The findings of a recent report from Kalispell’s Task Force on Homelessness was the focus of a lengthy virtual Kalispell City Council work session Monday night. While there was no clear direction from the council on how to further address homelessness, Mayor Mark Johnson said he would take time to think about the discussion and meet with service providers — some of whom were critical of the Task Force report — before taking any next steps.

In January, Mayor Johnson put together a task force to investigate the homelessness situation in Kalispell and propose potential solutions. The Task Force on Homelessness coalesced after the Kalispell City Council passed a controversial ordinance in fall 2019 that imposed a fine for individuals caught sleeping in vehicles on city streets. The ordinance has been criticized for adding an extra obstacle for people who already lack resources such as housing or a reliable income source.

The Task Force consisted of eight members: former City Council members Rod Kuntz and Jim Atkinson, Planning Director Jared Nygren, City Manager Doug Russell, Pastors Scott Thompson and Miriam Mauritzen, property owner Thomas Rygg and former Flathead County Commissioner Gary Hall. The composition of the Task Force has been criticized because its roster did not include any representatives from organizations that provide services to homeless individuals in the city.

City Manager Doug Russell explained the Task Force’s membership was selected in order to facilitate “wide open discussions” that might not have taken place if those representatives were part of the conversations.

The City Council does not make formal decisions during work sessions such as Monday’s session, but the council went over the report and listened to public comments about the findings.

In particular, the report determines there are fewer than 40 individuals “literally living on the streets” of Kalispell. Task Force Co-Chairman Rod Kuntz explained this estimate came from the number of beds proposed for the Flathead COVID-19 Emergency Shelter when it opened in the spring, as well as language used to collect data for the annual Montana Homeless Point-in-Time survey.

However, Flathead Warming Center Co-Chairperson Tonya Horn, who proposed the number of emergency beds for the opening of the temporary shelter, said the 40-person figure does not capture all of the people experiencing homelessness in the city, because every person in this position is unlikely to seek out a shelter. “This number should not be mistaken as the number of individuals who are sleeping outside,” Horn warned. “Forty is too low of a number for you to accept.”

The report also makes the case that homelessness results from personal issues, such as disabilities and lifestyle choices, rather than community-wide shortcomings such as a lack of affordable housing. William Matson, executive director of Pathways Community Network Institute, is quoted in the report as saying “homelessness is not an affordable housing issue.” Matson submitted a written public comment asserting he was misrepresented by the report and he does, in fact, consider homelessness to be an affordable housing issue. Kuntz pointed out Matson “never refuted” the quote featured in the report, but the Task Force nonetheless considers housing to be a contributor to homelessness.

Council member Ryan Hunter advocated the city take a “housing first” approach to solving homelessness by making affordable housing as a top priority in the process to eradicate homelessness, a proposal that was echoed by service providers including Flathead Food Bank Executive Director Jamie Quinn and Cassidy Kipp, deputy director of the Community Action Partnership (CAP) of Northwest Montana.

However, the report concludes the responsibility for addressing homelessness rests on local service providers. The document urges better coordination among various entities that provide services like food and shelter to unhoused people in Kalispell and around Flathead County.

Representatives from some of these organizations, including Flathead Food Bank, Samaritan House and CAP, spoke during the public comment period of the work session. Many expressed disappointment that their input did not play a bigger role in the Task Force’s research-gathering process, and some also criticized the report for its limited scope.

“I’d wish the report had covered a wider perspective,” Flathead Warming Center’s Tanya Horn said.

Nichole Heyer, director of the Kalispell HEART program that helps underserved students earn high school diplomas, agreed. She said she hoped the Task Force would have looked at a larger population than those in the most basic “unsheltered” categorization.

Jamie Quinn of the Flathead Food Bank was more blunt: “Frankly, even when I was in high school, if I would’ve turned in a report like this, I would’ve received an F-minus-minus-minus. There’s no citations, there’s no real data referenced. It doesn’t talk to anybody that does any of the work.”

Ultimately, Kuntz said “The Task Force is over...so the point is therefore moot.”

At the end of the work session, Hunter proposed holding another work session to go over potentially increasing restrictions on social gatherings in Kalispell due to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the area, but Johnson and other members of the council opposed the proposal.

Reporter Bret Anne Serbin may be reached at (406)-758-4459 or bserbin@dailyinterlake.com.