The City of Spokane is leading an effort to develop a 10-year plan to end Chronic, Street, & Emergency Sheltered Homelessness.

The City of Spokane receives some $2.7 million annually in federal grants from HUD to address homelessness. This plan is required of communities that want to continue to receive these funds. It’s also important to address homelessness because of the impacts to our community in terms of cost of physical and mental health care, public safety, courts, incarceration, and quality of life.

Work on the plan began in December 2004 and is scheduled to be completed in June 2005.

This plan will focuses on the most difficult to serve homeless people throughout the City of Spokane. Working from collected data and reports, it will document actions taken from 2002-2004 and planned for 2005 through 2012. The lead entity for the planning process is the City of Spokane Human Services Department.

The plan will focus on single adults without children and adult couples without children living outdoors (i.e. camping, cars, bus station, etc) or in emergency shelters in the City of Spokane.

The target population is selected because it is this segment of the homeless population that tends to use the majority of the limited resources available. This narrowing of focus is intended to allow for more manageable and effective planning for the specific needs of this population. Future planning efforts may focus on the unique needs of homeless families with children.

In an unduplicated count of homeless individuals in our community, the City found that 4,428 homeless adults were living in our community between July 1, 2003 and June 30, 2004. They were living on the streets, in emergency shelters or other, unknown locations. Of that number, 395 individuals were considered chronically homeless. More information is available by clicking on the following link: http://www.spokanehomeless.org/sub.aspx?id=382

Citizens also may call the City’s Human Services Department at 625-6130.