Downtown Spokane is home to 1800 people living on the edge of society.
“What makes them notable as a group,” said Chris Blodgett, a Cooperative Extension faculty member at Washington State University’s Spokane branch, “is that they are some of the highest risk people living in the community.”
“They are old, poor, or they’re mentally ill and very poor. They’re mostly one step away from being homeless. Many of them bounce in and out of homelessness and are living in what are really slum conditions.”
Crime, substance abuse and all the other social problems found in urban America are found in downtown Spokane. Today, solutions to some of those problems are being developed by a public-private partnership forged by faculty at WSU Spokane.
It began about three years ago when they began to brainstorm a strategic plan for the WSU branch campus. “The whole issue of an urban Cooperative Extension mission was very much on people’s minds,” Blodgett said.
A group of faculty who were working in the community started to meet and talk. They learned they all had connections with West First Avenue, one of the downtown trouble spots. They agreed to work together to try to entice some of their community partners to work with them to solve community problems.
A WSU downtown partnership has evolved. It includes many groups, including a real estate firm that owns and manages downtown residential hotels; the City Gate ministry; TOP COPS, the downtown community policing program; the Spokane MarketPlace; the farmer’s market; a HUD-funded housing project; a senior center; city officials, and faculty from WSU’s Spokane and Pullman campuses and WSU Cooperative Extension, Spokane County. Marilyn Trail, Spokane County Cooperative Extension, helped get the project off the ground.
Teams of partner members address economic development, social service and housing needs, needs of elderly residents and public safety concerns. An oversight committee makes certain the various team efforts mesh.
Group efforts already are paying dividends, according to Blodgett. “When the Spokane Market-Place lost its lease, they had a great deal of difficulty finding another location,” Blodgett said. “The real estate developer who is one of our partners had another building and has given the Market-Place a long-term lease, really the first long-term lease they’ve had to work with.”
“Because of a relationship that was developed in this partnership, the developer was able to think about doing business differently. In my opinion, that wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t been meeting and come to know each other through weekly meetings where we’re all together at a table.”
Jim Lindstrom, who heads the Spokane County Cooperative Extension office, provides leadership as chair of the board of directors.
The public market has become a venue for Extension Master Gardeners, who dispense science-based gardening information to visitors.
The results don’t stop there. Residents and police are working together to make the neighborhood safer. Help has been provided by the WSU Spokane criminal justice program and the Washington State Regional Institute for Community-Oriented Policing.
Last June, a three-day street festival for West First was staged as part of a community building strategy focused on the Spokane MarketPlace. It was underwritten by local businesses and cultural groups. Several thousand visitors attended.
Thanks to a $500,000 grant written by Blodgett, a new partnership has been created to bring mental health services to the area. Three non-profits—the REM Association; Youth Family, and Adult Connections; and the Community Detox Center—are reaching out into the community to work with difficult, long-term mentally ill adults.
The service is based in a downtown residential hotel on West First Avenue as a result of connections forged in the WSU downtown group.
“For most of my career, I’ve done community based work,” said Blodgett, who is a clinical psychologist. “I got tired of getting money, building a program and then watching the program disappear as soon as the money went away. We decided to turn the whole process on its head and focus on building a relationship and addressing problems in a way that was going to be mutually beneficial.”
