Executive Summary
From October 2024 to September 2025, Waters Meet Foundation (formerly Empire Health Foundation) served as the system operator of the pilot housing navigation center and specialized shelter system under contract with the City of Spokane. In this role, Waters Meet was tasked with overseeing contracting with the service providers operating shelters, as well as identifying and facilitating the opening of new shelters in coordination with property owners and service providers. Waters Meet also regularly convened providers from across the spectrum of homeless services in Spokane to facilitate knowledge exchange and troubleshoot challenges facing providers and our unhoused community.
Waters Meet has prepared this report to share what we have learned in this role. We believe
these insights are important to consider in the context of the more holistic changes that are currently being implemented and considered across the housing and homeless services system
in our community.
Over the course of the project, the shelters and navigation center served a total of 1526 unique individuals and 26 families with children, providing emergency shelter, case management, housing navigation, and linkages to critical supportive services. The initiative prioritized low-barrier, person-centered approaches, with an emphasis on creating supportive community environments and improving coordination across providers and systems.
This pilot was intentionally designed as a collaborative effort and iterative learning process. Many of the lessons learned through the shelter collaborative have already been acted on by the City of Spokane’s Community Housing and Human Services Department (CHHS). This includes changes to the Navigation Center and outreach model, as well as the planned development of a tiny home community in Spokane.
An ongoing challenge is the struggle to collect and use data that informs our understanding of what is and isn’t working in Spokane’s homeless response systems. It is our recommendation that the city and shelter operators prepare, develop, and implement universal data collection standards and systems. These systems should include data not currently captured in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), such as client satisfaction and barriers to housing. This data should be regularly shared with diverse stakeholders as a means to share successes of the system, identify additional gaps or newly emerging population trends, and promote ongoing learning about the effectiveness of the system.
Key outcomes include:
- 52% of clients went to permanent or temporary housing.
- 32% of clients were connected to other temporary housing solutions within the homeless service system (other shelter programs, hotel/motel stays with vouchers, transitional housing beds, safe havens) OR within larger behavioral health and healthcare institutions (substance abuse treatment, hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, skilled nursing facilities) OR within the community (temporary stays with family or friends, hotel/motels without vouchers).
- Data in context: This was within a 12-month pilot project where sites opened on a rolling basis. We do not have enough shelter beds or psychiatric and substance abuse treatment beds for the number of people seeking and requiring services in the City of Spokane. Considering these limitations, 32% is a comparable rate for lateral transfers to the existing shelter and care system.
- 20% of clients at all sites exited to permanent housing. Additionally, the Housing Navigation Center at Cannon Street had a higher rate of exits with 35% of clients going to permanent housing while the other seven specialized sites had 18% of clients exiting to permanent housing. This success reflected the benefits of more intensive housing support through the Navigation Center.
- The Spokane Continuum of Care (CoC) 2024 Longitudinal Systems Analysis Report reported that 22% of all households exited from programs, not solely emergency shelter, were to permanent destinations in 2024 down from 28% in 2023.
Note: These findings are based on the best available data from the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) managed by the City of Spokane. The rates above do not account for people who entered and remained in shelter at the time of the data cutoff; they only account for people who had exited the system in the data collection period.
Waters Meet acknowledges that data collection and reporting discrepancies could influence the data. Please refer to the Data Collection and Analysis section for a more robust discussion on data insights and challenges.
- Regular meetings among service providers, outreach teams, city police, and city housing staff have helped providers and city agencies build trust.
- To date, three recommendations developed by the Shelter Collaborative group, which CHHS staff participate in, are being implemented or are in development by the city:
- Coordinated Outreach Teams
- Full-service Daytime Navigation Center
- Tiny Home Village
The project faced several challenges, including staffing shortages at the sites, confusion regarding the coordination and referral system of the Housing Navigation Center model, fluctuating shelter capacity, limited availability of affordable housing, and barriers to client engagement such as mental health needs and transportation. Data limitations and the need for a coordinated referral process were also identified as areas for improvement.
The biggest challenge remains the lack of affordable housing options in Spokane. The lack of permanent housing options in our city creates a bottleneck that prevents people from moving from emergency shelter into permanent housing. It is also the primary driver of homelessness.
Despite these challenges, the initiative demonstrated the benefits of integrated navigation services and flexible shelter operations. The pilot also reinforced the importance of creating trauma-informed, culturally-responsive shelter settings with manageable population sizes. The initiative, which relied on community partners offering space at low-to-no cost, saved the city money on a per-bed basis compared to recent congregate shelter projects.
Additionally, our partnership with providers and the city expanded opportunities for technical assistance and infrastructure support for providers. One of the key outputs of this project is that provider organizations are better equipped to comply with contracts and spend government funds efficiently.
Key recommendations for the City of Spokane and broader Spokane region moving forward include:
- First and foremost, investing in permanent and affordable housing options. You cannot have a successful shelter to permanent housing pipeline without places for people to move to. Houston is often shared as a model in this work. One of the primary advantages they have over Spokane is that their shelter system was able to secure housing options for people experiencing homelessness.
- Building a strong regional leadership structure. This body should center people with lived experience of homelessness and service providers. Centralized leadership is needed to assertively manage and coordinate the many systems that respond to the housing, mental health, and addiction crises. Our community cannot afford to continue to operate in silos with segmented information. A coordinated and data-driven response is necessary to create accountability and invest in proven solutions.
- Spokane needs more winter shelter and can save resources by reducing bed counts in summer. The current disjointed system of nightly temperature-based activation standards in the winter creates a serious logistical challenge for service providers and a lack of clarity for people seeking shelter. Funding for shelters should be based on annual demand patterns not nightly criteria.
- Expanding access to low-barrier shelter options and ensuring consistent operating standards across sites. This should include dedicated technical assistance and capacity building support for contracted organizations. This support should emphasize building capacity for providers who have strong experience working with the populations most impacted by homelessness, but limited experience contracting with government agencies.
- Enhancing data infrastructure to improve tracking of outcomes and coordination between providers. This should also include the development of a strategy for sharing this data more broadly to increase understanding of the housing and homelessness system, what’s working, and where we still need improvements.
- Creating a systemic and regular opportunity for currently unhoused individuals and clients of city-funded services to provide feedback and satisfaction data as an ongoing aspect of quality improvement.