The Spokane City Council approved a lease agreement last night [Monday] for a new downtown “one-stop” social services site.
The Envision Center would be located on one floor of a building at 130 South Arthur. It has about 20,000 square feet, enough room to give space to several agencies that provide services to homeless and low-income people.
The city will pay a quarter of a million dollars for a two-year lease, though it hasn’t yet been decided from which pot that money will come. That was acknowledged by Council member Breean Beggs.
“There are funds and it’s just going to be a question of where they come from and because we want to get this program launched and moving and helping people," Beggs said. "It’s pretty exciting. All the service providers are coming there and it’s not really an additional bureaucracy. These are service providers that are already providing services in spread-out locations and coming to one location, so I’m really excited about it.”
Spokane’s Envision Center is one of 17 designated by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. The goal of the program is to provide a variety of services to families that receive help from federal housing programs.