Flathead Warming Center Connects Record Number of Guests with Long-term Solutions

Last winter when a rental application miscommunication led to the loss of an elderly woman’s housing, she was suddenly homeless and wound up at the Flathead Warming Center (FWC). Determined to leave the low-barrier shelter as quickly as possible, she worked with staff during a “roadmap” session that offered her a step-by-step guide designed to improve her situation. She found a place to live within a few weeks.

“She got out on foot and came back with blisters on her feet as she went out and tackled all the steps she needed to get out of homelessness,” FWC Executive Director Tonya Horn. “That’s how hard people are willing to work to get out of this. She made record time.”

The woman was one of 48 warming center guests who transitioned into long-term housing while another 13 clients were admitted into inpatient facilities following their stay at the low-barrier shelter, totaling 61 “positive outcomes.”

While the warming center did not operate a full season during the 2024-2025 winter after the Kalispell City Council passed an ordinance that revoked its conditional use permit, temporarily shutting down the shelter, that number is up dramatically from the 35 positive outcomes last year.

Horn credits the success stories to the warming center staff, who helped orchestrate 988 individual roadmap sessions during the 2025-2026 season.

“We help them work on their roadmap to get them out of here,” FWC Resource Manager Sean Patrick O’Neill said. “Nobody wants to be here next season … We’re seeing that folks are really getting their momentum going and it’s snowballing into positive things.”

More than half of those positive outcomes happened during the final 100 days of the season, a countdown that signals an approaching deadline when the shelter ends overnight services in the spring. During that timeframe, 39 individuals were connected to either long-term housing or inpatient care compared to 18 people the year before.

“That speaks a lot to the hard work that happens and the relationships we have with our guests and with our community partners,” Horn said.

As shelter staff continue providing support, Horn is working to set up a transportation service after recently acquiring a vehicle to shuttle guests to and from appointments while connecting them to more resources. However, the vehicle is sitting unused until the warming center’s budget allows for an extra $40,000 to pay a driver and provide peer support.

Despite the lawsuit settled with the City of Kalispell last year, staff and volunteers are continuing the shelter’s mission of getting people off the streets and finding long-term solutions for their guests as the lack of affordable housing units combined with dwindling mental health resources has contributed to a rise in homelessness in recent years.

According to FWC data, the low-barrier shelter in 2026 served 335 individuals, 60% of whom had a disabling condition that includes physical and mental illnesses along with 23 people over age 65.

O’Neill said the warming center has in some cases become a crisis center as mental health resources disappear and waitlists for skilled nursing facilities grow longer.

“It’s beyond homelessness,” O’Neill said. “We are a crisis center for people experiencing homelessness with nowhere to go in the coldest months of year. In the summer months, we try to provide day services so we can help people rebound and get back on track – but we are becoming a crisis house. We’re becoming a throwaway group home and a skilled nursing facility for folks that can’t behave themselves well enough for them to be in those facilities. We’re not the place for them.”

O’Neill said that while the warming center is a low-barrier shelter, the facility still turns people away when they cannot provide the appropriate care for someone seeking services.

Last year, the warming center turned away nine individuals who could not care for themselves.

“We are a last resort in our community and if we can’t serve them, that should be very alarming,” Horn said. “The fact is that we have become a crisis stabilization in a lot of ways. We are not equipped to be, and we are not stepping into that space because we don’t have the trained professional staff.”

For example, a man in his 70s with a long history of behavioral issues and a recent dementia diagnosis had repeatedly sought services from the warming center over the years, but staff eventually turned him away as his needs became too great for their resources to handle.

After living outside for nearly a year, the man was finally admitted to a nursing home where he now receives healthcare for his physical and mental illnesses.  

Stories like this are becoming more common as resources like the in-patient Glacier House facility shut down. The crisis stabilization center closed in 2021 due to staffing shortages and even after two mental health organizations merged last year in an effort to restore services, the facility remains shuttered.

The Program of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) program, which is part of the nonprofit mental health organization AWARE Inc. and has historically provided wraparound services and support for vulnerable individuals, also recently shut down in the Flathead Valley.

As fewer services exist, O’Neill said the warming center has become the destination for guests who are discharged from Logan Health.

“The discharge plan is to send them here,” O’Neill said.

“They have nowhere else to go in their eyes, so they are sent here,” O’Neill added. “We’re the last place to go.”

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