(The Center Square) – As Spokane’s Hope House funding dries up, Mayor Lisa Brown proposed pulling savings from the Trent Resource and Assistance Center on Thursday to bail out its homeless shelter geared for women.
Hope House is an emergency shelter operated by Volunteers of America. According to its website , the shelter served and housed more than 500 women last year. However, due to a lack of funding from the state, local and private sector partners, it’s facing economic collapse.
Brown wants to prevent the shelter from closing with a one-time grant of $1.2 million. That money originates from the federal pandemic relief that the city already allocated toward emergency shelters and would’ve likely used for the Trent shelter, the city’s largest congregate shelter, or others.
“When the City of Spokane learned that Hope House might have to close its doors, leaving 80 women out on the streets, we knew we could not, in good conscience, say ‘no,’” Brown wrote in a news release. “We knew we must step in and do whatever it took to keep these women safe.”