South Spokane City Council candidates talk successes, failures of homelessness policies

Homelessness has permeated Spokane streets and minds for years, and Spokane City Council hopeful Kate Telis or Alejandro Barrientos will be next in line to address the problem.

The two Democrats addressed the hot topic Thursday at a Spokesman-Review Northwest Passages event at the Spokane Public Library’s South Hill branch.

Telis and Barrientos, who are running for a southern district council position, share a similar vision of increasing resources for people who can work with the homeless population and intervene in drug addiction and mental health cases. But, they have slightly different approaches.

Barrientos, chief operations officer for SCAFCO Steel Stud Manufacturing Company, said he wants to reinstate a 2023 voter-approved initiative, Proposition 1, that outlawed homeless from camping within 1,000 feet of city parks, schools and child care centers. Voters overwhelmingly approved the initiative, and Barrientos said he wants to follow the will of the people.

“We should leave all our personal agendas at the door,” he said. “This is a service position, and we should be servicing the people that voted.”

The Washington Supreme Court struck down the initiative on technical grounds, and the City Council voted earlier this year not to reinstate it.

Instead, the council implemented a new law that outlaws homeless from camping in the city and emphasizes outreach over criminal enforcement.

Barrientos said he did not vote on Proposition 1 because he was out of town for business.

Telis did not vote for Proposition 1 because she did not believe it was enforceable and worried it would move homeless from downtown into residential neighborhoods, she said.

“Even before the Supreme Court struck it down, it was not fully enforceable, just given the reality of our jail capacity, given the reality of what the police officers are doing on the streets, we would have to throw a lot more money into this community and we’d have to, frankly, have a jail already that could house this amount of people,” she said.

Barrientos said the new ordinance doesn’t have “teeth” because of the lack of enforcement.

Police Chief Kevin Hall said earlier this month the law has been difficult to enforce, with zero issued citations and no accepted offers for social services when approached by police at the time.

Barrientos said adopting the new ordinance and potentially tweaking it as the council may do in the near future is the right direction.

Telis said she was disappointed when Hall noted the ordinance was not working, which she, as a former prosecutor, understood. While the law criminalizes camping, it allows for someone to avoid a citation by leaving, which homeless have been doing, she said.

She also said she would like more social workers, who are more equipped to interact with homeless and direct them to resources, to engage with the homeless.

She said many people on the streets don’t trust police because of their past experiences with officers. Plus, putting more social workers in these interactions with homeless people allows officers to fight crime.

Barrientos proposed adopting “proven” homelessness models from other western U.S. cities, like Boise, that compel the homeless into shelters, treatment services or jail.

Spokane and Boise have similar population sizes, but Telis countered that Boise has more money per capita than Spokane. She also said Boise was able to work with the business community, which helped fund low-barrier shelters, to fight homelessness.

“We’re not fortunate enough to have those options yet, and that’s what I mean; we have to direct policy and create policy based on what is really happening right now, what is really existing in the streets,” she said.

The full recording of Thursday’s debate is available on The Spokesman-Review YouTube page.