SPOKANE, Wash. — The Spokane City Council is considering a proposal to allocate $300,000 to Maddie’s Place, a local nonprofit that supports babies born addicted to drugs and their mothers.
Maddie’s Place is one of only five facilities nationwide dedicated to helping drug-exposed newborns and their families.
CEO Shaun Cross said most families served are from the Spokane area, but the organization is now seeing patients from across Washington state.
Cross said that a new baby is brought in every four days, and warned that without additional funding, the organization will struggle to keep up with demand.
“We are in the middle of a five-alarm fire,” Cross told 4 News Now, adding that the crisis is worsening due to fentanyl and economic pressures.
In March, Maddie’s Place faced potential closure after it found the Washington Senate had initially only allocated $200,000 to the organization, out of a requested $2.2 million.
In mid-April, the legislature’s amended budget allocated $2 million to Maddie’s Place out of the state’s Opioid Abatement Fund, allowing the organization’s doors to remain open.
The city council could vote on the funding plan as early as June 16.
COPYRIGHT 2025 BY KXLY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
