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Attn: City Council/Harsh Realities of Warming Center Influence on NW Quadrant from Cassie GuyJudi Funk From: Cassie Guy <cassie@finish-house.com> Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2024 9:51 PM To: Kalispell Meetings Public Comment Cc: C. Congdon Subject: EXTERNAL Attn: City Council / Harsh Realities of Warming Center Influence on Northwest Quadrant Attachments: Warming Shelter -Rescind Conditional Use Permit for Low Barrier Warming Center.pdf [NOTICE: This message includes an attachment -- DO NOT CLICK on links or open attachments unless you know the content is safe.] Dear Mr Mayor and Council Members, I am a native of Kalispell and have resided locally for 35 of my almost 40 years. Please see attached sharing of my personal experiences, which have a resounding echo shared by our community. We live at 530 W. Wyoming St. We are asking to rescind the conditional use permit for the low barrier warming center per the failure to adhere to the conditions stipulated in the original permit, particularly concerning 27.33.080. Thankyou foryour time and consideration. Yours Sincerely - Cassie Guy -Congdon FINISH HOUSE CASSIE GUY-CONGDON Owner / Designer BFA Interior Design 406.212.0797 0 @finishhouse #finishhouse cassie@finish-house.com www.finish-house.com I am a 611 generation Montanan. My mother's side was the first dairy delivery within the city, and my father gave up his life and my childhood to serve this city. It is heartbreaking to watch it going downhill at the speed it is. My husband CJ Congdon and I live with our three children (11, 15, 17) at 530 W. Wyoming St. Purchased spring of 2023 as our primary residence. Starting to feel as though it was a very bad move, and any money invested may never be recovered if the Warming Center stays as is, and worse yet, expands. On the way home from school last fall, my daughter peering out the window saw a young 20ish yr old girl climb out of the back of a chevy blazer which was parked outside the gate at the east fairground entrance. As the girl was putting her breasts back into her shirt simultaneously a man emerged pulling up his pants and zipping up the zipper. She was 10 years old, she didn't say anything at the time, at this age they are very aware, she was too embarrassed to talk about it. I couldn't have been more furious, especially because we immediately then turned into our driveway. Couldn't believe this behavior was still right outside our front door after what the Fairgrounds went through to rid the encampments, loitering, and all associated activities we had to witness on this end. We are being forced to explain and show our children in a way we wouldn't choose, that no matter what, their parents will protect them. One Friday afternoon after school the kids came in the door exclaiming "there are seven cop cars outside trying to find a fugitive" (this was their perception). When asking where daddy was, they responded" he's outside making sure the fugitive doesn't think our house is a place to hide." The mama grizzly bear in me immediately put them in a position of safety then ran out into our backyard to look in every nook, bush, our camper, under the boat cover, anywhere they could be... I was unarmed but charged with fight or flight adrenaline.... To turn around and find a bounding head popping up looking into our backyard as he came up the alley, ending in eye to eye contact 4ft away from me. At that point, my husband was on the alley side of our garage and yelled "wrong yard, bud" and at that time law enforcement saw him and chased him down. We immediately ordered Castle Law signage to post on our property fencing. As we do not believe just a fence will keep them out. Why? Because we have experienced them letting themselves in. A thief let themself into our gated back yard, our daughters very first mountain bike had been left on the back porch. It was taken, out of our fenced yard, tire tracks through the grass, leading to the gate, which they left open. We called to report and were left with the feeling that it was most likely long gone. Most heartbreaking was when our daughter after many tears, asked, "why would they do that to me?" She didn't understand they were just bad people, she was taking it personally, like she must have done something wrong for someone to take her new bike. We are forced to dive into discussions with our children about how these are choices, bad choices these folks have made in their lives. For reasons we cannot understand, some people would rather enable them to be able to continue to make bad destructive decisions without any consequences, and instead the consequences get to be transferred to those responsible living around it, individuals showing up to work, and working hard to not be a burden on your neighbors. Our kids know now, life is not fair. We refuse to not take our kids on the bike path or go on walks. During these times, our bonding is over situational awareness, what everyone around us is doing, and could do to potentially hurt us. So if they were to come our waywe could protect ourselves or quickly remove ourselves from the situation. We have no choice as parents. We lay awake at night wondering if this is going to damage them with anxiety or prepare them for the real world. Either way, we choose to live here because our generations of family and network are here too. It used to be one of the top 10 safest towns to live in the US. Ask Dr Lara, a longstanding doc at Kalispell Regional, the Nashville doctor who moved his family here in the 90s because he was fed up with where he lived and what it turned into. Do not let our community go any further in that direction! Help save our community! Biking from our front door on W. Wyoming to Conrad Complex/Plant Land, we are greeted with more vagrancy than community members. I greet those who look at my child and I, 1 look into their eyes, and immediately know who will hurt us and who will not. Fabulous energy I have to deal with as a mother trying to exercise and enjoy our community. I will not let them win. I will not let them scare me. We were taught, and with pride are teaching our children, hard work is both necessary and not actually hard. If you want to maintain true freedom and self -liberties, you go out and get whatyou want. Just do it. A silver lining in the matter is we get to teach our children that we will refuse to live in fear. In doing so, you position yourself in life to not be prey. We now will walk and hold ourselves with an err which is to not be messed with. We have been given first hand experience in situations where we had no choice but to instill in our children the confidence and metal fortitude to be tough, show that you are tough, believe you are tough. We will not be the victims. Per the great JB Mauney — "Youre only as tough as you tell yourself you are, you can deal with whatever... everybody told me I was dirty rotten tough, and that's because I told myself I was." We have to live this way, or the result of letting our guards down could be life changing for our family. You never know, the seemingly well-fed man who we see walking from the west of W Wyoming St who ends up in front of our home, with baggy basketball shorts sagging so low you can see the red lace panties he's adorning as he carries an unknown package. He can either be completely harmless, or the unknown object could cause a major problem for our safety. To be put into a position to assure your child not to worry when seeing these characters, is absolutely asinine. The neighbors won't allow their child to walk two houses down the alley on the same block, to ours, because of the loitering and suspicious movement from W. Wyoming through our alley. We are watching, and there are no doubt drugs going through the 5" Ave residence between us. The kid, Lucas, who lives there is smart, capitalizing on the type of clientele/users walking from west W. Wyoming, I watch them pass by myfront window, then they do not continue east on the sidewalk, they turn into the alley. And they walk slow, looking back and forth into the yards. Too many times, for it to be a coincidence or assumption. Brilliant if you are looking to sell drugs to set up shop just a hop, skip, and jump through the field and a couple houses down from a low barrier shelter. We have a friend who is a doctor at Logan Health who has told us there are patients who come in, who are from the Warming Center, tell them about ailments and without assessment then list the prescriptions they demand to be written. Demand next visit dates, and when their coverage is maxed out, they move on to the next `aiding community'. I highly recommend you reach out to Logan Health Services to hear directly what they are experiencing with the Warming Center patrons. I overheard a paramedic frustrated that a homeless gal called the ambulance from Safeway and asked for them to act as a taxi to get her to the `better shelter,' when the paramedics expressed a shelter was within easy distance and they are not a free ride service, she threw a fit about being denied health services. Many of these people do not care about the strain on community or our responders being stretched so incredibly thin or the burden on others, there is extreme selfishness and leaching. It could not be more obvious. Please go talk with KFD prior to your decision making. I highly encourage you to speak with the police officers on the specifics they can share about what they've experienced from the calls specifically at the Warming Center. I married into and was raised by a very conservative republican family. I have never experienced anyone help their community more than these folks always have and always will. They don't do it publicly, for affirmations or ego, or moral high ground, they help because that is what neighborhood and community does. But they do not enable. To enable is to create codependency, stealing the souls of humans for your own self righteousness, all while watching them harm those around you. After the City Council meeting5-13, my husband decided he is going to give his contact information to all of those ladies in our neighborhood who so bravely stood up accounting of how scared they are. If they ever need someone to walk them to their vehicle, we would be therein an instant, looking for nothing in return but to give them assurance their community IS therefor them. What was most heartbreaking was those who cried out for help, then made their way outside after speaking because they felt their experiences were drowned out by the volunteers and board of the Warming Center's obvious disregard for us. Begging others who left the meeting to band together, after the breath was taken out of the room, when the concerned neighbors realized, most likely the Warming Center is going to persuade and hoodwink their way into getting what they want. It's all words, no action. Words are powerful, and those anxious speakers looking for change, soon realized their words may not be enough to protect them. We are seeing from our corner and busy street, that many of the new and constantly cycling faces don't have enough self pride or respect to even care for their own life, so why would we expect them to care for ours, or our property? If they will not care for themselves, why are we fooling ourselves into thinking giving them more will actually work? Upon telling my grandmother, whose parents were the first dairy— milkman delivery in Kalispell, that we had moved to the Northwest side of town, she was absolutely convinced we "had made it"! This was the sleepy `rich side' of town in her mind. Unknowingly to her, living here has made me on constant alarm and wanting to leave the area my family has given their lives to. I guarantee you, the increase in calls is not from the grandmas who so bravely spoke about not having their grandchildren come over anymore, or the Flathead HS art teacher, or the paraplegic veteran, the retired law enforcement officer, the bookkeeper across the street, the painter, or the volunteer Smith Valley firefighter. We the property owners are not the problem, we are being forced to succumb to the increasingly dangerous environment of passersby. But we are the villains?? This is the epitome of gaslighting, trying to keep us quiet. It worked, I watched most of my concerned neighbors leave the meeting in frustrated defeat, who did not speak up, ourselves included. How can they move into our neighborhood, act as they do, giving themselves a bad name, and if we speak up about the fear, anxiety, and new found necessity to protect our children, then we are the ones to be scared of??? I was raised to work hard and make the best decisions for myself and not burden those around me. After graduating college in 2008 with $112,000 in student loans, being welcomed in the construction industry bythe recession, falling in love with a man who also had $100k student loan and dedicated child support payments. Before we had a single morsel of food or roof over our heads we had $3,325.00 in bills going out at the start of every month. We were pregnant, I went into labor, couldn't work immediately after, and CJ lost both his jobs. We could have been homeless. We could have relied on someone to `come save us' and if no one would, in those dark days, turn to something which would take us away from reality. But instead, for 10 years I had three jobs, and my husband always two sources of income while being ever present and responsible for his children when in our home. I had a fulltime dayjob in the industry I went to school for, then waitressed at night, painted murals and did freelance design work on the weekends. Just to survive. We had no extra spending money. When I look back, it wasn't hard. We just showed up for ourselves, had discipline, and said `no'to the overconsumption lifestyle. But now, we have to payfor those who wont show up for themselves? Who refuse to make choices with discipline, total disregard for self and others. In my opinion, the MOST selfish in our society. The best thing that ever happened to us was that no one came to save us, we did it on our own. We figured out how to pay the bills because there was no other choice, we fed our babies, and we lived a simple life to be able to do so. We grew, we got out of that position, and we never felt more empowered and confident, knowing no matter what comes our way, we will tackle it. Nothing can take us down. We now own a home to which we are fighting to maintain the safety of our children in. Terrified all the hard work and sacrifice is going to be lost to falling property values in the northwest quadrant to people who cannot and will not show up for themselves. Lost to those who run the Warming Center who seem to tout moral high ground to feed their own egos, while they ignore and watch with no compassion the neighbors lives completely change from what once was. PLEASE take into account what the gentleman who spoke on Zoom reiterated... more money and assistance does not fix the problem. It grows. PLEASE do not get us any deeper into a poker game which we will not be able to get out of. A poker game which we cannot afford. A poker game which will end the vibrancy of this town. They WILL takeover. Like a sophisticated conglomeration of pests. I saw it in Seattle -at 19 yrs old. I lived on the same block as the Jewish federation, soup kitchen, and YWCA. Every block had `their homeless' as they truly do not travel all that far, only convenient to them, their mindset is obviously not going to do the hard things. As the years went on, the epitome of "if you give a mouse a cookie" was shown, every action has a consequence. The big money philanthropists kept throwing more money at it to keep them out of the suburbs and keep the problem concentrated to downtown. Stores closed, buildings ruined, jobs lost, not nearly the movement, scared locals, community and vibrancy absolutely abolished! Google and Amazon, however, then got amazing deals on real estate. We beg you for a recission. If you don't rescind, then at the least need to move to a high barrier, make it less accommodating for the masses to want to flock to, DO NOT let the proposal for expansion pass. We do not need Jamie Goguen or any other ego driven Whitefish group throwing their big money at this. I am in the construction industry, she has an underground compound below her above ground compound. Their children look from their mom's 11 million dollar home on top of Lion Mountain down at their dads' riches. My children get to lookout the window of our home to the homeless parade headed to the shelter, and vagrant's private parts. Those donors have NO idea the affects. Theywant to make sure the homeless are not in their community, to ship them down when they get off the train, they are not acting out of the kindness of their hearts, they have an agenda. They need to invest in a shelter in Whitefish. Ryan Hunter should head it up since he knows so much and is so educated and obviously passionate!! Please be the last conservative elected officials in the west, be those who make choices for the greater good of the people and community. Look at our country, it is falling apart, don't make decisions which join in the inevitable destruction. These folks are some of the most manipulative and conniving. They know the stories to tell and how. And if we call them on their bullshit, then we are the heartless ones?? We are not buying it, we are not heartless, in fact I would argue our hearts for each other are greater. They do not care about us, they do not care about themselves, they surely don't care about the city council, they will continue to ruin themselves and our home. We are being forced as a neighborhood to get back to community, without a doubt we are all very close. And we are all watching. And we are all under the understanding that we are going to have to police our property and could be put into situations where our neighbors will need us before law enforcement is able to help. This is the position we have been forced into.