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Lawsuit over Kalispell shelter could set national precedent, shelter's lawyer says

Tonya Horn, Flathead Warming Center Director, announces a lawsuit against the city of Kalispell, MT at a press conference on October 09, 2024.
Aaron Bolton
Tonya Horn, Flathead Warming Center Director, announces a lawsuit against the city of Kalispell, MT at a press conference on October 09, 2024.

Last month, the Kalispell City Council revoked the Flathead Warming Center’s permit because neighbors and businesses argued the shelter increased crime and the presence of homeless people.

At a press conference outside the shelter, its director Tonya Horn rejected that argument.

“If you think that we enable people with shelter here at the Warming Center, that is because you don’t know us, and you don’t know the people that we serve.”

She says people will die if the shelter isn’t able to open its doors this winter. They offer 50 beds per night and often turn people away because they’re full.

Jeff Rowes is an attorney with the Institute for Justice, a national law firm that seeks out cases that can set national legal precedent. Rowes says this case is the next frontier after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in the Grants Pass case. That allowed cities to ban sleeping in public.

“If the government can criminalize sleeping on public property, the city of Kalispell can’t destroy the rights of private property owners to shelter the homeless on their private property at night,” Rowes says.

The case is filed in the U.S. District Court in Missoula. Rowes argues the city council’s decision is unconstitutional on many grounds. He says the city council didn’t follow a set process to revoke the shelter’s permit and that it arbitrarily treated the shelter differently than other private property owners because it serves homeless people.

The shelter is asking the court for an emergency order that will allow it to stay open while the case plays out. That decision could happen within the next week.

Rowes expects the case to take a year or more and says he’s prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Kalispell City Manager Doug Russell declined to comment, citing the litigation.

Aaron graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Journalism in 2015 after interning at Minnesota Public Radio. He landed his first reporting gig in Wrangell, Alaska where he enjoyed the remote Alaskan lifestyle and eventually moved back to the road system as the KBBI News Director in Homer, Alaska. He joined the MTPR team in 2019. Aaron now reports on all things in northwest Montana and statewide health care.
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