-- In the age of fentanyl, policies that delay intervention, even in the name of compassion, end up doing far more harm than good.
Proposed House Bill 2489 places a sharp limit on when cities can enforce basic public safety and public space laws related to homelessness, allowing intervention only if a narrowly defined, zero-barrier shelter option is available for each individual at the time and place of enforcement.
Supporters see this as compassion. In practice, the bill mandates inaction.
HB 2489 is built on an idea that once felt humane: remove barriers, wait patiently, and people will choose shelter and services on their own. That approach may have made sense in another era. In the age of fentanyl, it no longer does.
Synthetic opioids fundamentally change addiction by stripping away personal agency. Waiting for “readiness” too often means waiting for overdose or death.
Spokane has already learned this the hard way. Our earlier policies grounded in voluntary, low-barrier engagement failed to move people off the streets or into treatment, even as overdose deaths rose and suffering spread throughout our community. [consider this stark reality: among larger counties, Spokane's per capita overdose death rate has been the second highest in the nation.]
In response, Spokane deliberately changed course. In October 2025, the Mayor and City Council adopted the Safe and Accessible Spaces Ordinance, grounded in compassionate enforcement and paired with a shift away from large congregate shelters toward smaller, distributed shelter options integrated with navigation, stabilization, and treatment.
The goal of the new ordinance is not incarceration. The goal is timely intervention and connecting people to help before it's too late. Since then, fewer people are living and dying on the streets, and more individuals are entering services. The approach is working.
Spokane is not alone. Cities long associated with hands-off homelessness policies are moving away from the framework HB 2489 would lock Spokane into. San Francisco, Portland, and others have concluded that waiting, avoiding enforcement, and relying on voluntary engagement does not work in the fentanyl era. They are also successfully pivoting toward compassionate enforcement that moves people toward services -- that shift has been working.
HB 2489 would force cities backward just as experience is pointing the other way. By defining shelter so narrowly that almost no real-world option qualifies, the bill effectively prohibits intervention altogether.
Now is the time to act. HB 2489 would take away Spokane’s ability to respond to our real-world public safety and health crises just as progress is finally being made.
Legislators need to hear from those affected!
