Spokane leaders mount one-of-a-kind effort to reaffirm treatment-first approach

By Tim Clouser
The Center Square

A coalition out of Spokane is preparing to collect signatures from leaders across the region to coordinate a countywide homelessness response without funding commitments attached.

The idea started after Spokane City Councilmember Jonathan Bingle wrote a letter to President Donald Trump. His goal was to avoid losing federal funding after Trump issued an executive order to prioritize regions aligned with a treatment-based model. However, Bingle handed the effort off to someone else.

Bingle said he stepped back after handing it off to Sheldon Jackson, a local real estate developer and commercial property owner. Jackson runs an email chain with hundreds of residents, business owners and state and local politicians tuning in, including Mayor Lisa Brown, the council and law enforcement.

“It ended up not being exactly what I wanted,” Bingle told The Center Square in August, “and as I was talking to Sheldon about that, Sheldon goes, ‘I might be able to help’ and so then Sheldon took it up and ran with it and he’s working with some others on it; and again, I don’t want to give away too much.”

Jackson often takes a blunt stance against progressive politics, fielding criticism from individuals on the left who argue his language goes too far. Many of Jackson’s emails focus on addressing homelessness and criticizing Brown and the council for what he and some of his supporters describe as a failed response.

The city of Spokane and Spokane County support low-barrier projects and the “housing first” approach in varying degrees. The practice allows individuals to stay in homeless shelters without being required to maintain sobriety, provide identification, complete background checks or adhere to curfews at night.

The White House wants Spokane and the rest of the country to ditch the low-barrier model and asked the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, to hold grantees to higher standards.

Jackson told The Center Square in August about plans for a regional memorandum of understanding to reaffirm Trump’s executive order. Chud Wendle, executive director of The Hutton Settlement, signaled his support at the time, and both shared copies of the final draft with The Center Square last Friday.

“Five of us were bouncing the document back and forth and then getting it to a point where we felt pretty good with it,” Wendle said Tuesday. “And then put it in front of the attorney, Roy Koegen, who actually really polished it up, so he was the one … able to take our thoughts and legalize it into that [MOU].”

Wendle and Jackson wrote the MOU, with Gavin Cooley, director of strategic initiatives for the Spokane Business Association, and Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels providing input along the way. Nowels said he didn’t participate in writing the MOU and that his only role was advocating for “good policy.”

Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney Preston McCollam said he also participated to a similar degree.

The MOU is three pages long, with space reserved for the signatures of elected officials from Spokane County and cities including Airway Heights, Cheney, Deer Park, Liberty Lake, Medical Lake, Millwood, Spangle, Spokane and Spokane Valley, as well as the towns of Fairfield, Latah, Rockford and Waverly.

Jackson believes the effort would be among the first in the nation if every jurisdiction signs the MOU.

The agreement commits to adopting a regional response to expand treatment and housing services.

Several provisions emphasize accountability, behavioral compliance and the enforcement of policies to mitigate unlawful camping, open drug use and obstruction of public rights-of-way. The MOU calls for a “consistent, coordinated, humane, and constitutionally sound” approach to enforcing these statutes.

“Recent HUD and HHS policy guidance has moved away from mandating the ‘Housing First’ model, allowing greater flexibility in supporting transitional, recovery-oriented, and behavior-based housing interventions,” according to the MOU draft obtained by The Center Square. “This greater flexibility encourages implementation of evidence based treatment, prevention, and recovery programs.”

Some objectives include tracking measurable outcomes on treatment engagement, improving health outcomes, reducing unsheltered homelessness and committing to sharing this data with the public.

The Center Square contacted HUD for its opinion on the MOU, but received an automatic reply stating that Regional Administrator Chris Patterson was unavailable due to the ongoing government shutdown.

The MOU “does not establish or create any type of formal agreement or obligation” or commit funding from any of the parties. Instead, it calls for exploring shared funding opportunities, such as grants and pooled resources. Last week, Brown joined leaders from across the region to announce a similar effort.

She just launched the new Safe & Healthy Spokane Task Force with the sheriff and other officials from across the private and public sectors. The group will present policy and funding recommendations next spring to bolster public safety, so Nowels thinks the effort could pair nicely with the MOU if successful.

“We wanted to draft something that would be as politically neutral as possible to make it acceptable, and we think we have,” Nowels said Wednesday. “This was never to put any particular political people on the spot. It was trying to get an agreement on a policy that everybody in this region could get behind.”

The sheriff said he wasn’t sure if the Board of County Commissioners had seen the MOU yet, so The Center Square sent a copy to Board Chair Mary Kuney and asked for her stance. County commissioners spokesperson Pat Bell responded that this was the first time that the board had seen it, so it needed time to review.

Spokane Communications Director Erin Hut told The Center Square that this was also the first time Brown had seen it, as did Communications Manager Jill Smith on behalf of the Spokane Valley City Council.

Spokane Valley Mayor Pam Haley didn’t respond to requests for her stance before publishing; however, Councilmember Jessica Yaeger told The Center Square that Wendle shared a copy of the MOU with her.

Yaeger also declined to take a stance at this time, but emphasized the importance of following federal directives, especially when it comes to protecting millions of dollars in funding. She offered support for a “treatment-first” model that ensures people receive compassionate care and are held accountable.

“This MOU is not to undermine regional leaders, but to signal and publicly show the support that exists for practical solutions to the problems we face,” McCollam told The Center Square. “We don’t want our communities to miss out on grants and opportunities to combat drug use, homelessness, etc.”

Bingle told The Center Square on Tuesday that he likes the direction that Jackson and the others took with his idea. While Brown hasn’t had time to thoroughly review the MOU yet, Hut noted that the mayor is open to discussing “proven, data-driven strategies to tackle this crisis on a regional level.”

Jackson plans to expand the effort elsewhere if they can get all the signatures across Spokane County.

U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., highlighted Jackson’s efforts around homelessness at one of his campaign events in August and told The Center Square that he is in support of the MOU as written.

Baumgartner has previously spoken on the House floor about other Spokane initiatives and said that he would “definitely consider” highlighting this MOU as well or sending a letter showing his support to HUD.

The congressman believes that other counties and states should replicate this MOU effort to avoid the loss of federal funding. Baumgartner said his own state is on the wrong track and called for expanding the involuntary treatment act as homelessness rises in some areas and certain providers turn a profit.

“There’s something, oftentimes, said about, you know, the White House and President Trump, that you don’t always necessarily take them literally, but you always take them seriously,” Baumgartner said on Tuesday, “and what I see is just a serious statement that Washington state is on the wrong track.”

Nowels said he is open to edits as Jackson and the group request signatures from around the county.

These jurisdictions have considered establishing a regional homelessness response in the past, with Cooley leading much of that work, and Bingle said Trump presented them with another opportunity.

Cooley told The Center Square that the SBA Board of Directors hasn’t had a chance to “look deeply at the MOU or taken an official position” yet, but applauded the intentions and work completed thus far.

“The real challenge now is ensuring jurisdictions move from agreement to action — true collaboration, not window dressing,” Cooley wrote in a statement to The Center Square on Thursday. “With shared governance and real accountability, the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts, and Spokane can finally make measurable progress on homelessness, addiction, and restoring safe public spaces.”