SPOKANE, Wash. – Four years after releasing his first short film, local businessman Larry Stone is releasing his second film on Spokane’s homeless, drug, and crime issues on Wednesday.
“We can fix this,” Larry Stone said.
As a long-time Spokane resident, Larry Stone said he has seen the problems circulating the Lilac City progress over the years, especially in the last four years. In 2019, Stone released his first short film as the executive producer of Curing Spokane; the film, a lightning rod of controversy when it came out, receiving both support and criticism.
Four years later, Stone is releasing his second film. This one is titled, “Curing a Broken Spokane,” and lasts a total of eight minutes. From Spokane to Portland, the film explores homelessness across the Northwest.
“Elected officials, many politicians say this is a national problem, it’s not our fault,” Stone said. “But the reality is, we created this problem in Spokane, and we can solve it.”
Stone blames a decision by city council, under the leadership of then council president, Ben Stuckart, back in 2017 for the dramatic rise in the number of homeless people in Spokane the last few years.
“Our film shows that in 2017, our city council allowed public camping, and that’s when our homeless problem just skyrocketed,” Stone said. “City council had the power back in 2017 to allow this, the city council has the power now to stop it and so far, they haven’t, so I really wish they would.”
Stuckart shared this statement in response on Tuesday:
“Stone’s video blames crime and the homelessness increase wrongly. Larry Stone is profiting off homelessness increasing and continues to demonize individuals. Spokane needs lower rents, more homes to drive the prices down, and more low-income housing; not Larry Stone’s election videos again, four years later.”
There are four key points to take away from Stone’s video, remedies he believes will help solve Spokane’s homeless, drug, and crime issues.
Stone believes that one, public camping should be limited. Two, Spokane County’s current jail needs to be replaced with a new 1,000 bed facility outside of downtown. Three, a new and modern bus transfer station should be built and relocated out of the downtown core. And four, the number of Spokane Police officers should be increased to match the national average of officers per 1,000 residents.
“What I want Spokane citizens to know more than anything is you have the power by asking your city council to end camping on public property, we have the power to fix this,” Stone said.
The entire short film will be available to watch on curingspokane.com – on Wednesday.
