Following the recently passed “Safe and Accessible Spaces” ordinance, Spokane’s Code Enforcement has formed a network of new outreach teams and protocols.
Circulating and organizing these outreach teams, code enforcement is becoming a more visible arm of the city’s response. Tasked with monitoring violations ranging from illegal dumping to prolonged encampments, code officers now play a critical role in identifying problem areas before they escalate.
The director and coordinator of the homeless outreach team, Jason Ruffing, explained how their operations work.
“We partner with the police department daily, a crew will have officers they work with and they’re just going from site to site for what’s been reported to us,” said Ruffing.
He also touched on one of the struggles that come along with handling the situation cordially, both pre and post ordinance.
“Anecdotally over the years, we’ve tried to differentiate between ‘that’s just a person with their stuff.’ That’s not a camp,” He said. “Camping is an activity, not just a person.”
“If you would have asked us two years ago ’How likely is it that outreach will be successful?’ we would have had no idea,” said Ruffing.
Executive of code enforcement Luis Garcia described their role in the city’s response, proving his team’s work is broader than most people realize.
“We always try to find ways to bring enhancement to it where we’re not just spinning our wheels,” Garcia said. “I don’t think (for) anybody that’s experiencing homelessness, is it quite healthy for anybody to have six dump trucks, you know, and police cars coming at them.”
One of the primary points that both Ruffing and Garcia brought up was the idea that visible homelessness in Downtown Spokane is simply a small portion of the larger homeless crisis across the greater Spokane area.
Police Chief Kevin Hall corroborates this when discussing people’s perception of lawlessness surrounding the ban.
“Visible poverty scares people,” Hall said. “That makes people uncomfortable, it makes them feel unsafe.”
Ruffing makes the case that while there is visible change downtown, the problem persists throughout Spokane.
“This ordinance talks about obstruction and really trying to make the public ways safe,” Ruffing said. “However, those types of things, they’re great for downtown; but then we start having more (individuals) transitioning into occupied vehicles as far as people experiencing homelessness.”
Ruffing brings up the new Navigation Shelter, which has been re-organized as a day shelter to aid individuals in getting to the services that will be most beneficial to them.
“For years, we heard the question of ‘well where can they go’ because most shelters are actually closed during the day. Now there’s actually an answer,” said Ruffing.
Garcia described some of the procedures that their crews follow and the steps they’ve taken to make their process as civil and cordial as possible.
“An important component of our program is if there are belongings there. If it’s something we can safely store, we’re not trying to totally throw away everything in their possession,” Garcia said. “So we’ll try to preserve as much property as we safely can… But we do store property.”
Spokane Police Chief Hall has worked closely with both City Council and Code Enforcement to streamline SPD’s process and communication with code enforcement.
