"I would say that Eric Finch is a game changer."į inch specializes in dealing with disasters. By Finch's own admission, he's hardly an expert on homelessness.īut instead of Finch's appointment inspiring derision, some of the Woodward administration's toughest critics have responded by heaping on praise: Now chair of Spokane's Continuum of Care Board, a group that coordinates regional homelessness policy, Stuckart says Finch has already racked up several achievements. That year, the hybrid homeless camp and activist demonstration successfully thrust the issue of the lack of homeless shelter space into the headlines: And the next year, conservative mayoral candidate Woodward harnessed the same issue to run a tough-on-homelessness campaign, narrowly defeating liberal City Council President Ben Stuckart.īut under Woodward's leadership this year, the department that manages the city's response, Community Housing and Human Services, saw a mass exodus of employees that brought the department to the brink of collapse.Īnd just before Thanksgiving, the mayor put the city's head IT guy, Eric Finch, in charge of the division that oversees that department. Do you?" and "How much 'F- off' can you stand?"īoth Jans and Luna were chronically homeless during the last iteration of Camp Hope, too, back in 2018. Luna has tied poster boards to her tent poles with the messages "God loves me. "We bleed the same, we breathe the same, we pee the same, we eat the same."įrom inside a nearby tent, another camper - who identifies herself as just Luna - chimes in.
"Are we any different from her?" Jans says about the mayor. As he talks about his frustrations with Mayor Nadine Woodward's rhetoric about homelessness, the fingers holding his hand-rolled cigarette are bare. Eric Finch says there may be intense disagreement about homelessness, but there's common ground the city and nonprofits can pursue.Ī s the sun set last week on the final night of Camp Hope, the homelessness encampment that activists pointedly set up out front of City Hall, the cold is sharp enough to bite through your gloves.īut John Jans, one of the homeless campers, isn't wearing any.
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