Survey: Sentiments in Spokane County still dim, but improving for city residents

Voter perceptions about the Spokane area remain mixed at best, according to the fourth biannual survey released by Greater Spokane Incorporated, the region’s de facto chamber of commerce – but they’ve also significantly improved for city of Spokane residents, particularly in the last six months.

Concerns about homelessness, drug use and public safety in particular have significantly improved for city residents since the first survey was released in Oct. 2024, though they remain the most frequently listed issues. Concerns about taxes, affordable housing and the cost of living, meanwhile, have roughly doubled during the same period for city residents.

“I think this really underscores for us the growing concern around affordability for both families and businesses, and the reality that, as a community, we have to continue to be focused on this,” GSI CEO Alisha Benson said during a Tuesday presentation of the data.

Eighteen months ago, nearly 60% of surveyed Spokane voters ranked homelessness as a top concern, while 42% ranked crime/drugs/public safety as their main worry; by April, when the latest survey was conducted, 41% of respondents ranked homelessness and 24% ranked public safety as a major concern.

This shifting sentiment about safety and crime is reflected elsewhere in the survey as well: 55% of city residents surveyed feel their neighborhood is as safe or safer than it was two years ago, compared to 33% during the first survey. Asked whether hiring more police officers should be an immediate priority, 59% of city respondents agreed, compared with 79% during the first survey.

While these trends have mostly pointed in the same direction since the survey began in late 2024, the majority of improvement in city resident sentiment has come in the last six months. Most notably, right around when GSI published its third survey in October, the Spokane City Council pivoted sharply in its approach to homelessness, criminalizing sleeping and sitting in public. Within weeks, businesses reported a marked improvement in conditions downtown.

Seventy-eight percent of city respondents still worry about the future of downtown Spokane, though that sentiment has eased by 8 points since the first survey. Meanwhile, city residents said they feel safer visiting downtown than they did 18 months ago, with 72% saying they feel safe visiting during the day, up from 61%, and 39% saying they feel safe visiting at night, up from 23%.

Overall, Spokane voters’ sentiments are at the highest they’ve been since the survey began in late 2024. The survey collates a number of data points, half of which are solely focused on sentiments about downtown Spokane, into a “Community Pulse” index. In the latest survey, Spokane respondents showed a 4.3 out of 10 on the index, the first time it has dipped into neutral territory; countywide, the index remains virtually unchanged at 3.7.

Community Pulse ratings for the rest of the county, meanwhile, remain virtually unchanged since the survey began, weighed down heavily by increasingly souring views of Spokane’s downtown from those who don’t live in the city.

Quality of life is trending in the right direction for respondents from both Spokane and Spokane Valley, for instance, though neither city has an overall positive view. Fifty-five percent of Spokane respondents say their quality of life is getting worse, though that’s 8 points better than six months ago; 62% of Valley respondents say the same, which still improved by 5 points from October.

But Valley respondents were significantly less likely to say they felt safe in downtown Spokane, whether in the day (61%) or at night (15%). Even as Spokane residents’ views about downtown safety improved in the last six months, Valley residents’ perceptions worsened, according to the survey, though researchers cautioned that a relatively small sampling of Valley residents were surveyed leading to a large margin of error of nearly 10%.

Survey results also differ depending on demographic, sometimes dramatically, especially depending on the respondent’s political views. For instance, conservative respondents ranked their quality of life less than half as high as liberals. Further, 68% of liberal respondents were optimistic about the future of the region, compared with 28% of conservatives. Among self-described conservatives, 84% claim to be actively considering moving, compared to 50% of liberals.

Cost of living concerns were relatively consistent across ideological lines, though Democrats were slightly more likely to worry. People of color were significantly more likely to be worried about their pocketbooks than white respondents (21% vs 13%). Young voters and renters expressed the highest concerns about affordable housing.

Greater Spokane Incorporated launched The Pulse survey in October 2024, hoping the poll it sponsored from the California-based firm EMC Research would serve as an indicator for local leaders to better understand the concerns of residents and whether perceptions would chang over time. The poll surveyed 600 registered voters and has an overall margin of error of 4.4%. Roughly 50% of those surveyed live in Spokane, though the survey is weighted to account for population; city-specific sentiments have a margin of error of roughly 5.6%.