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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Hundreds of volunteers comb Spokane County for annual homelessness count

Using a phone to fill out a questionnaire, Catherine Smith, who works with Volunteers of America, interviews an unhoused man Friday.  (Jesse Tinsley/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW)

Catherine Smith greeted the man with a smile as he approached her Friday in the lobby of the Partners Inland Northwest center in Spokane Valley .

Smith, 23, is gathering data on homelessness in the region, she explained, and would like to gather his responses to a survey.

“Please come take a seat,” Smith said. “Then, in exchange, I’m happy to give you a bus pass for your time.”

William Moore, 58, perked up at the offer of a bus pass. Getting around town to access services and resources is one of his daily challenges as a homeless individual, he said, and it’s only become harder in recent months due to the cold and a flare -up of an old leg injury.

Since Wednesday, Smith, alongside around 400 other volunteers, are combing through Spokane County to conduct the annual point-in-time count, an assessment of the region’s homeless population mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for counties that receive federal funding.

The tally from the point-in-time count won’t be ready for release until spring.

The local count is led by the city of Spokane, with assistance from regional partners like nonprofits, schools and other municipalities. Volunteers are assigned an area of the county to explore and conduct a roughly 20-question survey with homeless people. The results are compiled into an annual report, said Jon Klapp, a program professional with the city’s Community, Housing and Human Services who organized this year’s count.

“I think it’s a very common misconception that homelessness itself exists within, you know, a six-block radius in downtown Spokane,” Klapp said. “But this is a circumstance that exists countywide.”

In addition to street outreach, Klapp said volunteers also visit local shelters, food banks and resource centers such as Partners INW, to try to capture as complete of a picture as possible. Experiencing homelessness can look differently for each person, whether it’s staying in a shelter, couch surfing, living in a vehicle or braving the elements.

The details that led to homelessness, and the challenges an individual faces finding stable housing can also differ greatly, Klapp added.

Many of the survey questions gather required demographic information, Klapp said, while others specifically seek to capture those differences in individual circumstances so local organizations can learn how to better their services to lead to more positive outcomes.

“We’re talking to people about, from their perspective, what is it they’re already getting they want more of or that they don’t have at all right now,” Klapp said. “Then we ask people where they were living before they started to experience homelessness. That helps us get an idea of when we’re trying to chart out and set up some of those services to prevent people from starting to experience homelessness, or to address those rapid onset homelessness types of circumstances.”

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown, who’s participated in the count stretching back to her time as the chancellor of Washington State University Spokane, said the survey provides an opportunity for the community to come together and become familiar with the challenges facing the homeless and those working to assist them.

The personal interactions with the community are her favorite aspect of the annual event, Brown said.

“It really helps bring home that many of the unhoused population have had multiple experiences that have led them to where they are,” Brown said. “And so if we meet them where they are, we can start to help that journey toward stability.”

Later Friday morning, Moore sat down with Smith to share his experiences, and what he believes would help him find stability after cycling in and out of homelessness for decades.

Moore said his current stint with homelessness has lasted more than a decade, and that he’s staying in shelters or couch surfing, when he can. His finances are one of his biggest barriers, and while he has family in the area, they can not help to the degree he needs, he said.

Moore has applied for an affordable-housing apartment, but said he’s been stuck on the waitlist for months. Moore had stopped by the resource center to speak with a case worker who has been assisting him .

He said he’s grateful for the help, but he does not understand why there are not more units in the region readily available for people to move into. He’d like to see an increased investment in a “housing first” model, an approach that prioritizes providing permanent housing rather than working through services first.

“I don’t think it should take months for a homeless person to find a place to live,” Moore said. “You should be able to go to a place, say ‘I’m homeless, is there someplace I can stay? Is it secure?’ ”

The National Alliance to End Homelessness says the model does not work for everyone, but that there is growing evidence of its success. Studies have shown it can be more cost effective than a shelter model, more successful in keeping individuals from re-entering homelessness and is flexible enough to be tailored to anyone, according to the alliance.

Moore said it would allow him to focus on his other goals of accessing health care, securing reliable transportation and finding work. He said the general public often misunderstands just how many hurdles there are to finding stability, and how those barriers can differ from person to person.

“We’re not all created equally, so we don’t all have the same ability,” Moore said.

Smith jotted down Moore’s responses to the survey through an app on her smartphone, which will compile the countywide results for analysis. A report is released each year, typically toward the end of spring or the start of the summer.

Smith said she volunteered to get a firsthand perspective of what homeless adults in the region are dealing with, as she spends most of her time assisting youth and young adults as a coordinated entry system specialist for Volunteers of America.

It can be a tough job, she said, but the successes are incredibly rewarding.

“We just housed a couple today, and we’ve watched their journey for a while,” Smith said. “They’ve been kind of difficult to work with, but we’re so proud of them at the end of the day to finally get there and figure things out.”

A Boise transplant, Smith recently graduated from Whitworth University with a degree in criminal justice, psychology and English. She had set out to get into law enforcement to better her community, she said, and fell into social work for much the same reason.

“I wanted to try something else for a little while because I also realized that you can help people in different ways, and I’ve kind of been on a journey to find how,” Smith said. “Social work and helping people who are in need is one of those ways.”

Smith said she understands the comparisons often made between her hometown and Spokane, including how the two Inland Northwest population centers are addressing homelessness.

She doesn’t think Boise is leaps and bounds ahead of Spokane, but she does believe the Idaho capital’s services are more robust, and that the city does a better job on communicating those services to individuals who need it.

She pointed to the city of Spokane’s web page for community resources and services as an example of where communication could be improved.

It lists links to some regional offerings, but is incomplete and lacks the context needed to understand and access some of the services, Smith said.

“The website is not nearly up to par for homelessness resources, and it’s really hard to navigate,” Smith said. “I feel like we should have that figured out by now.”

Smith said those making the comparisons to detract from local efforts, or because they’re angry or upset that enough is not being done, should spend some time working with the homeless and service organizations. She’d recommend the same for those who believe homelessness is a choice, or the litany of other negative stereotypes associated with homelessness.

The more exposure, the better, she said, as that’s how perceptions are shifted and unwarranted sentiments are corrected.

“I tell people all the time the kind of work that I’m in, and they’re like, ‘Bless your heart,’ ” Smith said. “No, don’t, ‘bless your heart’ me. Have some empathy. Go out and volunteer.”