‘Move along’: Businesses ask to make it easier to remove loitering homeless downtown, want more police resources

As the Spokane City Council prepares to reform local homelessness laws, a slate of business groups has asked for carve-outs to make it easier to remove homeless people when they linger near downtown businesses.

“Downtown is special,” reads the June 4 letter penned by the Downtown Spokane Partnership and signed by 30 other associations and businesses, plus hundreds of downtown professionals and others, many of whom work for the listed associations or businesses. Some of the listed organizations appear to be lobbying hard for additional signatures – RenCorp Realty recently sent out at least two emails en masse to tenants of apartments they manage urging residents to sign on, for instance.

The letter argues that reforms up for a vote on Monday will make it too difficult to prevent dangerous situations by swiftly removing the homeless from outside storefronts, hotels and venues.

“It’s time to strengthen ordinances to protect downtown with policies that prioritize a vibrant pedestrian environment, support commerce and hospitality activities, encourage development and keep public rights-of-way clear while people get the help they need,” the letter states.

The group has called for the creation of a “downtown hospitality zone,” where police resources would be redirected to enforce mostly quality-of-life misdemeanor offenses, and where there would be no delays for social service outreach before law enforcement action to either arrest someone or move them along from the property.

The Spokane City Council is scheduled to vote on a set of ordinances that would overhaul the city’s homelessness laws, following the April 17 state Supreme Court repeal of a voter-backed anti-camping law. If approved, camping would be outlawed citywide, but with significant emphasis on outreach rather than law enforcement, and officers would issue up to seven days’ notice ahead of an arrest or citation.

The business group argues this seven-day leeway is unacceptable and that police need to immediately remove encampments “that pose significant threats to life and safety” – though, notably, there is already an exception in the ordinance that requires immediate action if the encampment poses an imminent risk to health or safety.

Broadly, City Hall has argued that the only long-term path to reducing visible homelessness is to connect people to long-term treatment services and into shelters and eventually housing. In response to the June 4 letter, police Chief Kevin Hall questioned what the end result would be from a heightened enforcement-first approach, noting that the county jail would not accept people on misdemeanor offenses and that the courts would quickly release them.

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown, who spearheaded the reform proposal, has argued that there would be sufficient exceptions to the seven-day notice period and that in most cases, homelessness issues downtown could be immediately addressed by an obstruction law her administration has proposed to replace “pedestrian interference.”

In either the current or replacement framework, it is illegal to sit, lie down or place one’s property in a way that blocks the public’s access, such as on a sidewalk or in front of a door. Notably, the obstruction law would not result in a ticket if the person accepts services or leaves when asked by an officer.

But that law is insufficient for downtown Spokane, the business groups argue, because the sidewalks are large enough that homeless people can sit or lie down without obstructing anyone’s path.

“We need tools to move people along,” said Alisha Benson, CEO of Greater Spokane Incorporated, a coalition of prominent businesses that functions like a local chamber of commerce.

Another law on the books, simply called “sit-and-lie,” criminalizes sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk between 6 a.m. and midnight anywhere downtown. That law would be scrapped if the reforms are approved as-is on Monday, but the business groups argue it should instead be strengthened and more police resources dedicated to enforcement.

While the council’s conservative minority unsuccessfully pushed for an expanded sit-and-lie law, several members have criticized it on ethical grounds. Councilman Paul Dillon has argued that the law had essentially been enforced based on whether someone appeared undesirable, rather than on the severity of the conduct.

But Emilie Cameron, CEO of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, believes that allowing people to loiter near downtown businesses, even if they aren’t obstructing anyone’s path, still poses a threat to public health and safety.

“From maintaining the health standard, with items or food that can attract pests and other things that can affect an adjacent property, assuring access, or managing the space so we’re not seeing unintended – I want to be very careful here; I’m not saying that if someone is sitting on the sidewalk that they’re plotting a mass casualty incident, but we don’t know that, so we need to constantly maintain the right of way so it’s free and clear,” Cameron said.

Cameron strenuously denied that the groups that signed the letter simply want to push the homeless out of sight or into jails.

“First and foremost, the hospitality zone does not mean there’s not support for outreach and engagement,” Cameron said. “Incarceration is not going to solve every issue on our streets, but we do need every tool in the toolbox … our hope is that voluntary compliance can be achieved, but when it cannot be, we do need to be able to take immediate steps to be able to provide a safe environment for everyone.”

In a reply to the Downtown Spokane Partnership and others that signed onto the letter, Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall expressed uncertainty as to what the group meant when it called for stronger enforcement, noting that his department could not warehouse homeless people loitering downtown in the county jail.

“For example, the jail typically will not accept misdemeanor offenses absent extenuating circumstances, and the judiciary will often release individuals within 24 hours – most times sooner – on low-level charges,” Hall wrote in an email. “In either case, the city has minimal influence over these decisions, and quite frankly, there is little evidence that incarceration for any amount of time is a root cause solution to low-level crime and disorder.”

Brown expressed a willingness to further discuss the possibility of some kind of modified rules downtown, but has shown no interest in delaying citywide reforms to hash those out, while also appearing to bristle at the suggestion that her administration has not given downtown special attention. In an email, she pointed to a police emphasis program downtown, increased bike and foot patrols, creating a downtown neighborhood resource officer position, funding for downtown cleanups, and more.

“I would say that we’re encouraged that the mayor has launched these initiatives,” Cameron said. “What we heard loud and clear, though, was the concerns about public property and how different it is downtown as opposed to other parts of the city due to the wide sidewalks.”

Benson, asked whether she believed City Hall would work with downtown business groups to implement some form of hospitality zone, answered in a roundabout way.

“We’re not planning to drop the issue,” she said.