Citizens Spoke! “Lisa Brown don’t bring your Camp Hope to My neighborhood parking lot!”
POSTED 17 July 2023
Feedback from our poll (please continue to provide your input) reveals that Spokane will not tolerate Lisa Brown’s plans to place homeless parking lots in their neighborhoods.
Unedited citizen feedback includes:
“That area will become a cesspool of crime. Speaking from fist hand experience of being victims Camp Hope.”
“Lived in Spokane for 28 years and left as I recognized it’s being ruined by the city council, governor and state. Took my talents somewhere where I’m being rewarded and not punished to be a law abiding citizen.”
“We have an RV outside on street now and they pee in bottles and leave on side walks many steal. Especially boys on bikes with back packs”
“Our beautiful city has been devastated by drug addicts and people who choose a nomadic lifestyle of criminal activity. What about protecting the TAXPAYERS AND LAW ABIDING CITIZENS!!”
“Camp hope proved to not work with the neighbors and neighborhoods around the camp. What makes one think that this is any different?”
On Lisa Brown’s website, she describes her homeless plans, including,
“We need a continuum that probably will include safe parking and tiny homes and other emergency housing in addition to congregate shelters.”
- Lisa Brown 2023 Spokane Homeless Plan
“Safe parking” is a program that allows homeless people to live in their cars in parking lots throughout communities like Spokane. Traditionally, at least as per best-practices, these programs are high-barrier as they require, among other conditions; a valid driver’s license, background checks, strict behavioral controls (no drugs), and the ability to maintain the vehicle.
Lisa Brown has not provided details as to her “safe parking plan,” including cost and which Spokane neighborhoods she wants to host the homeless parking lots.
A recently-opened safe parking program in Tacoma is reported to serve up to 20 vehicles (up to 40 people, plus pets) at a cost of $1 million per year. That is $50,000 per car, per year. Median gross rent in Tacoma is around $1,350 per month or $16,200 per year. Those numbers alone are difficult to reconcile using any responsible cost/benefit analysis. Perhaps Lisa Brown can put her economics Ph.D to work and explain where the money goes in these government-funded arrangements.
Speaking of government grift -Lisa Brown’s preferred provider and million-dollar-mayor of “Camp Hope,” Julie Garcia is a big fan of “safe parking” programs. She says on Aug. 13, 2021,
“Perhaps now we can begin to find safe parking lots for people living in their vehicles and this city can stop towing and stealing their temporary homes. Like I said we can’t rely on our city to do what’s right, it has to be ordered by a judge. When the cities hands become tied by law let’s hope they step it up and provide these kind of spaces or houseless individuals need to begin suing. Shouldn’t have to come to this but……here we are. #safeparkinglots”
It is odd that Julie Garcia would be a fan of “safe parking” programs, as they should be high-barrier, and Garcia is vehemently “no-barrier.” In late 2019, during the final months of Mayor Condon’s administration, Garcia and her group “Jewels Helping Hands” experienced insurance and other documentation difficulties but assumed a contract to manage a homeless shelter located at South Cannon Street. As reported in The Spokesman-Review on 11/21/19,
“The warming center will be “no barrier,” meaning people will not be tested for sobriety or any other factor before being allowed inside.”
Tanya Riordan on the Board of “Jewel’s Helping Hands” was quoted in the story immediately above,
“We really feel that people deserve a dignified place to sleep, and that’s what Jewels Helping Hands is about – treating people with dignity, respect and passion,” Riordan said.
(Note: Riordan was Lisa Brown’s campaign manager for her failed 2018 congressional run and now works with a group that wants to remove hydroelectric dams.)
Just five months after assuming management of the Cannon Shelter, Julie Garcia and “Jewels Helping Hands” enticed homeless from the dignified place to sleep to tents on the cold ground in a public park in Browne’s Addition because her contract was not renewed (she didn’t let her campers know they had indoor options at the Spokane Downtown Public Library). How dignified.
Quickly removed from that park, Garcia and her small crew moved to a City Hall sidewalk and established “Camp Hope 2.” Quickly removed from that sidewalk, Garcia moved her vulnerable followers to WSDOT land. She would hold the neighborhood hostage for over two years, demanding tens of millions of tax-funded dollars for her lawless protest that grew to over 600 shelter-resistant people who are alleged to have been promised “free tiny homes.”
Now, without a government contract and Lisa Brown no longer at the WA Dept of Commerce to move her money, Julie Garcia is back to asking for tents, making a spectacle out of handing out water at facilities with plenty and desperate for her next revenue stream - “safe parking” and a rumored “tiny home” village. Lisa Brown’s platform is based on promises to use her connections at the state and federal levels to keep her allies flush with no-bid, no community conversation contracts.
Campaign season is harvest time for detailed proposals and Lisa Brown is full of demands for plans. Let’s honor her request!
You can call Lisa Brown at 509 903 6137 and ask her which neighborhoods are targeted for her “Camp Hope” parking lots.