Kalispell City Council Considers New Ordinances for Parks Amid Growing Homeless Presence

The Kalispell City Council on Monday expressed interest in moving forward in its consideration of new ordinances that would place further restrictions on how people can use city parks, and increase the ability of law enforcement to cite people for their behavior in city parks, including in instances of prolonged occupancy of structures within those parks. The ordinances were spurred by recent problems and public concern related to homeless people occupying a gazebo at Depot Park in downtown Kalispell. The council’s discussion eventually gave way to a multi-hour public comment period during which the city’s homeless population, and how the community and local government can deal with related issues, became the focus of a range of emotions and reactions expressed by attendees, including frustration, anger, empathy, sadness, and confusion.

The meeting drew more than 100 people, with dozens forced to stand for lack of seats. Others tuned into the meeting online, either from home or while standing in the hallway.

The ordinances under consideration would restrict the ability for people to place property or erect structures on public grounds without a reservation or event permit, and cap the cumulative amount of time in a single day that someone could occupy a park amenity, including a gazebo, at 90 minutes without a reservation or event permit.

Some city officials, including City Manager Doug Russell and Mayor Mark Johnson, said the ordinances were not intended to solve the entire issue of homelessness in Kalispell.

Russell made it clear the ordinances were in response to concerns and complaints raised about the behavior of homeless people who have been regularly occupying the gazebo at Depot Park, sometimes for the entirety of the park’s open hours, and in the case of one ordinance limiting the time of occupancy of a park structure, he presented it as something that would allow for more equitable use of those structures.

Last week, the city fenced off the gazebo at Depot Park in response to similar concerns. Flathead County Commissioners Brad Abell, Pamela Holmquist and Randy Brodehl then drafted an open letter placing part of the blame for the problem they see presented by the community’s unhoused population on the shoulders of local shelters and resource providers. The letter also encouraged the community and city officials to limit the availability of warming shelters for people experiencing homelessness. Local resource providers have called the letter a mischaracterization of the Flathead’s unhoused population, saying it showed a lack of understanding, and an unwillingness to cooperate with local providers.

In the early minutes of Monday’s meeting, Russell clicked through a slideshow displayed on screens throughout the council chambers, which showed partially redacted images of people, trash and human waste in Depot Park. Before starting the presentation, Russell said he knew he would face criticism for using the pictures but said he felt it was necessary.

“To start off, I’m going to go through a series of pictures,” Russell said. “This may be the most troubling thing I’ve done as a city manager in 20 years. I don’t want to display these pictures. I don’t think it is a very enjoyable thing to show individuals in vulnerable situations.”

Russell described some of the photos as having been taken from body cameras. The redactions were made with large blue squares that covered faces, and in one case part of the body of a person lying on the ground next to a puddle of liquid. Russell said the person was exposing themselves, and that the liquid was urine. The redacted images appeared to show anywhere from one person at a time to up to four in the area of the gazebo. The blue squares were also used to cover up images of what Russell said was human feces that unidentified people appeared to be cleaning up with shovels. Lorraine Clarno, the CEO of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce, said that cleaning up such material has become a regular occurrence for her staff, and that they were featured in the slideshow. The chamber’s offices are adjacent the park, and Clarno also described hearing screaming in the park, and seeing fights involving fists and in some cases weapons, including knives and hammers.

Kalispell Police Chief Doug Overman said the police department is receiving three times as many calls for service to Depot Park in comparison to 2019. Overman said that his agency does issue citations, but when he was asked about whether the people hanging out in the gazebo are being arrested for illegal activity, Overman indicated they generally were not, and said that it was not a reasonable expectation given the jail’s population.

“Honestly, many of our ordinances don’t come with a jailable offense, nor would actually a trespass incarceration overnight do anything to resolve the issue long term,” the police chief said.

He went further, saying that of the 1,100 total trespass calls city police received last year only about 12 percent resulted in a citation, and that his office is looking for other solutions.

“We oftentimes just go to counseling and looking for voluntary compliance in any issue whether it be speeding, even in some minor thefts and stuff like that, depending on the victim,” Overman said. “We look for compliance and an education component, and enforcement is used when we feel like that’s the necessary component.”

For the ordinances on structures and personal property in public spaces, Russell shared with the council a similar ordinance on the books in Whitefish, which treats violations as misdemeanors or municipal infractions. The Whitefish ordinance identifies potential violations through an assessment of whether or not excessive personal property in a public space deprives someone else of use of that space, creates a health or sanitation issue, creates an obstruction, or causes a public area to be uninviting to others. The Whitefish ordinance also prohibits erecting structures, including a tent, lodge, shelter, structure, or unattended installation or display.

Some councilors raised concerns about aspects of the ordinances. Councilor Ryan Hunter shared his belief that the ordinances would not address root causes, and that the ordinances could be unfairly enforced due to public pressure and controversy.

Hunter said the local homeless population was being driven by rising rents and limited housing, and suggested a housing-first approach to dealing with homelessness in the community. He put forward the idea of partnering with a nonprofit housing provider to develop deed-restricted affordable housing in a city parking lot that could be paired with behavioral health and addiction services. He also raised the possibility of needle disposal bins in parks and 24-hour public bathrooms with sensors to indicate occupancy and blue interior lighting to discourage drug use. The safe needle disposal bin idea touched off a small debate among council members, with Johnson and Councilor Jed Fisher arguing against the bins and in favor of investing further in the parks to encourage public use and thus discourage criminal behavior.

“Without proactive solutions, these problems will persist, and we will simply be playing Whack-A-Mole with punitive measures as it grows in severity,” Hunter said. Later in the meeting, responding to criticism of his ideas, Hunter said the ordinances would simply lead to people going somewhere else to cause problems somewhere else, a concern that was also raised by one downtown business owner who described seeing an increase in homeless activity at their shop since the Depot Park gazebo closure.

Hunter’s remarks about a housing first approach were also met with some pushback from Councilor Sam Nunally, who said Hunter would not get his support on a housing-first response.

“This isn’t a housing problem, this is a mental health and drug addiction problem, and until we start to honestly look at that and address it, providing a house isn’t going to do anything. Cause they’re going to go into a house and what are they going to do? Go back to their habits. Sorry, I just had to respond to that, because that’s not the issue.”

Nunally then said he wants to see pressure reapplied at the state level to refund mental health and drug addiction services. Ultimately, Johnson concluded that there was enough support for the council to consider ordinances similar to those discussed at its next official meeting.

During the public comment period, Flathead Warming Center Executive Director Tonya Horn defended her organization as wanting to be part of a solution, and said that most of the people it serves were born and raised in the area, and that the greatest increases they are seeing are in the elderly.

“So many of our unhoused population that we serve inside the warming center are ill. We do not have the resources in our community for these individuals to be well. People have nowhere to go to get well and it comes out sideways, and again it’s ugly, and again, this is what we’re seeing play out in public spaces,” she said. “We must stop passing individuals around. Ambulance, jail, library, the emergency room, law enforcement shelters. Here we go again, ambulance, ER, law enforcement, shelters, law enforcement, jail, ER. It’s insanity, and it’s expensive. We don’t believe that the government should fund solutions for homelessness, but make no mistake we are indeed funding homelessness just at a much higher price tag. Where are ill people supposed to go?”

She went on to advocate for approaches that would help hold people accountable, and described what she characterized as a list of related community needs, including funding law enforcement, treatment services in the jail, beds available in a mental health crisis stabilization facility, nursing home beds, a detox center, adult case managers, supportive housing, group homes, a drop-in resource center, a path for involuntary psychiatric commitments, and affordable housing.

Doug Adams, the chairman of the ImagineIf Library Board of Trustees, said he wanted to see the ordinances under consideration crafted in a way that they could be enforced in public spaces like the ImagineIf Library in Kalispell, where he said staff and patrons have encountered safety issues caused by a combination of drugs, alcohol, and transients. He went on to say “throwing more money” at the problem was not a solution, nor could the government solve the problem. He also said he wants to see people in violation of the law arrested regardless of the jail’s capacity, and called for an increase to the police department’s fuel budget so that they can help move people out of town. Adams also said he felt the county commissioner’s letter was correct, and that a solution involved an end to “coddling” people.

Some commenters expressed similar beliefs that the solution was to forcibly relocate the community’s homeless population to other, unspecified communities. In one instance, a man noted the amount of people who carry firearms in Kalispell and that he had concerns that something bad would happen. One woman talked about the fear she has felt when encountering homeless people exhibiting erratic or threatening behavior. Some downtown business owners also expressed their anger and frustration with a range of problems they have encountered due to the city’s homeless population.

Sean O’Neill, the community services director for Community Action Partnership of Northwest Montana, described how earlier in the day he had tried to help a disabled man in his 70s with a bipolar 1 diagnosis, who he found on the streets wearing Crocs. When O’Neill brought him inside to fix him up with a new pair of winter boots, he said that the man took a sock off and “all of his skin came off with it” due to severe frostbite.

“This is a local senior, severely disabled man, that must have walked all day, because he’s not able to stay anywhere too long before being moved on,” O’Neill said. “As you could tell these solutions that we need are plenty and they need to be multifaceted.”

Some commenters later in the meeting referenced O’Neill’s anecdote in trying to explain which unhoused people they were concerned about, and which ones they felt should be helped.

Another commenter, a young woman who said she had been homeless, described how the Warming Center and Samaritan House had helped her. “The only reason I am no longer homeless is because I found affordable housing. And that affordable housing is limited,” she said, before discussing the pain she feels seeing her friends who are homeless and struggling to get by, and how she herself is trying to make it on a job that pays $11 an hour.

Jamie Quinn, the executive director of the Flathead Food Bank, said she didn’t support the policies being considered. In a recent review of numbers from 2022, a year in which incoming food donations fell by nearly 30%, she said the food bank saw a 43% increase in households coming to her agency, a 27% percent increase in individuals, and a 123% increase in homeless or unsheltered people coming to her agency on a monthly basis.

She went on to say there was a 103% increase in working households coming to the food bank, a 60% increase in disabled households, and a 32% increase in veteran households.

“Those bottom three, the working, the disabled, and the veteran households that are not unsheltered, those are the three biggest categories that are at risk of becoming our unsheltered neighbors,” she said. “That represents over 700 households. Fortunately not all of them will become unsheltered, but we have to be realistic that a lot of them will.”

One of the last comments of the night came from former Kalispell Mayor Pam Carbonari.

“People keep mentioning the issues that are happening and that we have no place to go. Well, it’s true. The officers, when they go to deal with the solution, we have no mental health solutions here in Kalispell — in Flathead County we don’t have mental health solutions. We don’t have drug addiction solutions here that we can bring the poor people that are affected to a place they can get some help,” Carbonari said. “We in the state of Montana have over $2 billion in a surplus. Let’s call our legislators, let’s tell them about the crisis that we have in Kalispell.”