There is an ongoing debate about whether or not to fully fund our public library, and a wide range of reasons have been proposed as to why the library’s funding should remain as the voters intended.  I wanted to speak toward my own primary reason for 1) voting to support the library levy, and 2) why I continue to support fully funding the library.

First, my background.  I moved to Great Falls in 2020 to complete my internship for my counseling degree, and currently I am a licensed professional counselor working in outpatient mental health. My wife and I rented for a year and then bought a house north of downtown.  We became involved in volunteering and advocating for our unhoused neighbors in Great Falls.

With other like minded individuals, we founded Housed Great Falls, a grassroots nonprofit dedicated toward the long-term goal of building a transitional tiny house community for the unhoused. We soon discovered an immediate need that we could step into to provide warmth and safety that was not getting fully met in our community.  It will come as a shock to no one who has lived here for more than a year, that our winters are brutal, but it might shock people to know that many people are still on the street year-round in Great Falls.

The Rescue Mission offers emergency cold weather services on days below freezing, officially opening their doors at 10 PM (though on particularly cold days they have opened earlier).  Their restrictions are typically lower for this cold weather emergency service, and “most” unhoused people can receive this service.  However, what we had found was that between the times that places like the Library and St. Vincent De Paul Angel Room closed, and when the Mission opened, people were still exposed to dangerous temperatures for periods of time that can still do a world of harm to a body.  We organized cold-weather drop-in to fill this gap, hosted at the United Methodist Church and, then this past winter, at First English/Helping Hands; providing a hot meal and a safe, warm location between 5:30-9:30 PM on below freezing nights.

What we found was that, in general, when people were warm, safe, and fed, they were cooperative, polite, and grateful.  We had few negative interactions with a demographic that many people find “scary” or “dangerous.”  We had perhaps four calls to emergency services over a winter of being open 70 nights.  Consider the number of calls that would have been made if people were not there.  When people were offered a safe and accepting space to exist, they were not someplace else trespassing, drinking, panhandling, stealing, etc… They, and the community as a whole, were SAFER. 

This brings me back to the Library.  The Library is a safe, warm, and accepting location.  It is not a shelter or warming center, nor should it be, but it is a PUBLIC SPACE that is open to ANYONE who can give basic respect to the others around them.  The Library providing this public space for people IS part of our public safety.  When people, particularly the unhoused, are at the Library they are by default NOT doing the things that the public complains about them doing.

My general experience, both from working in mental health and volunteering with the unhoused, is that, when people are given respect and dignity, they respond in a positive manner.  There are exceptions of course, but this has seemed to be just that, the exception.  Our experience running the cold weather drop-in for two winters now showed this; a “rough” and “dangerous” population was calm and respectful, because they were treated how we would want to be treated. 

I voted primarily for the Library levy so that they could extend their hours to be open every day of the week, and later each day; in large part so that community members with nowhere else to go would have a safe and warm location to be.  But the library benefits so many more people than just the unhoused or downtrodden; though I think there we see the largest impacts.  But even if it only impacted them, it still has a positive impact on my life.  And I strongly believe that treating people with dignity and respect, and helping them to meet their basic needs, will always be a better long term option than fining, arresting, and jailing them; not to mention being far less expensive.

The idea of public safety based solely on more police is a fantasy, and an Orwellian one at that.  Public safety might very well involve police and jails (perhaps in smaller quantities than we have now), but it also involves solving the issues at the root of the problem. Simply hiring more police and building more jails deals with the symptoms, but not the root cause of the problem.  While the Library is also not a silver bullet, it does reach closer to the root cause of achieving a more lasting and holistic safety for our community.

–Michael Yegerlehner