Spokane homelessness agency snags big grant to serve families
A Spokane agency that works with families experiencing homelessness has won a $2.5 million grant from a Jeff Bezos-led charitable fund.
The Bezos Day 1 Families Fund will award the money over a five-year period to Family Promise of Spokane, which is led by Joe Ader, who told SPR News the agency’s committee composed of homelessness experts asked his organization to apply.
Ader said the grant will allow Family Promise to help more families find homes.
“One of the things that we will be innovating with this is a tele-housing program, really designed for rural communities and places outside of where the typical service providers are: Deer Park, Mead, Cheney, past Cheney, places where they historically haven’t had services," he said.
Ader said Family Promise also hopes to expand its services to children from homeless families who attend Spokane-area schools.
WA independent investigations office begins work
An independent office established to investigate some police killings officially opened Sunday.
The Office of Independent Investigations (OII) will initially conduct its work only in southwestern Washington and the Olympic Peninsula, gradually expanding to other parts of the state as its staffing, evidence storage facilities and other resources increase.
Established in 2021, the OII is intended to review cases in which a law enforcement officer kills someone during incident response.
The agency currently employs 26 investigators; it estimates 15 to 18 are needed per region, and the state is divided into are six regions.
Critics point to limitations in OII's mandate. The office cannot investigate prior police killings unless new evidence turns up. There are legal restrictions on the kinds of evidence OII can consider. And the office can only review cases; decisions about charging officers will be in local prosecutors' hands. Attempts to create a complementary office for independent prosecutions have not succeeded.
Gonzaga professor finalist for nursing award
Martin Schiavenato was nominated for inventing a device that allows caregivers to measure the pain that babies experience.
Ultimately, the award went to a nurse in the Philippines. But Schiavenato told SPR News he hopes the publicity he has received will help him find the resources he needs to refine his invention.
“At the point where we’re at with the project, it takes data, basically, which means multiple centers, multiple hospitals involved, lots of people testing the device and that kind of thing," he said. "That’s one of the things I’m hoping is that through this award, there’s a spotlight on this again and that maybe the work can continue.”
Scientists years ago created a pen-and-paper test used to measure babies’ reactions to pain. Schiavenato says his device goes beyond those point-in-time tests by allowing caregivers to continually monitor babies’ reactions.
He is looking for a small business investor. He’s also considering whether to create his own startup company to fund his research.
Hear more of our interview with Martin Schiavenato on Inland Journal, Thursday at noon on KPBX.
Northwest election workers begin to look ahead
Officials in Washington and Idaho have certified the November election and now their attention turns to next year.
Idaho state and county elections officials will recount their experiences when they hold their annual meeting in Boise in early January.
Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane said the process of administering elections has become more public. During a meeting of the state Canvassing Board last week, he said that’s a good thing. He said it helps local and state elections offices find the weak spots in their procedures.
“Dan [a state election worker] was in a county where, it wasn’t the clerk, it wasn’t the elections office, the poll workers had chosen to roll the ballots and rubber band them. And when you’re auditing rolled ballots, it means you are unrolling every single ballot. That’s one of those things that was revealed, not just to us, but to the county, to say some additional poll worker training can help smooth this out in the future," he said.
A record number of Idahoans, more than 900,000, cast ballots this year, a 78% turnout, one percent less than Washington’s official figure.
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Reporting contributed by Doug Nadvornick and Brandon Hollingsworth.