Spokane City Council candidates Zappone, Savage debate homelessness

In Spokane, homelessness has been on local streets and minds for years, and either Spokane City Council incumbent Zack Zappone or newcomer Christopher Savage will be elected to help address the problem.

The two candidates debated how to solve the city’s homelessness crisis Wednesday at a Spokesman-Review event at the Shadle Park Library. Zappone is a liberal-leaning high school teacher who won 51% of the primary election votes in August, while Savage is more conservative-leaning and won 28.8% of votes in August.

Savage and Zappone, who are running to represent Northwest Spokane, have different ideas on how to help the city’s homeless population.

Where do homeless people go?

The biggest difference between the candidates lies in their stances on where homeless people should be: Savage believes that while the city needs more stabilization facility centers and a correctional facility with wraparound services, homeless people should be arrested and sent to jail.

“There are several addicts that I’ve actually talked to that said that when they went to jail, that was the catalyst that made them think, ‘I need to change my life,’ ” Savage said.

Zappone disagreed and said the city needs more places for homeless people to go, suggesting detox centers, treatment beds and stabilization centers should come before jail.

“We need to give people the right treatment first, and then jail is going to be an option for people who refuse services,” Zappone said. “We need to connect them to those (treatment services) in jail, because when they’re in jail without treatment, without services, they’re going to end up back on the street.”

Scattered homeless shelters

Mayor Lisa Brown has previously proposed a scattered-site shelter model, which Zappone said he supports because shelters that house hundreds of people do not work.

“They don’t move people to and through services,” Zappone said. “… I’ve put forward and advocated for legislation that has been passed that creates protections for neighbors with those scattered sites in their neighborhood.”

Savage disagreed and said scattered-site shelters do not work. Instead, he said they bring problems to neighborhoods and expose kids to things like drug use and nudity.

Housing First

Zappone said he supports a Housing First policy for the homeless.

“What’s important is looking at what best gets people off the street,” Zappone said. “… We need to get people off the street and into a safe place to live, and so that’s a shelter, a house, somewhere for them to be, so that they can access treatment and access resources.”

The Housing First model is based on the idea that getting someone into a home first is a step toward treating the underlying causes of their homelessness, like addiction.

Savage said the right model would prioritize getting homeless people into stabilization facility centers to address their addictions.

“There are too many people in transitional housing right now … that passed away because they allow drug use in their facilities and their buildings, and that’s not good,” Savage said.

But all Catholic Charities facilities, for example, have a zero-tolerance policy for possession or use of drugs or alcohol in its shelters, though not all of the shelters require sobriety for entry.

Funding shelter beds

Zappone and Savage agreed that the city needs more beds in homeless shelters, but disagreed on how to fund those beds.

Savage said he has identified more than 20 positions that he feels are redundant within city hall that could be removed to add around $2-3 million in savings, which could provide funding for shelter beds. Brown recently announced that around 30 to 50 city positions are being cut to balance the city budget, which is in a $13 million deficit.

Zappone and Savage expressed support for Spokane’s recent passage of ”Prop 1 plus,” which outlawed camping near parks, schools and child care facilities as approved in 2023 and struck down by the state Supreme Court earlier this year – and that Brown and most members of the city council opposed two years ago.

Savage criticized the move by city council, suggesting that it should have been done three months ago.

“It seems a little bit like they’re trying to do a lot to try and sway votes,” Savage said.

Zappone said he led the effort to get the proposition passed and mentioned that Savage has previously campaigned to reinstate Proposition 1, which banned unauthorized homeless camping within 1,000 feet of parks, schools and licensed day cares. However, the Washington State Supreme Court struck down the initiative in April 2025, making the ordinance unenforceable.

The full conversation between Savage and Zappone can be viewed on The Spokesman-Review’s YouTube channel.