City asks county for help in addressing emergency shelter issue

by Michael Howell

As part of its monthly meetings on housing issues in the city and county, the City of Hamilton has recently come to focus upon emergency shelter issues in winter. City Attorney Karen Mahar told the County Commissioners last week in an update on the issue that her office often comes to deal with this issue from a criminal justice point of view.

“What happens in the criminal justice realm is that when you have folks who don’t have a place to stay,” said Mahar, “they generally come to interact with law enforcement, either because they are in a business where they are spending too much time trying to stay warm, possibly taking food that they don’t pay for, or some people end up taking gas they can’t afford.”

She said last winter during an extended cold period they had several people coming in and out of the detention center for an extended period of time because of the cold. One individual, she said, who had some mental issues and was living by the river, actually wanted to come into the detention center. 

“From my perspective,” Mahar said, “the most expensive way for any of us to house people in winter is in the jail facility. It takes up space that is otherwise needed and it is not anybody’s intent, I think, to have folks at the jail if there is an underlying issue of homelessness that can be addressed through other agencies and services.”

Mahar said the sheriff’s office, the police department, the jail, and the courts were good at trying to figure out how to help folks who do not have a solid place to live in the winter and emphasized that no one is ever jailed just because they are homeless. She said that if there is someone in detention who has these kinds of issues, there is nothing wrong with releasing them and helping facilitate a move to somewhere else that is warmer. She said some communities in Montana have a voucher system for transportation so someone can get somewhere warmer in the winter so they are not freezing here.

She said this past winter the sheriff’s department, the jail, and the police department got together and helped the man who was staying at the detention center make arrangements to get to a warmer place where he could be near his brother for the winter.

“I have a great deal of compassion with people,” said Mahar, “and know that there is a great deal of concern about what you say as to whether someone is ‘homeless’ or ‘housing insecure’ because a variety of issues may lead to someone not having a place to stay. So, I don’t mean to paint a picture that there is one specific group that we are trying to help here.”

She said one reason that the issue has come into focus in the valley is that everyone has been working on borrowed time due to the work being done on a volunteer basis by Gary Locke in coordinating emergency shelter services in the county. Locke told the city in September that he was not going to be able to provide his ‘Warming Center’ services this coming winter. 

This spurred Hamilton Mayor Dominic Farrenkopf  to allocate time to provide a part time employee from the police department, a part time person from the law office as well as some time from the City Attorney herself to address the issue. Mahar said the first thing they did was to begin compiling a list of available services. One service available is the 211 emergency phone number sponsored by the Human Resource Council that operates 24 hours a day and can connect people with several emergency services. These services include the Human Resource Council (HRC), the Salvation Army, local food pantries, SAFE, and some local churches which all together can provide emergency food, shelter and even showers. During the Covid crisis, she said there was a lot of money available providing vouchers for people to stay in local motels at a discounted rate, but that money is no longer available. 

Without that money and with Gary Locke’s efforts being suspended, it was clear that something more was going to be needed in the community. This led to a recent meeting of concerned parties at the Corvallis Grange that included Locke, County Commissioner Dan Huls, representatives from the Salvation Army, Hamilton’s police chief and city attorney, and others, to consider options. 

It became clear, according to Mahar, that the first thing needed was a clearer idea of what the true needs are in order to judge fairly what the scope of efforts needed to be in terms of facility and staffing. Mahar has also begun attending the Human Resource Council’s coalition that is looking at long term issues of affordable housing as well as short term emergency housing. As a result, the City has partnered with the HRC under a grant that runs through September to go toward updating the county’s emergency services list and keeping it current as well as implementing a short term emergency housing program. The City has also put up $5,000 in “seed money” to help maintain a program in Hamilton where they provide two nights in a motel and two more nights if you are involved with the service agencies talking and planning for more long-term solutions.  

The HRC program also offers other services such as fuel for people living in trailers and temporary port-a-potties. They have a Rapp Foundation grant to set up port-a-potty facilities for the winter and work together with the Salvation Army and SAFE in providing services. 

Town Pump has also made a $10,000 charitable donation to the effort. The First Presbyterian Church has a fireside room and kitchen that is temporarily being used as a ‘warming center’. Gary Locke has donated some cots and other materials and Bitterroot Laundry has laundered some sleeping bags and pillows. It serves as a warming center for one family at a time. The service, called the Sunrise Family Rescue, is free but only for night-time, not for day use. Two volunteers help manage the operation.   

Mahar has put together a services list into a book that is being made available to all the agencies and services involved and is already being used by county employees.

Mayor Farrenkopf said that the City of Hamilton has no housing agency so partnering with the HRC has been beneficial to both. He invited the County Commissioners to contribute some funds to the effort as well.

“But to what end?” asked Commissioner Jeff Burrows. “It’s the same issue with mental health that we’ve got. You could shovel money in this hole forever and you’re never going to spend your way out of it.” He said long-term housing is a function of the market unless you are going to subsidize it or just find someone who wants to donate their house or property to it.

“I don’t know how you fix that,” said Burrows. “You could build a thousand more houses, but they are never going to be affordable here.” He said he hasn’t seen a successful model of subsidized housing. 

Commissioner Greg Chilcott said that in the short term there are those that choose the homeless lifestyle and there are others that fall into it due to certain circumstances.

“But as far as employment goes, I just don’t see that,” said Chilcott. He said that he could see not being able to afford a house, “but if they are unemployed there are jobs in just about every block in this community.” He said if he was ever to subsidize something that employment would be a requirement. 

Burrows added that there should be employment and drug and alcohol testing as well. “What I hear is the root cause is mental health. You try to fill that hole, then you try to get them short term housing with the goal of getting them long term. I just don’t see how we do it without a complete redistribution of wealth which is essentially what this is, it’s taking money from taxpayers and giving it to somebody else. We have people out there and they are not homeless but they are damn well close to it. So you take money from someone and give it to somebody else and what kind of a problem are you creating there? Our fixed income folks are on that cusp right now and if you hit them with another tax, we’ve seen the problem recently with three big tax increases.”

Mahar said that she could answer that in terms of what they were currently considering. She said there was the bigger housing thing, but it was not what they were “here about today.” She said it wasn’t about people trying to keep their homes. “This is not about the bottomless hole,” she said.

“In my mind,” said Mahar, “this is about diverting people out of the more expensive criminal justice system and diverting them into agencies that are devoted to addressing those issues. This specific problem we have is about emergency temporary winter shelter in order to give a day or two for those agencies to get engaged. This is extremely limited and HRC knows that. So they have a four day maximum and you have to be engaged with one of these agencies.”

“So how many of these people seeking help have been incarcerated,” asked Burrows. 

Mahar said that of the 18 adults served so far this winter, she knew of six that had been incarcerated.

Farrenkopf said that when they started focusing on this problem  they realized there are a lot of aspects to this. “We talked about drugs, about employment. We talked about, are these people just looking for a handout. But no matter what, we can’t completely ignore the problem and say that it doesn’t exist. I think by taking these minor steps we might find a long-term solution.”

“It is a problem we can’t ignore,” said Burrows, “but is it the government’s job to solve it?”

“It’s not the government’s job to subsidize,” said Farrenkopf, “but I do believe that we could contribute a little bit of money that will benefit the community. We have people trespassing. We had people building fires in the old Massa building to keep warm. We’ve had people shoplifting. It feels like if we could provide a little bit of service here it really could affect other things. So, for me, budgeting a little bit of money each year for something like this and working towards getting other entities to the point that they could better handle these things is worthwhile.”

Mahar said that the city council’s responsibilities in this regard is not the same as law enforcement. “The reality is that they are forced at times to interact with people who are intoxicated or people who can’t take care of themselves and just leave them there. That’s where the government’s responsibility comes in. You can talk to Sheriff Holton or Police Chief Snavely about this. But I can assure you we are not intending for this to be a black hole and we are not intending for this to be anything beyond a one-time ask for the winter that remains.” She gave a few examples and said there has been some successes due to the recent focus. 

Burrows said that this kind of thing was going to snowball and end up costing more and more. “I guess that this is kind of my cold, black soul that’s coming out now,” he said.

“I just think this is a way of doing a little bit right now without committing to a lot,” said Mahar.

Burrows replied that the kind of person that would set a fire in the old Massa building might not start one if provided with shelter. “But a few nights later, if it’s still cold, what would stop him?”

Farrenkopf said that the emergency help always includes connecting them to services that might address the individual’s problems. 

Mahar added that there are always going to be people that you can’t help, but that there were a lot of others that could really benefit. “This is not a warm up to asking for more next year,” she said. “We are considering this seed money to get something good off the ground.”

Chilcott said it should probably go through the budget process. 

“I’d kick in money if it was used to ship people to a warmer place,” said Burrows. “I would do that honestly if the money was there to provide transportation to get somebody somewhere warmer. There’s no reason that somebody transient should be here trying to brave out the winter.”

Mahar said that the HRC, Salvation Army, or even SAFE would probably take funds to be used in that fashion.

The meeting ended with no action being taken on the request.