Reviews & Comments
Spokane, WA
Spocompton -
6/16/2021I've lived here for 12 years now. I'm from a small town and always wanted to live here because there's lots of shops and eateries. there are a lot of cool things about Spokane...the parks are beautiful...the gondola at riverfront park is fun..lots of activities...lots of things to do. It's a college town with about 6 different colleges to choose from. Population in the general area is about 1/2 million now.
I'm sad to say the homeless population has exploded. It is very obvious just walking down the street downtown you can see people sleeping on the pavement and the city had a 1 million dollars grant to build a new shelter but they purposely didn't use it because they think it will attract more homeless people to the area. So we have people sleeping under bridges because there's not enough beds. I have been homeless before myself so I have compassion and have handed out food and blankets now that I'm on my feet again but the whole thing is overwhelming and makes me feel helpless. There's thousands of homeless people here. I'm an Uber driver now and one of my passengers from out of town remarked the homeless population is huge for a city our size. He is correct. Other nearby small towns who don't have homeless services bus people in. Then they end up in tents under the bridge. The new mayor Nadine Woodward puts on a show for the tv news she used to be a news anchor so shes good at that but there are not enough beds for these people so they are getting desperate and aggressive on the daily.
The roads are full of potholes and the city patches them up half heartedly but there is no laws that restrict semi trucks from driving straight through down town and destroying them again. It has tore up a few of my cars and I'm sick of it. I'm thinking about moving over to the West side of the state near Seattle. The traffic is crazy but when I go to visit over there the roads look nicer I feel safer in general it's like a breath of fresh air compared to Spokane which is starting to feel like the ghetto with gang graffiti all over the place. I used to love this city but I can't recommend anyone move here. The housing is limited vacancy and the landlords take advantage of that. Taking app fees even though they know they are renting to one of the first few people who applied. Greedy landlords. Even greedier city leadership. It's being run into the ground.