Woodward’s “lump of coal”
NOTE: To watch either the City of Spokane City Council briefing session at 3:30P today, December 4, or the Legislative Session that follows at 6P online click here. To contact your council person(s) click here. One can also attend one or both sessions in person at City Hall. In person public input is accepted only at the 6P meeting.
The Background
Near the end of July the City of Spokane with Mayor Nadine Woodward at the helm, put out a request for proposal (RFP) for prospective operators of TRAC (“Trent Resource and Assistance Center”) for 2024. The current contract with the Salvation Army is due to run out. TRAC is the city’s congregate homeless shelter east of downtown in the industrial district near the junction of Trent and Mission. The shelter, Woodward’s answer to the issue of homelessness downtown, has been controversial since its inception, plagued with issues over over shelter conditions and budget overruns. The Salvation Army hurriedly took over running TRAC (without competitive bidding) when the contract with the previous operator, the Guardians Foundation, was terminated in late 2022 over concerns of embezzlement of funds. In response to the city’s July, 2023, request for proposal (RFP):
The Salvation Army and Jewels Helping Hands applied for that new contract, as did Hillyard Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1474, whose commander, Mike Fagan, served on the Spokane City Council. That organization was considered too inexperienced for serious consideration by the committee reviewing proposals.
The city committee tasked with reviewing the RFPs overwhelmingly voted in favor of Jewels Helping Hands (JHH). Here was the logic of the recommendation:
Jewels came out on top, according to committee members, in large part due to the depth of its network of agreements with other organizations and service providers, which are needed in order to provide support services at the shelter, as the facility is meant to be a brief stop on the path out of homelessness. Jewels Helping Hands [JHH] also emphasized the dignity of those they served in their application and included money in its budget for addiction and mental health treatment, said Karen Ssebanakitta, a member of the city’s Community, Housing and Human Services Board, which was tasked with forwarding the committee’s recommendation to the City Council.
In early September, 2023, the city administration under Mayor Woodward, abruptly backtracked, calling for a pause in the selection process, citing “uncertainties” in funding sources and in the formation of a new regional coalition on homelessness.
As Erin Sellers of RANGEMedia accurately detailed in mid November, after Woodward’s pause the entire process didn’t just pause, it “ground to a halt”—in spite of the looming deadline to settle on an operator with the nimbleness to take over operating TRAC for 2024. No one but Nadine Woodward herself knows for certain whether her administration dropped the ball on the process due to administrative ineptitude or due to Woodward’s antipathy toward Julie Garcia, the executive director of JHH with whom Woodward butted heads over management both of the Cannon Street Shelter and of Camp Hope. Either way, thanks to Woodward and her administration dallying, the City of Spokane City Council is now left with what looks almost like a fait accompli of having to grant an expensive contract renewal to the Salvation Army to keep TRAC running through the depths of winter. This is all in spite of the city’s Community, Housing and Human Services Board’s hearty recommendation of Jewels Helping Hands.
In the words of newly elected City Council Member (CM) Paul Dillon [District 2, South Hill] who will be first seated this evening, “This is like a lump of coal in a stocking that the mayor has left the city and the taxpayers with.” I highly recommend reading RANGEMedia’s Erin Sellers’ last Saturday, December 2, article “With city council cornered, a TRAC contract compromise could guarantee shelter” for orientation. The same day, December 2, Nate Sanford of the Inlander covered quite a lot of the same territory. Both articles almost require a published cast of characters in order to follow the details—but both also offer a window on the pressing problem the City Council will need to clean up this evening—Woodward’s “lump of coal”.
At tonight’s council meeting the extension of the city’s contract with the Salvation Army appears in the “Current Agenda” as item number 11 of the “Consent Agenda”. The actual contract wording appears on pdf page 160 as “AGREEMENT AMENDMENT B, Title: TRAC Shelter Amendment”. I’m no lawyer, but I do not see wording to confirm Erin Sellers’ mention of an “option for the city to terminate the agreement early”, an option that might have made this Amendment palatable. I also fail to see in this contract amendment any proration of the contracted $3.93M. The only clause that hints at either issue is “April 2024 will serve as a transition month in provider and/or service levels.”
One would hope at the very least for clarity on these issues before a vote.
There is still some hope held out that changes in the agenda could occur during the Briefing Session.
[Julia] Garcia said that should JHH be awarded the original RFP she applied for, moving in as the new operator would be possible. But if the city instead decides to post a completely new RFP for a service provider, she won’t apply again.
“My only objective is to help the people of Spokane,” Garcia said. “I am unwilling to hurt my organization by continuing to waste time and man hours on things that we’ve already done.”
Pasted below is Julie Garcia’s post from her Jewels Helping Hands Facebook page addressing a link to Nate Sanford’s Inlander article.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
Jewels Helping Hands:
What this article fails to mention is the cost of TSA [The Salvation Army] for 4 months is the entire cost of JHH for a year. The JHH part in this RFP was 3.5 million in the contact. The rest was for an influx of services to actually exit folks out of homelessness, private trauma informed security which eliminates the use of police overtime utilized now and telehealth medical to curb the over utilization of the emergency room. Also provided sobering services and medically assisted drug treatment. On call mental health and behavioral health on site.
True leadership does not burn down the ship over their own personal feelings, real leadership works towards a goal for the whole. Nothing, absolutely nothing benefits our community more than getting our homeless population off the streets and housed. Warehousing them is not solving anything and costing tax payers an enormous amount of money. Bankrupting our city.
This city is hell bent on destroying homeless services through political agendas instead of actually moving the needle for the entire community. Business owners concerns are valid. Neighborhood concerns are valid. People experiencing homelessness concerns are valid. Yet the only concern of our city administration is proving that their “ridiculous “ solution works. It doesn’t. It was a terrible, poorly planned, worse executed, no evidence based, no best practice based, unbelievably costly idea.
No one wants to run the TRAC shelter but someone has to. The JHH proposal is not sustainable. It was meant to lower the capacity so the next provider could be affordable or close the shelter due to the cost. But doing so in a compassionate, housing driven way. Not exiting people back downtown or into neighborhoods.
Spokane needs to demand better.