In The News - 6/4/2025
KREM
Spokane Mayor proposes $730K investment in opioid addiction treatments, services
The proposal allocates $300K for Maddie's Place, $30K for mobile treatment and outreach, and $400K for an outdoor program to help homeless individuals.
On Tuesday, at a Gabriel’s Challenge community meeting, Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown announced her proposal to invest $730,000 in additional opioid settlement funds to opioid treatment, capital investments, and wrap-around services across the City of Spokane.
“This proposal aims to directly support the vital work of community organizations on the front lines of the opioid crisis. This funding would also help establish a new outdoor navigation program, which will fill a critical gap in services for those in need,” Mayor Brown said.
Mayor Brown’s proposal includes:
$300,000 for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) treatment for infants and wraparound family services at Maddie’s Place, a non-profit recovery nursery for babies experiencing withdrawal due to prenatal substance exposure
$30,000 to support capital investments for mobile medication-assisted treatment and outreach
$400,000 to create an outdoor navigation program and increase outreach to navigate people currently living outdoors with or at-risk of opioid use disorder into appropriate housing options
“We are deeply grateful to the City of Spokane for recognizing the urgent and ongoing need for specialized infant care and family support in the wake of the opioid crisis,” said Shaun Cross, President & CEO at Maddie’s Place. “This funding ensures our doors stay open, our staff remains strong, and our advocacy for sustainable healthcare solutions continues.”
The City of Spokane has allocated $2,480,350 in opioid settlement dollars to various opioid related services.
The Spokesman Review
EMPTY AT THE CORE
Downtown Spokane faces steep losses in property value as vacancies rise, safety fears grow
It’s been years since pandemic restrictions were lifted, but that doesn’t mean downtown Spokane has returned to work, so to speak.
Hundreds of thousands of square footage in the city’s downtown core, a whopping 28% of all available office space, lie empty. As a result, some of Spokane’s most prominent buildings saw losses in the millions in their assessed values in recent years.
“We have to look at this as a good wake-up call and realize we have a very serious challenge in front of us,” said Emilie Cameron, president and CEO of the Downtown Spokane Partnership.
“We have to be intentional and collaborative and do everything we can both in the private sector, making sure spaces are good city spaces, and then in the public sector, making sure the environment is a place people want to come to work.”
The Spokane County Assessor’s Office started sending out property assessments for 2026 tax statements Monday to nearly 215,000 commercial and residential plots across the region. Those valuations are the county’s estimates as of Jan. 1 and tend to be lower than what a property would fetch on the market.
That’s why the recent purchase of the Sterling Building at 710 W. Riverside Ave. for $2.3 million, around $2 million below the current assessed value and $6.2 million less than its 2024 appraisal, set off alarm bells. Commercial real estate experts and downtown business leaders concerned about the devaluation of downtown also point to the nearly $12 million loss for the Bank of America building at 601 W. Riverside, and the $5.5 million in lost value for the downtown Chase Bank building.
“We have an issue downtown and it’s a real problem, because tenants don’t necessarily want to be here anymore,” said Dave Black of commercial real estate agency NAI Black. “It’s too bad, because we spent the last few decades, since I got into business in 1981, building downtown into an amazing place, and it’s still an amazing place, but most office tenants don’t want to be here anymore.”