Two shelter homes, namely, the Family Promise Open Doors and the House of Charity, provides shelter to homeless people in the city of Spokane. Now, within a few weeks, the city will have 100 shelter beds less because they have lost a few of their funding. This will affect the homeless people in the days to come.

Both the shelter home serves women, families, and children; The House of Charity that serves around 50 women each night will stop providing shelter from July 13 onwards. Family Promise Open Door’s offers shelter to 80 homeless people each night, out of which 40 of them are children. From Monday, they will provide shelter to only 30 people a night.

On the other side, a new shelter that could serve adults was expected by the Spokane to be opened during summer is unlikely to open.

President of Catholic Charities Robert McCann stated other shelter homes that offer services to women, mostly low-barriers shelters such as Hope House remains full and the women living at the House of Charity needs to stay on the street.

McCann mentioned no other shelter beds are available.

The city of Spokane offers an important portion of their fund to Catholic Charities and Open Doors. They donate to state, local, and federal homeless funds. Recently, the city of Spokane changed a two-year service to 5-year service funding cycle and raised $70 million through funding requests.

Spokane spokeswoman Marlene Feist mentioned 195 low-barrier shelter beds are available; people can get 328 other shelter beds and 106 beds via assessments. Once, the city of Spokane purchases building and appoints a different organization to operate the new shelter, 120 more shelter beds will be provided for single adult people.

She stated the new shelter was to be inaugurated this summer and is associated with the plan of David Condon to support the shelter system and prevent focusing on homeless services in the town.

The City Council will examine a contract so as to buy a property for $1.8 million at 4210 E. Sprague on Monday.

Spokane had around $30 million to use for homeless and housing programs. Out of 24 programs, Catholic Charities, Volunteers of America’s Crosswalk teen shelter and Open Doors, the three programs received a smaller funding amount. While 21 other programs received the same amount of funding or homeless services were offered more.

The city’s director of community, housing and human services, Kelly Keenan mentioned the city considers collaborating with other local authorities during this fall.

Ben Stuckart, City Council President stated, he is trying to get more funding of $15,000, to be used for homeless services. Some of the council members are working over the proposal, for example, withdrawing utility charges for homeless shelters so more funds can be invested in beds. However, this proposal is still incomplete.

Stuckart stated,

The city can’t do it all. Federal and state dollars have been cut, the needs have risen. This is a communitywide issue and it’s not the city of Spokane’s fault.

McCann mentioned the Number of homeless people staying at Home of Charity continues varying. Home of Charity initially served 109 people, the shelter nearly provided service to 300 and 400 homeless people per day till September 2018, and the services 24/7 ended. While in winter, the shelter home looked over 200 plus people every-day. The shelter will not provide a place for women to sleep, henceforth.