6 days ago
Annual survey shows decrease in Spokane County homelessness from last year
Jul. 14—The number of homeless people in Spokane County fell by 10.6% last year.
The findings are based on the 2025 point-in-time count conducted in January when teams fan out to count and question Spokane County's homeless population on a particular night. This year's count found 1,806 people living on the streets or in shelters.
It was the second consecutive year that showed a decline
While homelessness in Spokane dropped overall, the number of people living without shelter during January rose to 617 from 443 a year earlier, while the number of homeless people staying in shelters fell from 1,578 to 1,189.
The annual point-in-time count, which the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires of counties receiving federal funding, had shown a steady increase in Spokane County homeless for much of the past decade until the past two years. As a snapshot during a single night of the year, the count cannot be extrapolated to what homelessness looks like year round and some experts question its reliability.
Still, Mayor Lisa Brown touted the latest numbers as evidence her administration's approach to homelessness is working.
"The big picture is the trend is in the right direction," she said Monday.
During her tenure, Brown has shifted the city's focus on centralized emergency shelters to scattered sites across the city. Those moves, she said, are a cause of the overall decrease, and, the increase of unsheltered people.
During the 2024 January count the Trent Resource and Assistance Center was still open. Its closure in November is one cause for the increase in unsheltered individuals surveyed.
"I'm sure there were more shelter beds in 2024 than there were this year but there was not an equal rise in unsheltered populations, which I think means we're doing good work," argued Neighborhood, Housing, and Human Services division director Dawn Kinder.
Of those surveyed during the 2025 count, 43% of adults reported they had severe mental illness and 52% of adults reported drug addiction.
During a Monday presentation to the Spokane City Council, councilman Jonathan Bingle argued the city does not address these issues to the same degree they do housing.
"We are regularly told this is a housing problem. And I don't disagree that there's a serious housing component to this. But when I see this data that means at a bare minimum we have 700 folks struggling with something pretty serious," he said. "I would like to see a little bit more balance in our conversations. Not just housing-focused because there is a lot more to this."
Kinder defended the administration's housing-first policies as the only way for homeless individuals to receive effective treatment.
"We are struggling with mental health and addiction and a myriad of challenges. But expecting somebody to get clean and sober while unhoused or have reliable treatment for mental health unhoused is a bit of a stretch," she said. "So is it more than housing? Yes. But can we get somebody completely healthy and stable without housing? No."
The count also found 70% of respondents last became homeless while living in Spokane County. An additional 14% became homeless from somewhere within Washington State.
Brown said the results are evidence against beliefs that many of Spokane's unhoused come from elsewhere in the country.
"I don't buy the narrative that Spokane is somehow a magnet for the unhoused. I think a city in the urban center of a very rural region that has health care services, education services and potential employment is going to be a place where a lot of people end up," she said.
Asked what she would say to Spokane residents who might not believe homelessness is decreasing, the mayor said: "People are still going to see homeless people" on the street even if the population in shelters is decreasing.
"Nothing about the (count) suggests we've solved the crisis," added Kinder. "But we are making really strategic investments to try and address those who are unsheltered."
