Personal Faith, Community Collaboration & Lived Experience Meet Spokane’s Homeless Crisis
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By Annemarie Frohnhoefer
When Mariah Villanpando arrived in Spokane in 2017 to escape a domestic abuse situation in rural Washington, she and her children had no choice but to live in their car. Despite the trauma of abuse, the anxiety of an unplanned relocation and the stress of single motherhood, Villanpando was determined to find safe housing for her family. She went through intake at one of the large, faith-based organizations in Spokane, but the resources she needed were not readily available. Five years later, she still hasn’t heard back.
She remained in her vehicle and made her way to the YWCA. She attended classes, meetings and workshops. She had to figure out childcare. She had to fill out forms and “jump through hoops.” By 2019, she found a place to live. Her mother, who watches the children while Villanpando works, has no home of her own.
Villanpando points out that houselessness is generational. She references her ancestry, Native and Latina, and describes how systems of oppression, such as forced relocation to reservations, contribute to, if not cause, generations of homelessness.
Villanpando and her colleague Tasia Weasel Bear were staffing a booth for the Health and Justice Recovery Alliance at the recent Unity in the Community event. HJRA is an organization that “prevents, disrupts and supports restoration for individuals experiencing destabilization/crisis by examining the complicity of systems of oppression and exclusion that exist at all touchpoints across multiple systems.”
Villanpando and Weasel Bear want people to know about alternatives to institutionalized processes that often view the individual as a problem to be solved rather than a human who needs to heal.
“Homelessness itself is traumatizing,” explains Villanpando.
She goes on to describe how it is difficult to make decisions and to take in information when experiencing trauma. Sometimes following up with an application, or locating proper identification become an insurmountable task for those who lack basic stability. This is where peer support literally becomes a life-changer.
HJRA uses a peer-service delivery model. Peer navigators like Villanpando are certified professionals who touch points across multiple systems in an effort to help others find a path out of homelessness. The path is far from straight.
Villanpando shared a story about a mother who had access to housing because of her children, but by the time her turn on the waiting list arrived, DSHS had already removed her children from her care because they were homeless. The mother is now without a home or children.
The cracks this woman slipped through could be accidental or they could be the complicity of systems of oppression and exclusion that exist at all touchpoints across multiple systems, Villanpando explained.
Assistance Everywhere But No Clear Map
The Spokane Homeless Coalition lists more than 200 organizations as members. Shalom Ministries in downtown Spokane partners with over 30 organizations. SHC and Shalom’s partners are a combination of faith-based, government-based, and nonprofit groups. The network of help is vast, yet the housing crisis persists.
Data from the 2022 Point-in-Time Count showed a 13% increase in homelessness over the past two years. Housing stock is only part of the issue. Affordability is the major player.
Last month, Shiloh Dietz, the community data coordinator for the Spokane Public Library told The Spokesman-Review, “With the housing affordability index and the point-in-time count, what is likely happening is that more and more people are getting squeezed out of the housing market. Going to the rental market, there’s less and less available.”
A three-year research study from the University of Seattle investigated ways in which faith-based organizations engage “ in religious land redevelopment for long-term housing solutions … as an alternative to just providing immediate assistance.”
When Help is Needed Now
When asked what makes Health and Justice Recovery Alliance different from larger, faith-based organizations that build affordable housing, or offer food and services to marginally housed people in Spokane, Weasel Bear and Villanpando say in unrehearsed unison, “Lived experience.”
These thoughts are echoed by Jermaine Williams, the director of the Freedom Project East. Williams has a range of experiences that include poverty and incarceration. He is quick to say that he may be the director in title, but the Freedom Project is a collaborative network of individuals, businesses, churches, fellowships and nonprofits. Many individuals throughout this network have lived experiences similar to Williams’ own. They know first-hand about systems of oppression and use their experience to help others.
When asked what the Freedom Project does to assuage houselessness, he holds his hands out to his sides and says, “There is so much red tape. We cut through that.”
The Freedom Project, with the help of community networks, provides assistance with rental deposits, food, utilities and other needs. But what Freedom Project, Spokane Health and Justice Recovery Alliance, and organizations like Compassionate Addiction Treatment offer that other service-providers do not is a sense of urgency. Community and connection meet individual needs at the moment, no waiting list or requirements necessary.
This sense of community and connection emerges in conversations with Williams, Villanpando, and with a network of volunteers who have recently hit the streets to provide cooling shelters for those out in the record-breaking heat.
Atheists, Agnostics and Believers Form No-Barrier Coalition
Cool Spokane was formed through donations and volunteers, but conceived and directed by individuals with lived experience. Organizations like the Carl Maxey Center, Human Rights Activist Coterie of Spokane, Compassionate Addiction Treatment, Yoyot Sp’q’n’i (Strong Spokane) and other grass-roots organizations and nonprofits took action when temperatures reached above 90-degrees and the city’s cooling centers had not been opened or accessible to all.
According to Emily Peters, the spokesperson of the Human Rights Activist Coterie of Spokane, Cool Spokane’s, “…primary perspective is that this is the city’s responsibility but the only effective approach is a multi-faceted one that’s led by those who come from lived experience…”
The coalition recently had to reduce hours because of a volunteer shortage but it is exploring a possible partnership with the city and has already partnered with faith-based organizations that are not, “selective, judgemental, or [using cooling centers] as an opportunity to preach/convert.”
Williams, a practicing Muslim, shares a similar approach. His faith “governs my actions, but ultimately the goal is about helping people.”
This news story was made possible by contributions to FāVS from readers and members like you. Thank you.
