Kalispell shelter closure puts homeless people in dire risk, director says

At the Salvation Army in Kalispell, staff serve food to anyone who walks through the door.

Mae Dutton fills her plate with a wrap and a piece of cake. She struggles to carry her lunch to the cafeteria table as one arm is in a sling from a recent accident. That’s prevented her from finding work or permanent housing.

“We’re living in a vehicle right now and just needed food when you can get it,” she said.

Homeless people in Kalispell say they could freeze to death on the streets this winter after city officials closed a warming shelter.

Dutton has struggled with housing for years and skyrocketing housing costs made that worse. She planned to sleep at the Flathead Warming Center Oct. 10.

But before that could happen the shelter’s doors were closed. The City Council revoked its permit to operate. Neighbors and businesses complained the shelter increased homelessness and crime in the area. The city council agreed and said police call data supported those claims. Advocates for the shelter pointed out that police responses grew in other parts of the city and that there was no way to specifically tie that to homeless people.

Sitting next to Dutton is her partner Teddy Gettig. He says they’ve thought about leaving town for Missoula, but he knows shelters there are overwhelmed. He says the plan for now is to stay put.

“Fortunately I have a vehicle, but we know how hard Montana winters can be. If we have a hard one, it’s going to be hard to survive,” He said.

In the parking lot of the Flathead Warming Center, Director Tonya Horn last week announced the shelter’s suit against the city.

She acknowledged the impact of homelessness in the neighborhood. She says that impact is coming from a growing homeless population because housing is unobtainable for low-income people. Montana has the fastest growing homeless population in the country, according to federal data.

“The need has increased. That’s very true. But if you think that is because of the Warming Center, you don’t know us and you don’t know the people that we serve,” she said.

The shelter is asking a federal court in Missoula to allow it to stay open while the case over its permit plays out. A decision on that could come this week. Horn says people will freeze to death if the shelter isn’t allowed to fill its 50 beds this winter.

Horn partnered with the Institute for Justice, a national law firm that seeks out cases it thinks can set national precedent.

The Institute argues the shelter met all the conditions of its permit and that the city council didn’t follow a set process to revoke it. It also says council members treated the shelter differently than other private property owners because it serves homeless people, violating the U.S. Constitution’s equal protections clause. The city disputes that claim.

“This case is the new frontier post Grants Pass, a case that said cities can criminalize sleeping on public property,” said Jeff Rowes, one of the attorneys on the case.

Unhoused people in Kalispell say they’re already seeing the impact of the City of Grants Pass v Johnson case. 

Last month, Chris Woody was at the Warming Center washing laundry during daytime hours. Woody lives in his car and says city and county police regularly wake him up to tell him to go somewhere else.

“Every time I ask them where they want me to go, they give me another place. Later on, I get kicked out of there,” he explained.

In the past, cities had to offer another place to sleep before kicking people off public property, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grant’s Pass decision allows cities to ask people to move without a designated place to go.

That’s why Rowes says the decision to close down the Warming Center in Kalispell is troubling.

Rowes says the Institute for Justice is litigating cases for homeless service providers in the hopes of making it before the U.S. Supreme Court. He pointed to a similar case in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The city tried to prevent a shelter from opening, despite meeting zoning requirements.

The court sided with the shelter. He expects the same outcome here.

“The City of Kalispell took away their right to shelter the homeless, even though they never broke the law, and if the City of Kalispell can do that, it’s open season on the homeless everywhere across the country,” he said.

The City of Kalispell declined to comment on the case. In court documents, the city argued that its process to revoke the permit abided by state law.

Other homeless service providers in Kalispell are thinking about ways they can help. Another shelter that provides longer-term stays will open more space. But nowhere in town has room to house everyone who slept at the Warming Center and nowhere else has such low barriers for entry.

The uncertainty of getting one of those warm beds is weighing on Mae Dutton.

“I just hope that they can stay open and help people because so many people are going to be suffering,” Dutton said as she used her napkin to wipe away tears.

Dutton and her partner say an answer can’t come soon enough as they already struggle to stay warm as the nighttime lows start to dip into the 30s.