Spokane sees fewer people entering homeless services

SPOKANE, Wash. — The City of Spokane’s annual comprehensive look at homelessness shows improvements this year, with fewer people entering the homeless system.

The report found an 11% decrease in people accessing homeless services. More than 6,000 people were in Spokane’s homeless system this year, but there was a nearly 32% increase in people moving from homelessness into permanent housing.

Mayor Lisa Brown attributes much of the success to prevention efforts and collaboration between agencies.

“We are working upstream to try to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. But then once they are, there’s a whole variety of partners that we work with and funding streams that we get federal and state,” Brown said.

City leaders believe the eviction prevention program has helped keep the numbers down.

“We’ve worked really strategically with the partners who operate those contracts, to be very intentional about how and when we utilize those to try and really stop folks from entering the homeless system to begin with,” said Dawn Kinder, Housing and Human Services Director.

The city has also focused on moving people out of temporary situations more quickly.

“That’s exactly why we’ve made some of the investments we’ve made in street outreach in the navigation center and in the scattered sites, so that folks are not waiting as long to access more intensive services,” Kinder said. “And so that they’re able to kind of self-select into spaces where they feel safe and they can make meaningful connections with individuals, to lead toward that stability.”

The report covers October 2024 to September 2025, ending right before the city’s new camping ban went into effect.

City leaders say there’s still work to be done. They plan to continue expanding the transitional housing program to move more people out of shelters and expand street outreach work.

The city hopes the camping ban will contribute to more positive trends in next year’s results.