How Spokane's response to the health and safety crisis on our streets compares with communities across America — and what the best-performing systems do differently. This is a learning tool, not a scoreboard: the goal is compassionate enforcement paired with clear, connected pathways into treatment, shelter and housing.
A Spokane Business Association civic project · DRAFT for community comment · Every claim sourced; corrections welcome · Updated July 29, 2026
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Source: CDC NCHS, CDC VSRR (county & state) & Spokane County Medical Examiner | Toggle the Nation & states section in the legend to compare against any state or the U.S. as a whole
Compare emergency-department visits and inpatient hospitalizations across published states and counties
Sources: CDC DOSE-DIS, CDC DOSE-SYS and Washington State Department of Health | Data availability varies by jurisdiction
Seven-year histories of total, sheltered, unsheltered, chronic, veteran, youth, and family homelessness across large HUD Continuums of Care
2019–2025 HUD PIT counts | Select a population and display mode, then compare any one or more jurisdictions
Seven-year Housing Inventory Count histories showing crisis-response and permanent-housing scale across large Continuums of Care
January 2019–2025 HUD HIC | 267 CoCs serving populations above 300,000 | Compare inventory with PIT need
Five-year HMIS histories showing whether large local homelessness systems move people toward stable housing
Federal fiscal years 2020–2024 | 267 HUD Continuums of Care serving populations above 300,000
A matched national outcome analysis showing where overdose mortality and homelessness converge—and where communities break the pattern
County overdose mortality matched to complete county-equivalent CoCs | Combined burden blends the two outcomes 50-50 (descriptive); capability is scored separately in Response Scorecards
Each community's national percentile for overdose mortality (50%) and total homelessness per 10,000 (50%), averaged. Higher bars mean a heavier combined burden — #1 is the hardest-hit of the 116 matched communities. The 25 heaviest are shown; click a bar to focus that community below. Spokane* note: Spokane is scored with its County Medical Examiner count — 344 overdose deaths occurring in Spokane County in 2025 (≈61.9 per 100k; preliminary, released Feb 2026) — rather than the lower CDC residence-based figure (287 deaths, ≈51.6, 12 months ending Dec 2025). The local count is more complete for deaths occurring here, though not perfectly comparable: every other community is CDC-based, and coroner-vs-CDC gaps cut both ways — Philadelphia's local count runs below its CDC figure, because tight city borders in a dense metro mean many residents die outside the county, and Philadelphia publishes unintentional overdoses only. Spokane's gap runs the other way for the opposite reason: an isolated hub county whose hospitals and street scene draw the whole region in — the inflow the Continuum Map documents. We use the higher local number because it is worse, not better, than the alternative.
| Community | Selection role | Status | Overdose per 100k | Unsheltered per 10k |
Chronic per 10k | Crisis beds per 100 PIT |
Housing exits | 12-mo. returns | 2020–2025 trajectory |
|---|
Six-community documentary pilot within a 15-community national outcome comparison
Verified implementation and institutional facts | Outcomes remain independent | Direction of change is shown separately
| Community | Review status | Standards | Integration | Weak link | Core burden | Panel / national rank | Policy-era direction | Fatal change | Unsheltered | PIT year |
|---|
Explore who is dying nationally and the circumstances surrounding fatal overdoses in participating SUDORS jurisdictions
This dashboard is our attempt to answer that question honestly — with sourced data rather than anecdotes. It tracks the crisis on our streets — overdose deaths, homelessness, shelter capacity and system performance — and compares Spokane's response with communities across America, including the ones getting the best results.
This is a learning tool, not a scoreboard. Where the data shows Spokane behind, we say so; where our newest policies simply haven't had time to work, we say that too. The goal is the one we keep coming back to: accountability with care — compassionate enforcement that restores our public spaces, paired with clear pathways into the treatment, shelter and housing our most vulnerable neighbors need.
It's a draft, and it will stay a living document. Every claim is sourced, every estimate is clearly asterisked, and corrections are welcome — that's how it gets better.