Spokane opens Cannon Street daytime navigation center as city expands outreach, enforcement tools

Mayor Lisa Brown announced the opening of the Cannon Street daytime navigation center on Wednesday, saying the facility is part of an expanded, citywide effort to connect people experiencing homelessness to health care, housing and employment while increasing enforcement options for repeat public-disorder cases.

Brown said the city aims to end public camping, reduce open drug use and hold purveyors of fentanyl accountable while ensuring individuals in crisis can access services. "The people of Spokane are united around the goals of ending public camping," Brown said. She described the navigation center as one option in a broader system linking outreach teams, health providers and shelters.

The navigation center will be staffed by partner providers who will offer behavioral health triage, nursing care navigation, and connections to respite and permanent housing. Dr. Robert Littman, a behavioral health clinician with Providence Community Clinic, said Providence will place a nurse care navigator at the site and provide behavioral-health clinicians during the week. "At that center, year to date, we have served 116 individuals in respite," Littman said, describing work at the Healing Hearts Respite Center and the clinic's role in referrals and follow-up care. He said Providence had served 59 people in the first two quarters and placed 31 into stable environments, an approximately 52 percent placement rate, with an average age of 54 for those clients.

Jonathan Mallahan, executive director of Catholic Housing Ventures (Catholic Charities' housing affiliate), said Catholic Charities will embed outreach workers seven days a week through the neighborhood outreach program to link people to housing and services. He thanked the city council for approving the next step in the navigation-and-outreach model and said outreach teams will be assigned to each of the four police precinct areas: downtown, South, Northeast and Northwest.

Local nonprofit workforce and housing partners also outlined services that will be connected to the center. Andy Duanche of Dignified Workday said the program employs about 70 people daily and has about 500 people on its wait list for employment-first supports; crews perform cleanup, construction, demolition, landscaping and other work and also assist property managers with housing unit turnovers. Brown urged private-sector, nonprofit and faith organizations to identify projects to expand the work opportunities.

Police Chief Kevin Hall described planned changes to the city's obstruction/home ordinance that would give officers broader discretion to arrest, deflect to services or transport people to the navigation center. "It's gonna be modified to a degree that allows for officers to make the decision who should or should not be arrested, who should or should not be deflected to services," Hall said. He framed the change as part of a "systems model" that pairs enforcement with health and outreach services and described a data-driven "high utilizer" program that has identified the city's highest consumers of emergency services.

Hall said the city worked with the jail to secure 10 dedicated jail beds for the most chronic cases; those individuals will be offered services while in custody and on release. He emphasized enforcement is one tool among many and noted prior arrests and narcotics charges have largely occurred in the downtown core this year. Brown added that co-response teams with the Spokane Fire Department will expand behavioral-response coverage from 40 hours a week to 72 hours a week with county support.

Funding and capacity limits remain a constraint. Brown said the city, county and state are co-investing to expand the county-operated crisis stabilization center and that opioid manufacturer settlement funds are being co-invested in local programs such as Maddie's Place. She also warned federal contract uncertainty tied to a federal shutdown could put some provider contracts at risk. Brown said the city needs roughly two to three times the current daytime- and nighttime-capacity to meet demand and urged additional local partners to step forward.

Officials described Maddie's Place as a co-investment between city and county that serves parents and newborns affected by substance exposure; Brown said she has toured the facility and observed reunification and employment outcomes for some participants. Several speakers reiterated that people experiencing homelessness have diverse needs and that individualized paths to stability require multiple services, including shelter, respite, behavioral health care, and employment.

Questions from the audience included facility capacity and how enforcement would be applied. Brown said the navigation center can accommodate about 80 people indoors and has additional outdoor spaces. Hall said under the proposed ordinance changes officers would have three broad options on contact: seek compliance and dispersal, arrest, or transport the person to the triage/navigation center where they could receive basic supports such as a meal and shower before being connected to services.

Officials said the navigation center and the associated outreach and enforcement changes are starting points in a multi-agency model that city leaders said will take time to scale. "There is no silver bullet," Hall said. "This facility provides another option, not the solution."