The city of Spokane will continue to fund church-based shelters through August.
The city council on Thursday agreed to pay Jewels Helping Hands $342,000 to operate 60 beds in at least two churches.
Jewels Helping Hands Executive Director Julie Garcia says it’s been tricky to consistently keep 60 beds available because of plumbing issues in two of the churches.
“Morning Star Baptist is in the process of replacing all piping," she said. "And when Morning Star Baptist lost the ability to use their bathroom, we moved all of those guests to Knox Presbyterian. So that was at 40 beds there at Knox.”
And now Knox is having its own plumbing issues.
For now, she says, there are 30 people at Morning Star and 30 at the Apostolic Church in the Garland District. The Liberty Park Methodist Church stopped its participation in the program on March 1.
The city is maintaining its investments in operating the smaller shelters, while scaling back the population at the warehouse-sized TRAC shelter in east Spokane. That pleases Council President Betsy Wilkerson.
“A neighborhood can absorb 20, 30, maybe 40 people. But a neighborhood can not absorb 300 people at one time. That is the size of a small town in the state of Washington," she said.
Garcia wrote in a recent Facebook post that she continues to meet with churches interested in participating as warming centers next winter.
