Public Comment 1/23 from Lena CameroAimee Brunckhorst
From: Lena Camero <hapabruja@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2023 1:19 PM
To: Kalispell Meetings Public Comment
Subject: EXTERNAL Public Comment 1/23
Submission for Public Comment
City Council Work Session; January 23, 2022
To Whom it May Concern:
As a Kalispell homeowner, military spouse, and parent, I am absolutely appalled at the recent letter released by Flathead
County Board of Commissioners addressing the homelessness currently being experienced in the Valley.
Their comments are incorrect, inhumane, and lack the basic Christian decency I would expect from this town. Saying
that the majority of people experiencing homelessness in the Flathead Valley are homeless by choice, engaging in a
"lifestyle", is a blatant lie that can be easily discredited by recent surveys done which show that the majority of people
currently homeless in the valley are families and long-term Flathead residents. To blame a single shelter with just 50
beds for some kind of "coordinated" effort to bring mass amounts of "wanderers" to Northern Montana in the middle of
winter is completely absurd. I am surprised the county commissioners think that anyone would readily believe this lie,
but especially the people who live here and know what our winters are like. How gullible do they believe Montanans
are?
The temporary orange fence recently put up around the gazebo in Depot Park is an eyesore, an inconvenience to
families, and an embarassment to us as residents of Kalispell. Anyone driving through our downtown district would think
we are heartless people with no charity, the kind of town that would turn away Mary and Joseph, a town with no room
at the inn.
My family was kicked out of our rental last February with a 6-month old infant in the middle of winter, our month -to -
month lease terminated so that our landlords could create more, supposedly illegal, short-term AirBnB-type vacation
rentals. This is the reality of homelessness in the Flathead Valley.
The comments by the Board of Commissioners show a basic lack of human decency by blaming our citizens, our friends
and neighbors, for their current circumstances that were caused by a houing crisis that is currently being experienced by
the entire country. If our Board Members would like to continue to bury their heads in the sand and let people freeze to
death in the middle of a Montana winter, I would like to see my community truly say "enough is enough" and remove
these people from office. Their comments represent a gross misunderstanding of not only the facts but the needs of
their constituents. I am truly appalled and disgusted at their audacity and I call on them to do the right thing, do their
jobs, and take care of our neighbors as we elected them to.
Lena Camero