Survey shows people now feel safer in downtown Spokane, but major hurdles remain

Yahoo

25-05-2025

May 24—Spokane residents and visitors from elsewhere in the county report feeling safer downtown today than they did six months ago, though widespread concerns remain, according to a recent survey.
This is the second of at least four biannual polls sponsored by Greater Spokane Incorporated, a coalition of prominent businesses, and conducted by California-based firm EMC Research. While some questions address perceptions of the region at large, much of the survey focuses on downtown Spokane.
Many of the findings align with the first survey released in October: addressing homelessness and public safety remain the top priorities for respondents. Most feel the region is headed in the wrong direction and do not feel their local elected leaders — whether they live in the city, valley, county or otherwise — have a good plan to address the issues of their community, and do not spend tax dollars responsibly.
Notably, these findings largely align with essentially every community EMC Research has surveyed in recent years, whether Spokane, Seattle, San Francisco or Santa Clara — though at least that latter community, which has a median income more than twice that of Spokane's, does appear unusually satisfied with their city's leadership.
But while in most cases there has not been a seismic shift in surveyed sentiment, there has been a notable improvement in perceptions of safety in downtown Spokane, though still with plenty of room for improvement.
About 70% of those surveyed, whether living in Spokane or elsewhere, stated they feel safe visiting downtown Spokane in the daytime, an improvement of roughly 10% in just six months. Those sentiments drop precipitously during the nighttime, from 37% among Spokane residents to 30% overall, though this is still a 9- to 14-point improvement since October.
There has been a noticeably smaller shift, however, in how respondents answered when asked whether they worried about the future of downtown Spokane. Among Spokane residents, 82% still say they worry, down from 86% in October. Overall, 82% of respondents again say they worry for the downtown's future, though this is down from 89% in October.
And a majority of respondents, 61% overall, still say they are visiting downtown today less than they were a year ago.
Andrew Thibault, Senior Principal for EMC Research, said he noticed the same lag in Seattle, where the chamber of commerce has been funding biannual surveys for longer and there is more of a trend line to examine.
"Because voters have been hearing about these challenges for a long time and are hearing that these challenges are being addressed, they're going to be slow to give credit and act on that," Thibault suggested.
And without more data over a longer period of time, it can also be hard to gauge how lasting changes are between surveys or to have much of a sense of what is driving those trends, Thibault added. For instance, some respondents may have said they are visiting downtown less because they are working from home more than they were a year ago, but with more data points, it'll be easier to point to a longer-term trend and suggest that changes in policy are responsible.
Thibault believes it will be about the fourth survey, due around April 2026, when he will feel more confident that the trends between surveys aren't "blips."
It has been reported that the survey found respondents feel safer in their neighborhoods today than they did six months ago by about 17 percentage points, though the actual findings are more complicated.
Asked whether they felt their neighborhoods had less crime than two years ago, there was a 17-point positive shift from October, though this went almost entirely to the "feels about the same as two years ago" column, so the survey only suggests fewer people feel like things are not getting worse. Only 8% of Spokanites reported feeling safer than two years ago, up from 7% in October.
Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown, in an interview, said the uptick in perceptions of safety are positive, but continues to criticize the survey's focus on Spokane and lack of questions regarding other jurisdictions that play a role in public safety and addiction.
"I would still like a survey that didn't just talk about the city's policies," Brown said. "You have a regional health district that ought to be at the center of the conversation, or the county that receives behavioral health dollars. I get that for the person on the street out there, they don't sort out who does what, but it is on all of us to work on these issues."
John Allen, owner of Vino! A Wine Shop, which is located a few blocks from the troubled intersection of Second and Division, doesn't believe Spokane's struggles with homelessness and addiction are unique or particularly bad for a city of its size. But he also questions whether the better perceptions found in GSI's recent survey have more to do with the weather than policy.
"We're coming out of winter. It's been cold." Allen said. "We'll see more people outside in the next six months. This is a very comfortable place to be homeless — there are parks and places to crash and get food. It's just more visible in the summertime."
While surveys like the Pulse purport to illustrate the views of an entire population, every poll comes with caveats and limitations.
Because of the focus on downtown Spokane, it's not necessarily clear if respondents in the Valley, for example, were referring to their own City Council when asked if they trusted their government to spend money wisely, which could somewhat limit the value of the survey for their own elected leaders.
And in some cases, the changes between now and October's survey are within the margin of error, which was 5.66 points for Spokane residents and 4.4 for the overall population surveyed. Of the 600 people surveyed, 300 live in Spokane, which was deliberately disproportionately high in order to lower the city's margin of error, Thibault said.
Some demographics were also disproportionately surveyed, which could have an impact on the overall results, as those populations often proved to have very different opinions and priorities.
Respondents were far more likely to have a college degree, skewed older than the county's actual adult population and were slightly more likely to be white, female or a homeowner.
These factors could somewhat skew the data, as younger and non-homeowning respondents were significantly less likely to cite homelessness as a top concern and significantly more likely to prioritize housing affordability, while older voters were far more likely to say that hiring more police officers should be a top priority. Homeowners were 12 percentage points more likely to say they didn't feel safe downtown day or night, notable given the higher proportion of renters living downtown.
There remains, however, no more consistent divide in perceptions than people of different political persuasions. Left-leaning voters are 30-40 percentage points more likely to say they feel safe downtown, day or night, than conservative or moderate voters.
Both sides of the political spectrum have improved attitudes on safety downtown since October, though liberals expressed a six-point improvement at day compared to 10 points for conservatives, while liberals expressed a 16-point improvement at night compared to 6 points for conservatives.
Republicans were 30 points more hostile to growth in their area than Democrats and around 30 points less trusting of the city of Spokane to spend tax dollars responsibly.
Two-thirds of Democrats report feeling as safe or safer in their neighborhoods than they did two years ago, while two-thirds of Republicans report feeling less safe.
Concerns over personal finances amid broader economic conditions have flipped between the two parties since the last survey in October, which was released ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
In October, 83% of Republicans expressed concern about how the economy might affect their personal finances compared to 65% of Democrats. In May's poll, 70% of Republicans expressed concern compared to 84% of Democrats.
Among independents, the rate of concern rose from 72% to 82% in the last six months.