After a month of confusion and conflict over who will be running the TRAC Shelter when the current contract expires at the end of the month (and whether a separate contract to provide navigation and counseling services will even exist), Kim McCollim, the woman leading the process, abruptly resigned Wednesday.
RANGE hasn’t seen a resignation letter yet, but freshman City Council Member Paul Dillon said that McCollim had verbally resigned Wednesday. Council Member Karen Stratton told RANGE McCollim submitted a written resignation today, but that she had not seen the letter.
Neither McCollim nor NHHS communications manager Brian Walker, returned requests for comment. Mayor Nadine Woodward released a statement saying, "The city lost a good one today. Kim served with a passion, heart, and professionalism the community desperately needs. She gave everything she had to the job and those she worked so hard to help.”
Brian Coddington, city communications director, elaborated that McCollim's last day in office will be December 29 and her last day of employment will be January 19.
A little over a year ago, Woodward appointed McCollim the director of the Neighborhood, Housing and Human Services Department (NHHS) after the previous director John Hall resigned and sent a 27-page memo of recommendations to the mayor’s office. McCollim is the third NHHS director to submit their resignation in as many years, following Hall’s resignation in September 2022 and Cupid Alexander’s resignation in June 2021.
Community Housing and Human Services (CHHS), a division of NHHS that focuses on the city’s homeless response, has seen startling turnover as well. Former CHHS Director Jenn Cerecedes resigned from her position in early September, the latest in a slew of departures that led former Council President Lori Kinnear to tell the Inlander, “there’s nobody that originally worked there before Nadine was elected.”
McCollim, whose position included overseeing the CHHS department, stepped in to finish some of Cerecedes’ projects (Eric Finch, the city’s Chief Innovation & Technology Officer is technically filling Cerecedes’ role on a temporary basis, but hasn’t been heading up any of the TRAC conversations.) One of those projects was a Request for Proposals (RFP) posted over the summer that was searching for proposals to operate the TRAC shelter, ideally at a cheaper rate than the about $750,000 a month the city was being charged by the current operator of the shelter: The Salvation Army.
Under McCollim, that RFP was abruptly canceled after the recommending board chose Jewels Helping Hands (JHH) as their pick to take over shelter operations. The transition process was slated to begin mid-December, but after JHH was selected, no contract was presented to the Spokane City Council to vote on. After repeated attempts to follow up on the RFP process from city council budget director Matt Boston and Nicolette Ocheltree, manager of housing and homelessness initiatives, city council, McCollim and the CHHS board had a lengthy and heated discussion at the November 16 Study Session, where the failure of the RFP was revealed.
At the end of that meeting, city council found themselves backed into a corner with only two choices presented to them: approve a $3.93 million contract with the Salvation Army to operate the shelter through the end of April, or all 350-400 residents to be turned out onto the streets in freezing temperatures come January 1.
Conversations with no clarity bubbled over into a Public Infrastructure, Environment and Sustainability (PIES) Committee meeting on November 27, where city council members continued to push McCollim to provide detailed answers to questions they’d been asking for weeks, like how the Salvation Army had continued to spend over their contracted amount, why the RFP stalled and what other options were on the table besides approve the almost $4 million contract extension or close the shelter.
McCollim continued to provide few answers.
Earlier this week, a packet with a cheaper month–by-month contract with Salvation Army and a four-month renewal with Revive Counseling, the service provider working alongside the operator circulated. But instead of voting on either contract at Monday’s City Council meeting, the agenda item was removed during their pre-meeting Briefing Session and was pushed back to December 14.
It is unclear if McCollim’s departure will change the options available to the city council.
Story updated to reflect comments from the mayor's administration.
