We Can Solve Homelessness If We Work Together
Every other major city across the state is working with their local providers and creating solutions that meet their community’s most dire needs. We believe that hand-in-hand we can solve this together.
By Executive Board of Collaborative Housing SolutionsWe will not be addressing the Kalispell City Council in their next work session. The measure of a community is how we treat those most in need. Homelessness is a growing crisis that is currently dividing our community into bits and pieces. This crisis is intensifying every day due to the lack of adequate housing, and substance abuse and behavioral health treatment services.
Our community is looking to our local leaders for real solutions. Creating more or expanding current city ordinances are not real solutions to a potential sinkhole. Without adequate resources to hold individuals accountable, ticketing for ordinance violations will not address the serious and multi-faceted issues in our community. What good is creating and expanding ordinances when we can’t fully enforce the ones we have already?
Social service providers in the Flathead have been working collaboratively on the front lines, powering through very difficult years of unprecedented numbers of homegrown Montanans needing help. Each and every battle we fight, we have pleaded for our leaders to join us at the table for real solutions to the crisis that we are all facing in our community. Our work is only made harder by policies and letters that seem intent on diminishing the efforts of dedicated professionals, and, more importantly, making it more difficult, and even dangerous, for those who struggle on the streets.
Commonly, we hear that it is not the role of the government to address homelessness, and we elect government officials to protect, care, and serve the people of Flathead Valley. We encourage our leaders to remember that all residing in the Flathead Valley are a part of their commitment to protect and serve. We challenge our leaders to be open to new ideas, join us at the table, and face the root causes of this crisis. Every other major city across the state is working with their local providers and creating solutions that meet their community’s most dire needs. We believe that hand-in-hand we can solve this together.
In the meantime, you can find us in our offices, and diligently working together out in the community to serve the people that are lost, hard to help, and forgotten by their fellow Montanan.
The Executive Board of Collaborative Housing Solutions (CHS) of Northwest Montana includes Sean Patrick O’Neill (CHS chair, Community Action Partnership), Morgan Winchester (CHS co-chair, Samaritan House), Casey Driscoll (CHS secretary, School District 5/Heart Locker), Tonya Horn (CHS executive committee; Flathead Warming Center), and Rachel Bellesen (CHS executive committee, Abbie Shelter).