Spokane has ‘great bones,’ former Boise mayor says. Is it enough to reduce homelessness?

It’s something you hear people say often: Boise has a better handle on homelessness than Spokane.

The reasons are much more complicated – state law, funding, housing rates and other priorities all drastically change the outcome of what is seen on both cities’ streets.

Former Boise Democratic Mayor Dave Bieter, who served four four-year terms in the City of Trees, spent years working to address housing for the homeless. While he is at odds in how to approach the issue with Boise’s current mayor, his administration assisted in the openings of multiple housing units for homeless people and veterans during his terms.

When he came to Spokane, he was shocked at how many homeless people he saw on the streets.

“I was stunned by what I saw. It took me aback,” Bieter told The Spokesman-Review. “It’s so much worse than I expected.”

Bieter traveled to Spokane this week to speak at the Spokane Business Association’s annual dinner. The association, funded by businessman Larry Stone, is a local prominent political advocacy group that frequently discusses how to make headway into solving Spokane’s homelessness crisis. They often argue that homelessness should be more strictly policed.

“Homelessness and addiction are the toughest issues cities deal with,” Bieter said to more than 700 people in attendance. “These issues are not immutable.”

As Bieter stood on the stage of the Spokane Convention Center, he told the crowd about a nonprofit in Boise that had asked for money when he got into office. They wanted to continue to house 150 people.

He didn’t want to do it, so the city took over the facility instead. For two years, his administration tried anything it could think of to help stabilize the facility and fix it up. And then they got a bidder: The Boise Rescue Mission.

The city didn’t have drug detox centers when Bieter took over as mayor. But the need was there, so Bieter began asking everyone he knew if they would step in and help.

“You cannot afford to exclude anyone to help on these issues,” he said. “If you ask people to show up, they will.”

But maybe Spokane’s “power” just hasn’t shown itself yet, Bieter suggested. A society is judged by how they treat the most vulnerable people among them, and it’s important to use that society’s resources to help, he added.

“You have a city with great bones,” Bieter said. “… You have the power.”

The two cities can be comparable – they’re relatively similar in size and population, and many people in both cities have lived in either place. In Boise, however, one might not notice as many homeless people as they would in Spokane: Spokane’s homelessness population as of this year’s point in time count sits at around 1,800 people on the streets or in shelters, according to previous reporting from The Spokesman-Review. Ada County, which includes Boise, has about 800.

During some of Bieter’s later years in office, homelessness decreased from 2016-2020, data shows.

Spokane’s homelessness population has continued to decrease over the last two years, while Boise and Ada County’s population increased from 2021 to 2024, correlated with the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2025, Boise’s homelessness population did decrease by 17 people, according to a point in time count.

All of it might seem like a reason to point fingers.

But the situation is complicated, according to Stephanie Day, the executive director of Idaho’s CATCH, a local nonprofit that assists those experiencing homelessness. Point in time counts aren’t always accurate, Day said. And there’s one thing that contributes to homelessness the most in every state: Affordable and accessible housing.

“When you don’t have a lot of available housing, the costs increase, and there are high rates of homelessness in expensive communities,” Day said. “In Idaho, we have had a relatively low cost of living. I’ve been working in this field for 18 years and seen it pretty steady.”

Boise now has the second-worst housing crisis outlook in the nation, a LendingTree report found in March. Part of the current housing crisis could be attributable to the “boom” Boise is experiencing now, Day said. Boise’s data also shows business and population growing significantly over the last five years, BoiseDev reported. In comparison, Spokane’s few “booms” happened in the 20th century, and population growth over the last 10 years has been modest.

Because of low vacancy rates and higher living costs, Day believes Boise could see more of an increase in the homeless population in the future.

“It’s happening here. But it’s happening later than it did in more Western communities,” she said.

Western communities like Spokane.

Boise’s vacancy rate, or percentage of available housing, is also surpassing what Spokane’s used to be. Boise’s housing vacancy rate is above 4%, according to the LendingTree report, and its current vacancy rate for all residential rental properties is 1.8%, a Keller-Williams Realty report shows. It used to be much worse, but Spokane’s rental vacancy rate has gotten much better throughout the years. It now sits at 5.5%, according to the Washington Center for Real Estate Research. Spokane’s average rent is also around $500 less.

Still, Spokane needs housing at every level, city spokesperson Erin Hut said.

“We need to have options at all levels so folks can move through the housing system,” Hut said. “(For example) we need to be able to have folks progress from rentals to homeownership to free up those rental spaces and affordable homes for those who may be more income constrained and not ready for homeownership.”

Housing, some with the Spokane Business Association contend, isn’t the total problem. Gavin Cooley, Director of Strategic Initiatives for the association, has been walking Spokane’s streets at 5 a.m. to force people to observe the reality of how homeless people live. Republicans and Democrats alike go on the walks. He says based on what he’s seen, homeless people struggling with chronic drug use is not the same as economic homelessness – and that’s where Spokane falls short of Boise.

“We need to treat them separately,” Cooley said in an interview at the annual dinner Tuesday night. “When we conflate them, the policy discussion gets really messy.”

Cooley said while there is a decrease in overall homelessness, people who are unhoused on the street went up, and those are typically people with crippling drug use problems.

Of those surveyed during the 2025 count, 43% of adults reported they had severe mental illness and 52% of adults reported drug addiction.

During a July presentation to the Spokane City Council, councilman Jonathan Bingle argued the city does not address these issues to the same degree they do housing.

“We are regularly told this is a housing problem. And I don’t disagree that there’s a serious housing component to this. But when I see this data, that means at a bare minimum we have 700 folks struggling with something pretty serious,” he said. “I would like to see a little bit more balance in our conversations. Not just housing-focused, because there is a lot more to this.”

Last year, at least 327 people died of overdose in Spokane County, a more than 300% increase from 2019, when there were 80 deaths, the Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office reported in January.

“Those are the people that are dying,” Cooley said. “We need to talk more about substance use.”

The cities tackling homelessness better, like Boise, are prioritizing services while also strictly enforcing public camping and drug use laws, Cooley said. Spokane code criminalizes public drug use as a misdemeanor, but many conservatives and some Democrats argue that isn’t doing enough. Cooley says we have to force people into stricter options.

“We have the resources to do this,” he said. “… We just have to find the collaboration.”

In Cooley’s opinion, many people see the homeless population and think “the last thing I’m gonna do is tell them they can’t be there” to take away their agency.

“People in Spokane who are sleeping under the viaduct on drugs don’t have agency,” he said. “I have family who have struggled, and the only people who really push those into services are the parents with kids that are struggling.”

While Bieter’s opinions mirror those of many Democrats, he does differ from some in his approach to policing homeless people. A main accomplishment Bieter touts is facilitating the opening of Boise’s Allumbaugh House, a substance use detox and mental health crisis services center, but he also routinely advocated for more police interventions on the streets.

“Issuing citations for camping and open drug use is part of the tool you need to make it better,” Bieter said.

During Bieter’s term, Boise was sued over citing homeless people while they had no shelter space. The case became known as the landmark 2018 Martin v. Boise decision, which heavily restricted how cities could criminalize homelessness unless they provided shelters. The U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended those restrictions last summer .

During the litigation, Bieter said Boise Police officers mistakenly thought they couldn’t cite people for camping. Within four weeks, Boise faced a homeless camp outside the downtown core of more than 100 people. Bieter used this instance as an example of why citations are effective.

“It is the most perfect experiment with homeless policy I have ever seen,” Bieter said.

While citing homeless people for camping is not “the most perfect solution,” Bieter said, it’s “a workable one.” It gave the city the bandwidth to instead focus more on services and housing instead of turning all their attention to the streets. The city went from 400 citations to six over the course of two years because of continued policing. It bred “compliance,” Bieter said. The city also tracked more homeless people returning to their families, seeking treatment or leaving the city following more police intervention.

“It’s not perfect. I wish we lived in a country where everyone is given a home. But you have to deal with what you can,” Bieter said.

Spokane’s Proposition 1, supported by 75% of voters in 2023, banned any camping within 1,000 feet of parks, schools and licensed daycare facilities, making violations a cite-and-release misdemeanor offense. When police started enforcing it, it did result in more citations and fewer homeless people in the typical spots onlookers might observe downtown.

But in April, the Washington Supreme Court struck down the proposition. The Spokane City Council was able to reinstate it but chose not to in a 4-3 vote.

It’s less harsh than Idaho’s anti-camping law, which was placed into effect this July. It is now a crime in Idaho to sleep in cars, on public sidewalks, parks or public property, even if there is no available shelter beds.

“The theory is they go to a shelter. That’s what everyone kept saying,” Day said. “The problem is, we don’t have enough shelters for people experiencing homelessness … When you break up an encampment, you move people further away from resources. There’s no resources that way outside of providing housing.”

There also might be more to observing fewer homeless people in Boise – places to hide, Day said.

“People will be ticketed or arrested if they’re camping on public land, so folks make efforts to not be ‘findable,’ ” she said.

Something Bieter and other advocates do agree on is funding. While Bieter maintains that isn’t the entire problem – he says “everybody needs to do what they can” – it is definitely a hurdle.

Idaho stands in contrast from Washington when it comes to spending: Washington has a housing trust fund, which was supported by a record amount this year. During the 2025 session, the Legislature included $605 million for it. Spokane receives about $24 million from the state Department of Commerce, along with smaller grants from the Healthcare Authority.

Idaho, however, does not have a way to fund its housing trust, Day said.

“The health and welfare system has money folks can use for housing, but it’s not designated specifically for that,” she added. “We had people coming and panicking about what they’d do. I know people think about that.”

Idaho is the toughest place to receive funding to help homeless people, Bieter said. So when there’s a lack of funding, it’s up to every one else to step up. Maybe collaboration is key, he suggested.

“We had to just get as many people as we could around the table. Hospitals, cities, the county, and convince them to help,” Bieter said. “That’s what you do when everything else fails.”