Privacy

The Spokane Community Assistant is a free community service. There are no accounts, no sign-ins, no ads, and nothing here is ever sold or shared for marketing. This page explains exactly what the service records and why.

What we never keep

• Your name, email, phone number, or any account information.
• Your precise location. Only a ZIP code, and only if you choose to enter one.
• The words you type or say. Your message is used to find services and to write the reply, and then it is discarded. It is not saved anywhere.
• Anything you say in a moment of crisis. When the assistant detects a safety situation (for example, thoughts of self-harm), it shows verified hotline information and records only that a safety response was shown.
• Anything about who you are. The service does not record or guess your age, background, or circumstances.

What we record

To learn which needs the community has and where the guide falls short, the service keeps an anonymous record of each request made up only of fixed labels:

• The kind of help asked for, chosen from a fixed list of service types (for example “food pantry” or “rent assistance”), and how urgent it seemed.
• Which organizations were suggested and how well they matched.
• The ZIP code you entered, if any, so underserved areas can be identified.
• The language used, whether you typed or spoke, and whether the reply was rated helpful.
• A random conversation number that exists only while the page is open. It links the turns of one conversation so we can see whether a follow-up question was needed. It is not a cookie and cannot identify you or your device.

These records are kept for up to 15 months so a full program year can be evaluated, then deleted automatically. Reports built from them only show groups of five or more requests, never a single one. A public summary is at What Spokane is asking for.

Voice

If you use voice, your audio is processed by Google's speech services to understand and answer you, and is not stored by us.

Reports you submit

“Report a problem” reports are anonymous. We keep the organization name, the issue you selected, and any note you add. Please do not include personal details in the note.

Services we rely on

Conversations are processed by Google's Gemini models to generate answers; data is hosted with Supabase and served by Vercel. Each processes data only to run this service.

Questions

This service is a product of Plain Words LLC, an independent company in Spokane County, built by Vivek Patil. It is not a Gonzaga University service. Questions about privacy: vivek@plainwords.io.

In an emergency call 911. For crisis support, call or text 988.