Spokane keeps paying for the same crisis in different places.

We pay for it in emergency rooms. We pay for it in jail beds. We pay for it in downtown vitality, workforce stability, public safety, and public confidence. Each cost shows up in a different place, but all point back to the same problem: a fragmented system that is not built to reduce crisis. The most expensive system is the one that does not work.

In June, our region’s elected leaders received a roadmap from the Safe and Healthy Spokane Task Force, shaped by nine months of work among people who rarely share a table. It reflects the voices of business and healthcare leaders, public safety officials, behavioral health providers, survivor advocates, faith leaders, tribal representatives, and people with lived experience.

For too long, the public debate has forced Spokane’s behavioral health and justice challenges into separate lanes: public safety or human services, accountability or compassion, jails or treatment. That false choice is part of what keeps the system broken. Real progress will come from building an integrated system that connects people to treatment, protects neighborhoods, holds people accountable, and spends public dollars on reducing crisis instead of recycling it.

The region has been here before — studying the problem, making plans, and watching progress stall. This time, the recommendations reflect something different: common ground built by people who came to the table with very different views, experiences, and responsibilities. We did not agree on every detail, but we agreed on the most foundational one: Safety and health must be treated as part of one integrated system. That common ground is what makes this moment different, and why the momentum behind these recommendations must not be allowed to fade.

The recommendations call for paired investment in both community-based treatment and modern justice facilities, deflection and diversion, and crisis stabilization capacity, because these are not competing priorities but parts of one solution, each making the others work. They also call for an enduring cross-sector coordinating council to keep partners accountable across budget cycles and elections, because without this, past efforts have failed.

Greater Spokane Incorporated, Downtown Spokane Partnership, the Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce, Waters Meet Foundation, and the Avista Foundation initiated and funded the task force because they recognized the cost of continuing as we have. The responsibility for what comes next belongs to our elected leaders working across jurisdictions, and to the broader community, including business leaders across the region. Let us meet this moment with the urgency it requires, stay engaged, use our collective voice, and help ensure the recommendations lead to action.

Business leaders can make that happen by keeping this issue on the civic agenda, publicly backing the coordinating council, pressing city and county leaders to work in concert, and ensuring accountability to measurable outcomes for public investments. We are committed to this work and these recommendations today more than ever, because the status quo is not acceptable.

The coalition that built these recommendations is not walking away. The more than 35 community partners, public health and safety leaders, and residents who spent months at this table are committed to seeing it through. The business community needs to match that commitment. Spokane's economic future and civic health are inseparable, and a region that gets this right will be stronger for it. The moment is here. Let's not waste it.

Alex Jackson is chief community impact and advocacy officer of MultiCare Health System. Matt Albright is executive director of operations & service lines for Providence. Stacey Cowles is publisher of The Spokesman-Review and president of Cowles Co.