Loading...
Flathead Warming Center Comment from Tonya HornJudi Funk From: Flathead Warming Center FWC <flatheadwarmingcenter@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2024 8:52 AM To: Kalispell City Council; Kalispell Meetings Public Comment Subject: EXTERNAL Fwd: pdf Attachments: FWC City Council response May^J 2024.pdf [NOTICE: This message includes an attachment -- DO NOT CLICK on links or open attachments unless you know the content is safe.l Please see my full public comment attached. What a long evening. The evening was not easy for anyone. The Warming Center Board of Directors would appreciate the opportunity to have an in depth dialogue with you. Tonya Horn Executive Director Flathead Warming Center (406) 250-8652 0 May 13, 2024 Kalispell City Council Work Session to discuss neighborhood concerns and impacts related to the Warming Center and its Conditional Use Permit. Public Comment: Tonya Horn, Flathead Warming Center Executive Director I recognize our neighbor's concerns. Homelessness impacts our community and when the impacts are near your home or business, it is very personal. We recognize this. Everyone's experience is valid and should be heard tonight. As I speak in favor of the Warming Center, our perspective should not be viewed as being in opposition of our neighbors. We are not in opposition of our neighbors. We do not defend anyone who has engaged in criminal activity. We do not defend criminals. However, we must defend the hundreds of Warming Center Guests who are trying to better their lives. This issue is best addressed in dialogue, unfortunately we do not have that opportunity right now; our opportunity today is only through public comment which is time limited. Flathead Warming Center services have been publicly questioned. Public claims were made against the Flathead Warming Center without allowing for dialogue and we cannot effectively respond in three minutes. I respect your right to stop my public comment after the allowed time. Copies of my public comment can be made available tonight. Only after the City Council announced this work session has the Flathead Warming Center been made aware of the troubling police calls and data being reviewed tonight. To Address the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) The CUP standard of a neighbor is 150 feet radius. The notice to neighbors states, "You are being sent this notice because you are the property owner within 150 feet of the proposed project and will be most directly affected by its development". Please understand, the standard of a % mile radius is new to us, the goal post has been moved. We cannot control or manage what happens in a half mile radius of the Warming Center. This was never a part of our CUP. A half mile radius is an impossible standard. When there is crime, law enforcement is the remedy. The Flathead Warming Center is not a law enforcement agency. In contrast, the actual conditions of our CUP are not related to the concerns expressed by the Council. In the CUP process, our property was zoned B1. There are many different uses allowed in 131 zoning. Some of these uses are Jail Facilities, Parks, Police and Fire Stations, Safe Houses. With a CUP - Bars, Taverns and Clubs, Community Centers, Group Homes, homeless shelters, libraries, residential care homes or facilities, microbreweries, wineries, distilleries, and tasting rooms. The council approved the City's recommendation for homeless shelters within Kalispell B-1 zones. One can continue to make a strong case that homeless shelters are appropriate in B-1 zones as it relates to community impact. Claims made against the Flathead Warming Center: Increased visibility of Homelessness in the neighborhood. It is no secret that homelessness has increased throughout the nation, with Montana leading the Nation in the increase of Chronic Homelessness (The criteria for HUD's definition of Chronic Homelessness is both the amount of time in homelessness AS WELL AS a diagnosis of a severe and disabling illness. Those who are Chronically Homeless are ill and Montana has experienced the largest increase of Chronic Homelessness in the Nation). Many people blame the Flathead Warming Center for attracting homeless people to the area and nothing could be further from the truth. Frankly, blaming us for attracting homeless individuals is much like blaming an Page 1 of 7 oncologist for attracting cancer patients. People do not become homeless because of the Flathead Warming Center. Let me say that again, people do not become homeless because of the Flathead Warming Center. Do shelters concentrate the homeless to an area of town where services for them are provided? Yes. Are all homeless individuals in the neighborhood because of the Flathead Warming Center? No. We do not know or serve every homeless individual. We cannot serve every homeless individual. Not all homeless individuals come into the neighborhood for our services. As a matter of fact, there were homeless persons in the neighborhood before the Warming Center existed. Council members referred to this fact in our CUP process. Quote: "Homeless are there already. I can tell you it is there all night long in the fairgrounds". I have personal experience in the Meridian neighborhood. As a social worker, prior to the existence of the Warming Center, I could regularly find homeless clients around the Meridian neighborhood, often in the low-income housing complexes, and especially in the stairwells of one particular building on Liberty Street. The Warming Center allows loitering in the neighborhood. We can only control what we can control. Guests who arrive early or are on our direct neighbor's property forfeit their stay with us. Drive by the Warming Center when we are closed. We do not allow loitering. We enforce no loitering within the scope of our ability. We cannot prevent anyone from standing on a public sidewalk. An individual or individuals standing on a sidewalk should not cause fear, nor is it a crime. A person on a public sidewalk is not a criminal unless a crime is committed. When I see individuals on a sidewalk on Meridian Road before 5:30, 1 see individuals who are anxious to get inside a place that about to be open to assist them. Poor time management, perhaps. But intending to cause harm to anyone, unlikely. I wish they were not on the sidewalk, but mainly because their very existence is often judged. The Flathead Warming Center serves many people who are ill! They need our care, not our condemnation. The Warming Center is accused of being unresponsive to neighbor's concerns as we stated we would be in our CUP applications. I take personal offense to this claim. I have personally responded to every concern that I have been made aware of. Based on the CUP neighbor standard of 150 feet, our CUP neighbors have my personal cell number and I respond immediately when I am contacted. Based on the CUP neighbor standard of 150 feet, we communicate through Warming Center updates after each season of operations, again providing contact numbers, as well as expressing our open-door philosophy and invitation to tour to learn who we are, who we serve, and how we do it. The Warming Center has taken the initiative to extend a fence behind our south neighbor's property to prevent anyone from hiding. We have fixed the siding on a building caused by a guest who threw something against the neighbor's building. (The individual was not allowed to return to our services). In our continued effort to be responsive to our direct neighbors, I personally cleaned up vomit on the neighbor's sidewalk to later learn from our cameras that the mess was from a neighbor. I responded with grace because next time it could be us. Our overnight staff is known to walk our property and our south neighboring property picking up trash, whether it is ours or not. We also pick up the trash on the county's side of the fence from our property. We have been proactive in our attempt for the County to put up a fence on their property to prevent foot and bike traffic between our property and the neighborhood east of the Warming Center. We cannot put up a fence across county property. I believe the neighborhood to our east would appreciate the fence. We would as well. Youth from within the community have passed across the county open field and in one situation, our building was vandalized by a couple of youth not related to the Warming Center, as seen on camera. We do what we can to be proactive and to be responsive. If we have failed Page 2 of 7 to respond, please let us know. Even if a neighbor outside of the CUP neighbor standard were to reach out, we would respond. However, we can respond when we are not contacted and informed of concerns. During our CUP process, one Councilman encouraged the importance of neighbors to communicate with one another. I am disheartened that this same councilman made public claims about the Warming Center without first encouraging communication and prior to communicating with the Warming Center. Communication is appreciated and reciprocated with empathy and kindness. We cannot respond when we are not contacted. False Accusation: The Warming Center Does Not Hold Our Guests Accountable There are indeed poor behaviors that are attributed to homelessness all around Kalispell and the greater Flathead. The belief that we do not hold our guests accountable is likely based in the misconception that we know and serve every homeless person. We do not know, nor can we serve everyone. Within our scope of capability, we hold our guests accountable for their behaviors. Many assume that we serve every homeless person. This is not the case. It seems more and more so that everyone in the homeless community has been grouped together and accredited to the Warming Center. It is a person's behavior that determines if they can participate in our services, and when we are made aware of who has caused an issue in our neighborhood, the individual may be no longer welcome in our services. Prior to opening for a new season of our services, we review our list and anyone who has caused an issue in our neighborhood is not welcome to return to our services. We do indeed hold our guests accountable to the extent that we are aware of the behavior and within our scope of ability. Our guests know this, and we need our community to know it too. We cooperate with law enforcement to identify bad actors and criminals. We do not harbor criminals. We welcome and partner with law enforcement, including probation and parole inside the Warming Center. I have reached out to law enforcement, city and county, to identify bad actors and we participate in investigations of crime in the neighborhood. Contrary to rumor and innuendo, we are not a violent shelter. We caution our community not to believe everything they see on social media. We need our community to know, when a law is broken, law enforcement is the remedy and our ability to hold individuals accountable to the law is limited. The Flathead Warming Center is not law enforcement. Criminal accountability beyond our ability must come from law enforcement. Increase In Calls for Service is attributed to the Warming Center We are here today, ostensibly because of increased calls for service in the area surrounding the Flathead Warming Center. It is important to note that an increase in calls for service does not equal an increase in crime rate. As reflected in the agenda, the City's report makes no mention of the crime rate, and an evaluation of police calls is different from an evaluation of responses and law enforcement accountability for crimes committed. "A call for service does not a crime make". Some people simply call the police when they see something they do not like. People do not like to see homelessness. For some people, the sight of homelessness causes fear. I want to address a seemingly new issue in our community. My husband calls it "hypersensitivity to homelessness". A weekly review of the Daily Inter Lake Records Page often illustrates what I consider a hypersensitivity in our community. "A man was suspicious of a man looking at rocks on the ground." - assumed homeless/ drug addict, makes passer by suspicious. "People allegedly stood outside a camper in a parking lot, yelling and harassing the occupants of a camper thinking they were homeless. One occupant told police they were in town for a volleyball tournament". And on and on... In the past year the community has noted a substantial uptick in Page 3 of 7 hostility towards the homeless. A well -researched New York Times article explained this well. January 9, 2024 "A City's Campaign Against Homelessness Bring Stories of Violence". It is my opinion that that this "hypersensitivity" was exacerbated, if not fomented by our County Commission. My anecdotal observation is that much of the uptick in police calls in the area can be attributed to people being hypersensitive to the presence of persons appearing to be homeless and responding as they feel their leaders have instructed them to. Is it appropriate or fair to select two points in time and attribute all increased calls for service solely based on the existence of a homeless shelter? I do not believe that it is. It is important to understand all changes in our community. Within the timeframes shown on the charts and maps, it is well documented that as the Warming Center was established, other important crisis support services crumbled in our community. At the same time, our community lost several units of low-income housing, while rents and the cost of homeownership skyrocketed. The whole picture must be examined to best understand the increase in calls for services. The blame cannot solely fall on us. We are working hard to be a part of the solution! You have received reports of the impact of homelessness around the Warming Center. I don't know if you have also received reports of the impact of homelessness throughout Kalispell as well. The impact is larger than the half mile radius around the Warming Center. All our community deserves the work of our City and Council to address the impact throughout the City and I believe our homeless community members also need the work of the City and Council to focus on solutions. Crime has increased throughout the entire City. Citizens have recently approved a levy for increased law enforcement services throughout our city based on the increase of crime throughout Kalispell. Is there a sole cause and effect based on the Flathead Warming Center? Mapping shows one of the largest increases in calls for service is around the hospital. Has Council called the hospital out on their impact in the community? Crime has the greatest impact on the community. Great effort has been made to analyze calls for services. However, what were the outcomes of these calls for service? Were crimes committed? How were criminals held accountable by law enforcement? We are familiar with other crimes in our direct neighborhood. Crimes that exist without relation to the Warming Center. Approximately a year or so ago, a police cruiser was parked in the Warming Center backyard. The officer was standing on the cruiser with binoculars looking over our fence. Officers had surrounded our neighboring property that is owned and rented by the county. I was concerned and informed that the bust had no relation to the Warming Center. In a separate situation, regarding a nearby location, we have cooperated with drug enforcement regarding a business that has been known to the homeless community to be a "flophouse". There is certainly crime in the neighborhood. However, our experience tells us that it shouldn't all be attributed to the Warming Center! Claims are made that we would only serve Kalispell. Misconceptions and lies continue to fester that those we serve are not locals and that there is an organized movement to slam Kalispell with homeless individuals. Page 4 of 7 We are the Flathead Warming Center. We serve the Flathead. We are not funded by Kalispell and our services are located within the county seat as is the Health Department and other entities that serve the Flathead. Kalispell is the county seat and a part of Flathead County. We get to know our guests. We ask them where they are from. We have no interest in serving significant numbers of individuals who are not our neighbors! Our community does not have enough resources for our neighbors! We just wrapped up our 5th winter season. We served 324 individuals from October 10th - the end of April. 73% of our guests have lived in the Flathead for a year or more. Twelve months is the standard in most cases for residency in Montana. Whatever our statistics for locals may be, we understand the number will never be high enough for some. So, we research deeper and ask the question of our guests, "Why are you here?". Of the 27% who have not lived in the Flathead for a year of more, 19% have a reason to be here, like a significant tie to the Flathead such as local family or local employment. 33% are Montana Residents. 9% of the 27% have no ties to our community. They traveled to the Flathead from different locations and arrived in the Flathead either solo or only with one other individual. Of the 18 people who have lived here for less than a year and have no ties to the Flathead, 5 stayed in our shelter for only one night, 3 stayed less than seven nights, 2 stayed less than two weeks, and 4 stayed with us less than a month, with four individuals remaining with us over a month. We purchased 6 tickets this past winter for individuals to return to their confirmed resources. Every season we have received less than 5 individuals as referrals from Whitefish. I understand that coming off a train is a hot button. Of the estimated 5 individuals, I do not have a clear record of those who have come off the train. I can report that one individual reported fleeing a domestic violence situation. She bought a train ticket to take her as far as her money would allow and that was to Whitefish. We worked with this individual to confirm where her natural resources were, and we purchased her a bus ticket back to her home shelter after confirming that they were expecting her and that she would have a bed. We do not accommodate "an organized network" of individuals who come to the Flathead to take advantage of our resources. We have never experienced such and believe this to be another misconception spread as truth. City and Council Involvement in Homeless Solutions I have personally been before the council on more than one occasion, asking the city to be a part of solutions. In the past, some of the council have sat down with me inside the Warming Center. Thank you. The Mayor and I had lunch approximately 8 months ago, where I also discussed many of the challenges that our community continues to face centered around homelessness. This is not a secret; it was reported in the paper. The mayor had stated his approval for a Homeless Advisory Council. This engagement was very encouraging to me. Opportunities for the homeless community to come to the table and be a part of the solutions in our community could be transformational in the Flathead. What we do, decisions we make, ordinances we pass, without the homeless community at the table is what we are doing TO the homeless. When we want real change, we work with the homeless community, inviting them to the table, allowing them to be a part of the solution. I was encouraged in this process, and I was inspired by the character of our mayor who met individually for coffee with members of our Page 5 of 7 homeless community. There were commitments made to engage in solutions. While there was some dialogue, there has been very little follow through. Bringing business, homeowners, and neighbors to the table together with the homeless community can bring the change that we all seek. If today, we had a functioning Homeless Advisory Council, neighboring concerns could be brought to such a table for solutions. I have been told by some of the council that it is not the job of our elected officials or the city to be a part of the homeless solution in our community. I am not sure that the citizen who has experienced the impact of criminals, believed to be homeless, on their doorstep agree. At least, if the City and Council cannot participate in solutions, I ask that they get behind the organizations who are. Collaborative Housing Solutions of Northwest Montana, our local housing collaborative would welcome active participation from the city to address homelessness. Community members have come to the council with concerns because they are looking to the city to be a part of solutions! What has changed? As I look back on writing our application for the CUP, our application reflects that point in time in homeless services. I did not know that as we became established, so many services and opportunities for individuals experiencing homelessness would be gone. At the time of our CUP application, I did not know that law enforcement, the hospital and other first responders would soon lack several of the resources they once had, especially the resources of where to take individuals in crisis. The Flathead Warming Center serves individuals in crisis and many of those we serve are ill. We are a last resort in our community when there are no other options. We save nightly beds for first responder referrals. This is a resource for our entire community. These beds have been utilized over 250 times across the span of a couple of years. The crisis and the need have increasingly gotten worse. There have been times that we have been unable to safely care for individuals who were brought to us by first responders. On occasion we have had to call law enforcement to have the person who was brought to us removed from the Warming Center. Stating that the lack of appropriate places for people to go to get well is an understatement. When a person's behavior is unsafe, we call law enforcement. Last winter we tracked 20 individuals who we could not serve throughout our community. We were able to track the destruction that these individuals caused throughout our community. Without appropriate places for individuals to go to be held accountable or to go to get well, officers often have no other choice but to move individuals along, and even to drop individuals off in front of businesses in the effort to move individuals along. We do not blame law enforcement. They should not be blamed for not having the resources for individuals in crisis! This is a community wide problem that will take the City's involvement for solutions. We also did not know about the false narrative that would soon be established in our community. The narrative in our community has changed. Our community was told that homeless individuals are homeless by choice. They are not from here. They do not belong in our community. And helping them means they will stay. Our homeless shelter was painted as being enabling and having only good intentions. Nothing could be further from the truth! I am not surprised that the homeless community is all grouped together. Poor behaviors are often attributed to the entire homeless community and most individuals who present as homeless are attributed to the Warming Center. The sight of homelessness has created discomfort and anxiety. Most tragically, the false narrative has provided space for hate to grow. Page 6 of 7 This narrative has changed our community, and it is destructive. Proposed Solutions: It was said that this meeting has not been called to discuss solutions to homelessness. My question is... Then why are we here? • Regular communication between Law Enforcement and the Flathead Warming Center. We can assist, in our limited scope of ability to hold individuals accountable, when we know who is causing issues in the neighborhood. • Let's work together to have an active, functioning Homeless Advisory Council. Let's start by bringing the businesses and homeowners within the % mile radius around the Warming Center together with Warming Center Guests. Let's come up with solutions for basic needs like restrooms and water. Let the homeless community explain what it's like to be homeless in the Flathead. Let homeowners and businesses explain how behaviors affect their livelihood. Let's learn from each other. And, when criminals enter the picture, law enforcement can hold them accountable because the neighborhood and the homeless community do not support criminal activity. • 1 encourage our city to be a part of the solution by providing the resources that our law enforcement needs to stop the uncivilized and destructive behaviors in our community. • What role will the City and Council play in improving the impact of homelessness on our entire community? What can the City and Council do to assist individuals who are in crisis in our community, living without a shelter or a home? Will the City and Council work with our local collaborative (Collaborative Housing Solutions of Northwest Montana (CHS)? Can the council get behind the organizations who are doing the work? Removing the Warming Center's ability to be a resource in our community will only make matters worse. Most nights we are full with 50 people who can follow our Occupancy Agreement standards to be in our shelter. Would 50 more people on the street make things better? Approximately 8,500 times a person's head laid on a pillow inside the Warming Center this winter season. That is 8,500 times we have taken someone in who would have been on the streets of Kalispell. Homelessness will not just simply go away. Removing resources who work directly with the homeless will not make the impact of homelessness on our community go away! I am certain there are more questions than I can answer in public comment. We are open to dialogue. Our door has always been open to Council, our neighbors, and our entire community. Come take a tour. Come visit our Guests. You might discover a place where you too want to get involved in a solution. Tonya Horn Executive Director Flathead Warming Center A, Page 7 of 7