Peering out from behind a children’s play structure in a recent photo, attorney and father of six Brian Hansen has been the public face of a ballot initiative to ban camping within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, playgrounds and childcare facilities in Spokane. The Spokesman-Review has called the proposal the “local attorney’s anti-camping initiative.”
Hansen first felt moved to pursue the petition after reading the affidavits in the city’s lawsuit against the state over Camp Hope, which recount a litany of alleged crimes including sexual assault and illicit drug use. Since then, he said he’s been putting in the “sweat equity” behind the initiative to ban camping near places where children go to school and recreate.
“We already have an ordinance that prohibits encampments around railroad structures,” Hansen said. “What’s more important: Railroads or kids?”
While the initiative bears Hansen’s name, local businessman Larry Stone has been bankrolling the effort, providing more than 90% of the campaign’s funding to date according to public disclosures. While Stone was a longtime supporter of liberal candidates and causes, since conceiving and funding the Curing Spokane video in 2019, which was praised by Mayor Nadine Woodward on the campaign trail, Stone has been a major political donor to conservative candidates.
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As RANGE reported last week, Stone bought the warehouse property that hosts the Trent Resource and Assistance Center homeless shelter, raised rent and leased the building back to the city. Stone is also on the board of the East Spokane Business Association, which sponsored advertisements in the Spokesman-Review calling for a shutdown of Camp Hope. Stone did not reply to RANGE’s request for comment on this story and hasn’t responded any other time we’ve sought comment over the last six-plus months.
Most of Stone’s proposals from Curing Spokane — such as moving the STA Plaza underground and making downtown parking free to encourage the middle class to travel there — haven’t gone anywhere, but one has: building a bigger jail.
Incarceration as a solution to homelessness has become a contentious plank of the proposed regional homeless authority, announced in late-June. Additionally, Measure 1, which will appear on the November ballot, will ask residents to vote $1.7 billion in new taxes over the next 30 years with $540 million pledged to the construction of two new detention facilities.
The camping ban proposed by Stone and Hansen’s initiative prohibits camping regardless of shelter availability, and would make doing so a misdemeanor. Under the proposal, campers would be cited and sent to community court, with incarceration reserved for people who are also “subject to custodial arrest on a warrant or probable cause for another crime,” and “those who do not meet the criteria for acceptance into community court.”
Because of its broad geographic reach — an analysis by Spokane Community Against Racism (SCAR) found that the ban covers about 40% of the city — even if the ban were to pass, it may face legal challenges. Martin v Boise, A 2018 ruling in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (which covers 9 western states including Washington), found that criminalizing resting or camping on public property when no shelter beds are available is a violation of the eighth amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
Cities do have some leeway to set restrictions on where and at what times people are prohibited from being on public property. Current laws in Spokane ban camping within 50 feet of railroad viaducts and 3 blocks of homeless shelters, regardless of shelter space.
“Our existing laws are more than adequate and defensible,” said recently appointed Spokane City Council President Lori Kinnear. “I don’t think this law will be defensible.”
Hansen disagrees. “My belief is that the court will look at this pragmatically and say anything less than 50% means that there’s still half the city that homeless can find a place of repose,” he said. “They can challenge it. Others or I will defend the law.”
Campaign finance records show that Stone supplied $75,000 of the $80,060 that the Clean and Safe Spokane, a single issue Political Action Committee (PAC) dedicated to the initiative, has brought in. The other $5,000 came from the Inland Northwest AGC Build East PAC (whose largest contributors are Lydig and Garco construction) and small contributors.
Most of that money, over $70,000, went to Missouri-based political consulting company Groundgame Political Solutions. Groundgame is a nationwide political campaigning company that specializes in signature gathering and other canvassing efforts. The money paid to Groundgame funded a signature-gathering effort that led to 7,397 signatures, nearly triple the 2,624 required to qualify for inclusion on the November ballot. Washington State law allows signature gatherers to work on a per-signature basis.
Hansen said he did not know whether signature gatherers were paid on a per signature basis and wasn’t very involved in the fundraising or canvassing efforts related to the initiative. “I had people that I contacted who in turn had individuals that they thought would be interested in the proposition. And honestly at that point I kind of let the process run its course,” he said. “It wasn’t a situation where I was necessarily knocking on doors or anything like that.”
Initially, Council President Lori Kinnear believed the number of signatures meant the initiative has a good chance. “Seeing as how he got a lot of signatures, I’m guessing it probably will [pass],” Kinnear told the Spokesman-Review.
Kinnear changed her tune, though, when she heard how much money had been spent in the canvassing efforts. “If it was volunteers out knocking on doors that would be different,” Kinnear said. “This is not that.”
Hansen said he knew Stone had given money to the effort, but didn’t realize the full extent and portion of his contribution. “I wasn’t immediately aware of that,” Hansen said. “But, again, I don’t find it to be necessarily off putting that he did.”
“This is not one or two or three or five individuals who have some hidden agenda going on here. Not everybody has pockets deep enough to do this,” Hansen said. “Some do, and they’re willing to step up.”
In previous reporting, the identity of the people paying for the effort, namely Stone and to a much lesser extent the builders PAC, hasn’t been public. Hansen said that the source of campaign funds being revealed was proof our campaign finance system is working. “The reason why we have campaign finance laws that require this kind of disclosure is specifically so that you don’t have improper influence peddling,” he said.
