in vehicles like McDonald’s family.

One of the stated goals of the city’s annual point-in-time count, a regional assessment of homelessness that wrapped up this week, was to get a better sense of the homelessness experience for people who do not fit the typical profile.

That could be couch surfing, cycling between shelters and stays with family or those who call their vehicles home, said Jon Klapp, a program professional with the city’s Community, Housing and Human Services who organized this year’s count.

McDonald bought her trailer in 2013, according to county records. Having all of her children living on the property was never part of the plan, she said, but financial strains necessitated it.

“It wasn’t my wish for most of the family moving in, it was times were too hard,” McDonald said. “Nobody had the income to back up what they needed to do. There’s no housing available, and what there is is so expensive. No one can afford that, except the rich.”

In recent years, the property’s become a bit of a safe haven for not only her family, but their friends experiencing homelessness, who would visit often and park the vehicles they were staying in on the street in front of the house.

McDonald isn’t a fan of the visitors, but she hasn’t had much help in driving them away. She also understands why they flock to a place where they may feel safe, but it’s strained her financially and emotionally.

“My kids are good -hearted kids, and they would let their friends in because they cared,” she said. “Then it all went wrong and all against me, until I don’t know what’s gonna happen anymore about my place or anything.”

The uncertainty around her living situation goes beyond just the fires.

Since March 2021, Spokane Code Enforcement has been issuing McDonald citations for zoning and solid waste violations, “as well as for violations related to the RVs,” said city spokeswoman Erin Hut.

Before McDonald’s sons were displaced by the fires, they would use wood stoves to heat the RVs. The blaze last year was started when a stove was left unattended, said Spokane Fire Operations Chief Darin Neiwert.

Neiwart said the cause of Wednesday’s fire is still under investigation, but that it’s been narrowed down to the wood stove or a series of extension cables running electricity to the motor homes.

“It was pretty rough living conditions,” Neiwart said.

Nastya Lavrov, who lives behind McDonald with her husband and four children, said her heart goes out to the family. She understands how expensive the cost of living is, and how there is a lack of affordable housing in the area, but it’s “devastating” to see her neighbors surviving in motor homes.

She’s never had a negative interaction with McDonald or her family, but their visitors have caused some concern for the safety of her young children. Lavrov said she would often hear people driving or walking through the alleyway late into the night, has seen those individuals drinking and using drugs, and was told her home was broken into just before she moved in a few years ago.

“I always have to be cautious, but at the same time, I understand where they’re at,” Lavrov said. “It’s really hard living. My heart races talking about this, because I know how hard it can be to survive.”

McDonald said she knows the property’s conditions are not ideal, but it has snowballed to the point where she needs outside assistance. She said she hasn’t received the legal assistance to deal with squatters in the past, and local nonprofits have not been much help in terms of housing and food insecurity resources.

She recounted reaching out to Aging & Long Term Care of Eastern Washington for assistance, but they told her they couldn’t help, she said.

“They said I am not considered a vulnerable adult, because nobody’s harming me physically,” McDonald said. “I said, ‘well what about emotionally and financially?’ I mean, my income is solely Social Security.”

The city has provided assistance in bringing the property up to code and some homelessness resources, including hauling out 35,000 pounds of garbage waste from the property last October, Hut said.

While there are challenges unique to McDonald’s quarter acre, and the response and issues have been complex, Hut said it’s not alone in that regard. The department has similar cases citywide.

Code enforcement officers attempt to identify the origins of unlawful use of a property whenever possible, and then will work to address those underlying causes with the owner, Hut said.

“Where cases have housing needs, they reach out to partners, such as SNAP, to visit the property and sometimes those partners visit the site along with the Code team,” Hut said in a written statement. “Code may not be able to resolve all of the conditions as swiftly as they would like, but they do strive to leave the property in a better position after they leave, while keeping the case open and active until resolution.”

However, McDonald says the city’s assistance hasn’t been enough. Spokane Neighborhood Action Partners did visit the property last year, but the resources were provided primarily to her children’s visitors, she said.

“SNAP came supposedly to help my kids, and they ended up helping the kids’ friends and not my kids,” McDonald said. “I thought, what the heck? What’s that all about? They didn’t do anything. They brought some sandwiches and stuff, but the other homeless got those.”

In addition to the trash haul in October, Hut said the city is continuing to work with McDonald and the family to “continue those abatements and alleviate the remainder of the violations on the property.”

Betsy Robertson, communications director for the American Red Cross Northwest Region, said the organization is providing assistance to McDonald’s children following the fires. The Red Cross assists those affected by natural disasters and, in the process, can help point people in the right direction for services they do not provide.

“With the increase in disasters that we are seeing, not just home fires, but wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods,” Robertson said. “Whenever they happen, they do tend to disproportionately impact these individuals who are already struggling with housing, struggling in the environment that we live in, and so it does exacerbate things.”

Aside from helping her children get out of the trailer, and a car in which one son is now living, McDonald said an increased investment in homelessness resources and affordable housing options is what she hopes comes out of the disaster.

“There’s no help with anything and they just leave you with nothing to work with,” McDonald said. “But that’s what I would like to see, is a lot of improvement on all of that.”

It’s hard for a lot of people right now,” she added.