Letters from our Readers
Unhoused Great Falls
By Melissa Smith
Many problems take a village to solve. One of the thorniest is the temporary or permanent
loss of one’s home.
Great Falls has experienced controversy over tents that have been set up in the First United
Methodist Church’s parking lot. They were intended as temporary, as the nonprofit
organization “Housed Great Falls” forms to address gaps in the Continuum of Care.
A persistent narrative holds that there are enough services to help everyone who finds
themselves in any kind of crisis in Great Falls, and that the unhoused simply do not want to
accept help. This feeds into the myth that “some people choose to be homeless,”, allowing
us to ignore the incredible, multi-faceted trauma of homelessness, which can impact a
person’s ability to even seek out, much less access, the care they need.
I first became involved with the unhoused who were gathering at FUMC when I heard about
assaults taking place on unhoused people as they slept outside the church. Since my first
encounter with the unhoused gathering there, various organizations have tried to help to
little avail.
Let’s face facts: inaction on low-barrier shelters and affordable housing has led to great
suffering. For years, we have ignored those who have fallen through our system’s cracks.
No comprehensive solutions appear to be forthcoming. Into that void, FUMC has allowed
the unhoused to gather in their parking lot. The problem? Tent encampments are illegal in
Great Falls, according to rules devised in 2005 by the Planning Advisory Board and Zoning
Commission.
No one believes tents in our downtown are ideal substitutes for proper housing. They cause
problems for the downtown business community, and unease for nearby residents.
Homelessness is a solvable problem, but only if we pursue specific, goal-directed policies
that work. Instead of scorning the conduct of homeless people, all levels of government,
working with citizens and the unhoused, should institute policies that work to end
homelessness.
It is especially important that the Great Falls City Government takes a leading role in
addressing this problem and help devise a solution. Opting instead to apply 17-year-old
zoning laws and lawsuits to force the Church’s hand, the City of Great Falls forced the Church
to dismantle their tent encampment on August 1. The bad news here is
that there is no other place for its occupants to go. Without addressing the needs of the
people in the tent encampment, the City has chosen to “kick the can down the road”— it
will resurface almost immediately.
Our choice is now pretty clear. We can either continue to pay heavily by merely reacting to
people’s homelessness, endlessly chasing them through the expensive rotating doors of the
criminal justice system and hospital emergency rooms, or we can decide that we all need to
step up and invest in finally ending chronic homelessness.
The solutions are out there; all we need to do is find the political will.
We can only hope that City doesn’t do what Seattle did by receiving federal grants only to create homeless czars that got paid $160K a year to “just” do studies on the homeless problem.
The solution is out there for only those who wish not to be homeless — There will always be a percentage of those who don’t care about being housed or otherwise following the rules that certain housing solutions might require of them.
Well put. Also, this population of unhoused people is continually growing.
These folks who have no place to sleep at night – having escaped abusive relationships, been priced out of their apartments, lost homes to fire, lost jobs, families, and homes due to mental illness, and so on — are not a fixed population.
So we aren’t looking at a “static” problem, in other words, and we cannot treat it like a fixed group of “problem people” who can be swept out of sight or under a carpet through zombie-like zoning enforcement.
Good analysis, Melissa Smith. I want and am working for our government to function for the good of all, not the benefit of the top $ tier.