Spokane City Council unanimously toughens homeless camping laws with ‘Prop 1 plus’

Spokane significantly toughened its laws regulating where and whether the homeless can sleep, sit or loiter in public, following a unanimous vote by the City Council on Monday.

The law, first introduced Friday, was fast-tracked under an emergency basis and takes effect immediately.

The new law is a tougher, broader alternative to the citizen initiative that outlawed camping near parks, schools and child care facilities approved in 2023 and struck down by the state Supreme Court earlier this year – and that Mayor Lisa Brown and most members of the city council opposed two years ago.

“At some point, I started thinking to myself: what’s the catch?” Councilman Jonathan Bingle, who had for months unsuccessfully lobbied for stronger enforcement, said in a brief interview Monday. “Because it’s basically what I’ve been asking for this whole time.”

Passage of the new law is a major pivot with a week to go before the November election for a mayoral administration and council majority that had long resisted enforcement-heavy approaches to camping and obstruction, amid sustained backlash from local business owners and residents who argued the lack of teeth made it impossible to address safety concerns. Police didn’t issue any citations under the prior law.

“Clearly it was not working, and here we are,” Councilman Paul Dillon said at Monday’s council meeting.

The new law reforms an anti-camping ordinance the progressive council majority approved in July that centered on engagement and allowed someone to avoid a ticket by leaving the area or accepting services, and that also narrowed rules against sitting on the sidewalk.

The new law still encourages officers to connect people with services – though Police Chief Kevin Hall recently noted that officers are ill-equipped to do so and no one accepted homeless services from police in recent months – but grants officers discretion on whether to make an arrest, issue a ticket, offer services or some combination.

Monday’s reforms still require that a notice be posted before removing an encampment to allow the newly formed homeless outreach team to contact the camp’s occupants, though it expands the exemptions that allow for immediate removal and allows officers to issue citations ahead of the outreach stage.

“It still prioritizes offering services first where appropriate, but we want to see more results when that’s not working,” Councilwoman Kitty Klitzke said Monday ahead of the vote.

Councilman Zack Zappone noted that the ordinance states that the council’s intent is for people to receive stronger penalties for repeated offenses and prioritizes “helping people and connecting them” with services. Graduated penalties are not codified, and it will be up to a police officer’s discretion how to respond to a violation.

The new law also toughens penalties for littering, damaging street trees and illegal fires. It mandates comprehensive data collection by law enforcement to build a database of repeat offenders and people “resisting connection to available services.”

For members of the council’s conservative minority, the reforms are a long time coming.

“We should have just adopted this from the beginning,” Bingle said. “We could have just adopted it several times over. But I’m happy we’re here.”

Councilman Michael Cathcart, who played a central role in drafting Monday’s reforms, which he dubbed “Prop 1 plus” Monday night, expressed surprise and gratitude at the majority’s change of heart. He said this has “probably been the most collaborative” legislative process he’d ever been a part of.

“In six years on council, I’ve never experienced an ordinance gaining seven sponsorships,” Cathcart wrote in a text, underscoring the council’s unanimous support.

Bingle cautioned that the reforms will not be sufficient to change things on the ground and urged the mayor’s office to fully enforce camping and obstruction laws.

“I definitely think that people will imagine that when people like myself and Councilman Cathcart vote for this, that maybe things will change overnight, and that won’t happen,” Bingle said. “Our responsibility as council with this ordinance has been fulfilled, and now it comes to the mayor and police chief making this a priority.”

Former Mayor Nadine Woodward, who had supported the 2023 citizen-initiative and has increasingly criticized the city’s approach to homelessness, wrote in a Monday text that law enforcement was “key to getting people off the street and into treatment.”

“That’s something that hasn’t been done at all with this administration,” Woodward wrote.

She noted that her own efforts to emphasize law enforcement had been stymied by the 2018 Martin v. Boise decision, which prevented citing or arresting someone for camping on public property if there wasn’t sufficient shelter space to house them.

Dillon, who opposed the 2023 anti-camping ballot measure but voted for Monday’s more expansive law, argued in an interview that conditions had changed in the last two years. Dillon argued the city’s new outreach team, shelter navigation center, better-funded extreme weather shelters and more personalized, smaller homeless shelter system provided improved alternatives to sleeping on the street.

Brown echoed that sentiment in a Saturday interview.

“Part of the reason for believing that this is a good time to amend the camping and obstruction ordinance and give officers more tools for enforcement is that these other pieces are also in place,” Brown said. “I think it’s really important because it’s not just about this ordinance. It really is about having a coordinated system so that you can do outreach for people and get them connected to services.”

Still, Dillon acknowledged that there are hundreds fewer shelter beds available today than two years ago and continued bottlenecks that limit the capacity for people to enter into housing and treatment services.

“I hope this ordinance is a call to action to further build out that infrastructure,” Dillon said. “We need more places for people to put their heads at night. That’s absolutely true. Our services are not commensurate to the need.”

“When drafting policy, we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Dillon added. “I think at the end of the day the question is, will it make things better? I think the answer is yes.”

Julie Garcia, founder of homeless service provider Jewels Helping Hands, which operates the city’s navigation shelter, offered a mixed response, echoing a question she has asked of every anti-camping law for years: Where are the homeless supposed to go?

“What the constituents are asking for is more enforcement,” she said. “As a citizen, I think the (reforms) are good. As a homeless service provider, I’m afraid of, where do they go? Where do we take them if you’re going to give them tickets?”

“I could house a ton of people, but we just don’t have housing or spaces to put them in,” Garcia added. “If we had more housing, I would feel more comfortable with this version of the policy.”