Nationwide, the homeless population is rising.
In many communities, it can feel like an intractable problem. Yet cities like Spokane are starting to show some incremental progress with some prevention programs. Homeless prevention leaders like Julia Garcia, founder of Jewels Helping Hands, a nonprofit contracted to run a warming center, say it’s important to highlight these — otherwise, the general public, bombarded by so many stories about how bad the crisis is, might start thinking there are no solutions.
“It’s not more services that they need — we have access to those services. It’s the relationships that aren’t being built,” Garcia says.