Last week, in a 6-3 vote, the City Council of Kalispell revoked the Flathead Warming Center’s permit, effectively shuttering the area’s only low-barrier homeless shelter. While it is uncertain what will happen to the Flathead Warming Center and its operations, which include both overnight stays from October through April and day services such as laundry, meals, and connecting guests with community resources, it is guaranteed that the crisis of homelessness in the Flathead Valley will not simply disappear because of this unprecedented revocation. It is also possible that the City of Kalispell will become embroiled in legal action for this decision, but what’s most at stake is the lives and livelihood of the individuals in our community who are in dire need of the most basic services: housing, healthcare, employment, and a supportive community.
The decision to revoke the Warming Center’s permit came after a year of complaints from neighbors and businesses located in proximity to the shelter. Criticism of the nonprofit included false claims that it was encouraging the “homelessness lifestyle,” harboring criminals, and creating an unsafe neighborhood with a supposed increase in littering and loitering. However, there’s been a documented increase in reports to local law enforcement agencies on attacks and harassment directed toward the unhoused. Reports include individuals being shot at by paintball guns, pelted with eggs, roused from their tents, and physically beaten. Last summer, Scott Bryan, aged 60, was found behind the Appleway Conoco, beaten to death. Bryan was unhoused and, before his killing, actively seeking housing solutions with the Flathead Warming Center and Community Action Partnership.
Homelessness is a policy choice, writes Jeff Olivet from the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. A myriad of policy decisions, from a Kalispell city ordinance to penalize those who give money or supplies to panhandlers to the shuttering of statewide mental and behavioral support services to Montana’s alarming ranking as the most unaffordable state for local homebuyers, has led to this crisis. Revoking the Flathead Warming Center’s permit will not magically solve this crisis. In a March 2024 report from the Montana Coalition to Solve Homelessness, the number of Montanans experiencing chronic homelessness is up 45% over the last year, the third-highest increase in the nation. According to the report, among the types of people who seek help at Montana shelters, 30% of them had a mental health or substance abuse disorder, 27% had a chronic health condition or disability, 11% were children under 18, 10% were veterans, 9% were over the age of 62, and 4% were fleeing domestic violence. Compounding the problem are policy decisions that have shuttered or reduced mental health and addiction services across the state, Medicaid determinations leaving many, including the most vulnerable, without coverage. The percentages are staggering and it’s worth remembering that there are real people behind these numbers.
Policy stakeholders, including the Flathead County commissioners, have turned unhoused individuals — many of them launched into the crisis of homelessness because of an illness and loss of work — as villains, and the backlash is frightening.
October is but a few weeks away, and the 50 beds the Flathead Warming Center once provided to those in the greatest need are now in limbo. What policies can this city take to address this crisis without continuing to chop away essential support services?