(The Center Square) – The Spokane City Council awarded $100,000 in police funding to a nonprofit on Monday to provide emergency aid for non-English speaking “low-income, undocumented” immigrants.
The proposal from Mayor Lisa Brown’s office reached officials earlier this month after the Spokane Immigrant Rights Coalition sent a letter last September requesting funding to offset recent grant cuts.
SIRC has distributed approximately $30,000 in legal aid to immigrants annually since 2021 through its “Community Justice Fund.” The money can be used to transport “immigrants regardless of immigration status,” to court, file documents, and pay for medical appointments, temporary housing and child care.
The $100,000 allocation received broad support from the progressive council majority on Monday, with the only conservative, Councilmember Michael Cathcart, voting in opposition. The funding came out of the Spokane Police Department’s community outreach budget with the blessing of Chief Kevin Hall.
“We have moved quickly on this because, as Councilmember [Zack] Zappone mentioned, these are not normal times. We have to move quickly,” Councilmember Paul Dillon said Monday, arguing that this is necessary to build trust with the community. “We will be watching how this fund is used very closely.”
SIRC’s agreement with the city requires it to track how the funding is spent, barring any expenses for legal representation or lobbying activities. Since the coalition isn’t set up to receive funding directly, it will instead go to Muslims for Community Action & Support, which can retain up to 8% for overhead.
Dillon said the $100,000 is below the threshold that requires the city to solicit competitive bids, so the city went with an informal request for information instead. Cathcart said only four organizations had a chance, excluding several other groups, one of which testified against SIRC funding earlier this month.
“We ended up with a hand-picked option that has some political connotations to it,” he said. “I can count a number of organizations beyond those four who would absolutely be able to do similar work, same work, and I don’t really understand why such a narrow group was chosen for these dollars.”
Prior to landing in SPD’s community outreach budget, the $100,000 was part of a larger pool routinely awarded to Spokane COPS, a community-oriented policing nonprofit. Brown required the nonprofit to compete for the money after taking office, but COPS declined amid confusion and issues with the Request for Proposal.
Cathcart suggested using the funds to help fill a $13 million deficit last fall and claims he heard details of the proposal, but was allegedly told in private negotiations that it wasn’t going through. He doesn’t trust that the money will be spent appropriately and questioned whether something else is going on.
Council President Betsy Wilkerson said these conversations began last May to support the community amid an uptick in federal immigration enforcement. She called the $100,000 a “modest” amount of money for what the organization is trying to accomplish and offered support for “whatever” they can do to help.
More than a dozen community members testified in support of the funding. Two people testified more broadly against other related policies and funding, arguing that city funds should go to legal residents.
“It’s a pilot program. It is good faith as we go forward, trying to do the best we can, not just for our immigrant community, but for all of our citizens,” Wilkerson said. “We will have more challenges to come, but I really appreciate the council being willing to be nimble on this and to move forward in support.”
