The City Council will hold this public hearing open until they take up the item for final consideration on July 10, 2023.
Mayor Jordan Hess Our second public hearing is an ordinance amending Missoula Municipal Code Chapter 12.40 regarding overnight camping in city public spaces. In a moment here I'll turn it over to our Parks and Recreation Director Donna Gaukler but I want to first of all remind everyone that this is a follow-up action to the emergency ordinance the council passed a few weeks ago that has been in place for a few weeks now and it's part of an overall context that we need to keep in mind and that we need to keep working through. Just a few weeks ago I issued an emergency declaration directing our staff to provide plans to reopen the Johnson Street Shelter as soon as possible and that work is underway and we will continue working through that. That'll be in my executive budget that I bring to the council on Wednesday. Also Mr. Nugent's referral that passed tonight that directs City staff to continue to work on a variety of other options as well as all of the ongoing work that is happening within the city that has been happening for a long time and will continue to happen to address ways that we can provide services and support and options and stability for our unsheltered residents and neighbors in the community. I think that as Mr. Aronofsky pointed out today there are solutions to these to these challenges. They are challenging, they are lofty, they will require a steady hand and they will require a variety of approaches. One of those approaches is having a tool to maintain public health and safety that we can rely on as City staff to maintain City public spaces. That's what we're here to talk about tonight and again it's part of a broader strategy and we welcome the dialogue tonight on how this fits into the broader strategy. So with that Ms. Gaukler has our staff report.
Donna Gaukler Thank you Mayor. Just again I want to emphasize this is Missoula Municipal Code 12.40 that is specific to city parks. The purpose of MMC 12.40 is to establish reasonable restrictions and limitations intended to preserve and protect public lands and the people using them. There's been a fair bit of confusion in the media based on stories that I've read and quotes that have been made. I want to be really clear that there is only one proposed change to the existing ordinance that has been adopted since 2019 and this portion of the ordinance has been in place for about 33 years plus. I did not go back in history prior to 1990s. What the change is to actually remove public lands that are not under the purview of Parks and Recreation. So it's been a long-standing law that all public lands in the city of Missoula do not allow sleeping or camping. This change removes any lands that are not under the direct purview of Parks and Recreation. So it actually makes more space available not less. There was a question posed by Councilor Carlino to questions last time, should parks open earlier say at 5:00 a.m. and the historic opening time has been 6:00 a.m. embedded over each of the iterations of the ordinance over the years and it is our staff recommendation based on feedback from the public not significant but some feedback from the public and feedback from our employees that we stay with 6. The reasons for that had to
do with noise early in the morning, no objection to people quietly walking the sidewalks which are always open the trails all the commuter trails are open 24/7, enjoying sunrises and sunsets but there was opposition to sport courts and events and different kinds of activity that might cause noise or additional traffic in neighborhoods and also that is an important time for our staff to do maintenance. There was also a question if we would adopt this simple change to the ordinance would we still at a future date be able to determine that some Parklands were available for camping and the answer is yes that exists as specifically in 12.40.65(a) as well as 12.40.10. So what does 12.40.10 do? it acknowledges the 9th Circuit decision which cleans up our ordinance which allows us to continue to enforce basic rules around safety on trails, skateparks, bike parts, dog parks and all parks helping us manage risk for example consumption and service to alcohol in parks. It addresses behaviors such as obstructing others’ access for use to parks, trails or other public areas under the parks. It helps us manage vandalism, graffiti and destruction of costly infrastructure. It does things like prevent the discharge of weapons or launching objects into the sky that may harm others. It also does not allow for digging, sawing, cutting, removal of vegetation without permission. It does not allow open fires which is really important to the fire department and all of us as we move into this time of year and it does not allow urination or defecation in areas other than designated. There's a handful of things but this captures most of them. So what's going on in the field? I just wanted to share with you the way our efforts have been working with our non-profit partners, our housing team, enforcement, legal and Parks and Recreation. We are not moving clean quiet resting individuals. What we are trying to do is address situations when they become significant health hazards, safety hazards or significantly damaged infrastructure. There are things that are happening that have absolutely nothing to do with unsheltered individuals. These are a few examples of vandalism. Yes the pictures are taken in daylight. The vandalism happened overnight. So if we can close parks it gives us the ability to manage and hopefully protect lands more fully. So we have a broken table at the Veteran Cemetery, a Confederated Salish CUNY tribal interpretive sign for Bear Tracks and an example of a restroom that was badly damaged at Fort Missoula Regional Park as well. These are not actions of the unsheltered. These are actions of people who are being rather malicious with public property. So why adopt the single change by removing 12.40.010 (b). It recognizes the 9th circuit decision allowing us to
implement the rest of the ordinance. It reduces the public lands where camping currently is not allowed meaning there are more lands available while retaining the following for lands under Parks purview, provide quality parks for all including youth. We have a lot of camps and programs right now so we've been focusing our efforts there. Maintain safety, health and sanitation in Parks. Reduce the cost of vandalism and other damage and adhere to crime prevention through environmental design principles
to encourage maximum desired use of these lands and protection of the public investments. I am happy to answer questions.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Ms. Gaukler. So our process is that we will open the public hearing so if anyone would like to make a comment. This is a two-meeting public hearing so we'll take comment tonight and we'll also take comment before we vote on July 10th. We encourage you to make comment at one or the other of those meetings. Mr. Hunt.
Kevin Hunt Thank you. My name is Kevin Hunt, h-u-n-t. I live in Ward 1. I’ve I pretty much already lost this battle over this ordinance. I think it does what you wanted to do but only because it says other authorized persons in there. This to me is like a very cryptic ordinance and anytime you have something that requires slogging all around the code and it doesn't even tell you where to look elsewhere. I just think it's bad public policy. But I've lost that one so that's not really what I'm here to talk about. What I'm going to talk about is I promise you, I know it’s easy for your eyes to glaze over when you try to read the Severability Clause because it's long but it's really a well-written clause and is very comprehensive, but I promise you if you take the time right now and you read the second sentence in the Severability Clause you'll realize it isn't a sentence. It is a non-sentence that's incomplete spliced with a comma into another incomplete sentence and you will run into a point which occurs where it says irrespective of the fact that any one or more sections subsections etc. thereof were for any reason and then it goes into this ordinance. Well it's two different, closely related but different ideas and I think some words just accidentally got left out. I passed out earlier tonight and I also sent by email if you want to call it up, it's just a housekeeping thing it's not substantive but it fixes this grammatical problem because frankly it's grammatically incomprehensible and although I highly commend how comprehensive that causes it makes it pretty bulletproof, let's just put it this way it makes the city look bad. It makes the city look semi-literate. The city is far from semi-literate and I know that it makes your eyes glaze but please just read the last sentence as it currently reads and you're gonna find that point where you go what? If you ever watch Wheel of Fortune they have a segment called before and after and they take a word and then it's followed by another word that would logically go after it and then they take the third word which would logically follow after the second but it has nothing to do with the first one and they call it before and after and so I call this the before and after several Severability Clause and it's really easy to fix and first I showed you how it will look when it's fixed and then I went about drawing lines through and putting a telesizing language. I really would ask that you fix it this way. I know you got another week to look at it and maybe you want to put that off till then but I just don't think the city should put out an ordinance that has grammatical incomprehensibility in it, That's all I'll say but it does what it's supposed to do otherwise. It’s a great Severability Clause it just has that minor problem that part of it is grammatically nonsensical. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Mr. Hunt and we'll get staff to look at that between now and the next meeting. Mr. Aronofsky.
David Aronofsky Yeah David Aronofsky again, Ward 1 speaking as a citizen. I don't think this ordinance as drafted should be approved quite frankly and I come at this now with my legal hat on. I'm no stranger to drafting statutes. My Advanced Legislation course at the UM law school drafted and enacted over 130 laws with the Montana legislature and this is something I know how to do. My students probably do it even better than I do. The problem I have with this and I have sent to the city clerk, the mayor and all city council members examples of ordinances that are addressing the same topic that are much more legally defensible than this one because this one doesn't have enough detail about enforcement. We've heard about Boise. We've heard about Grants Pass, the 9th circuit cases. I sent you all the ordinances that Grants Pass and in Boise have adopted. They're simple. They're understandable. They're written in plain English and they're complete. There's no guessing here. The enforcement is especially important because basically what these two cities after losing the lawsuits in the 9th circuit did was discuss how the band, and let me be clear, these cities along with Seattle and then there's a new one in Forest Grove that's being debated tonight for final reading in the Forest Grove Oregon City Council in case you're interested. I don't recommend that one because it's overkill but anyway Boise and Grants Pass have spelled out that camping and sleeping in public places, all public places, pertaining to the city is illegal. That's what this ordinance should be doing quite frankly not limited to parks although I got into this issue because of my personal opposition to park tents. I don't think they should ever be allowed in an ideal world and I'm not even sure they should be allowed under the 9th circuit ruling if we can find any alternative at all in terms of bed okay, because parks are for a different purpose. You've got one of the best parks directors in the country working for you who set up a marvelous park system that is being undermined in my opinion by allowing the camps. But that's not my point for speaking. I think you need to do more work on this ordinance in addition to what Kevin suggests. The Severability Clause is fixable with one word and a period if you want to take the existing language but it can be shortened a little bit too and I'm glad to provide free editing or Kevin who's already given you an alternative clause, so I suggest you fix that because the appearance doesn't do the city any favor. But I do think you really ought to take a look at Boise and Grants Pass and I've even added Seattle because I personally like the way they drafted their prohibitions language and the enforcement language but basically the police are written into the ordinance for enforcement in all these places. They cannot issue a citation for violating the prohibition until they have ascertained on the spot whether there's shelter space available. It’s spelled out in these ordinances. That is how you address the problem that the 9th circuit raised in the two opinions and the problem we're trying to solve tonight with the proposed ordinance. So please send this back to the drawing board before you approve it and follow the approach that Boise and Grants Pass have followed. I can assure you that one way to get a legally clean ordinance adopted by any city is to lose a lawsuit in a Federal Court of Appeal or a State Supreme Court. And I would add that Boise took its time because it's been about nine months trying to get the Supreme Court of the United States to hear the appeal before they turned it down. Grants Pass has been a little bit of time and that's why they're a little bit late. They approved this ordinance last week on June 23rd okay so I think we've got the advantage of following on to what other cities have done and I attended by Zoom the council meeting where this issue was first addressed to declare a temporary emergency. So I know what the point of that meeting was and what
the decisions were. It was to address the 9th circuit opinions as I think Councilwoman Jones specifically said when she was speaking in favor of supporting what she voted on. So do the same thing here. Just take what other people have done and there's no shame in copying it when it works. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you sir. Anyone else tonight? You're welcome to come on up.
James C. Warren Yeah my name is James C. Warren. I live here in Missoula. I'm homeless and I've been all over the West. I'm originally from Sacramento, California where they have a Loaves and Fishes and there's about 50,000 people there that are homeless, right in the city limits. And it seems like everywhere I go in the last four years since my injury on my arm I've been in Nevada, I've been in Oregon, I've been in California, I've been in Montana and it seems like there's a problem everywhere. It's not just here or in other places. It's happening everywhere so I mean what can we do to help for there to be somewhere for us to go. Because what am I supposed to do? I mean I'm not really worried too much about me because I'll be leaving here shortly. I need to go back to Oregon for other reasons and I'll be doing it on my bicycle. It’s something that I just need to do and I need to get some time. But until then what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to get arrested for camping which the 9th circuit has already said is legal? I've already been kicked out of one place and been given a ticket. And I don't see how this is all legal. Since the 9th circuit has already approved it. So all I'm asking is what are you guys going to do to help us get into some place? I've been here for a year and it's outrageous the price of what an apartment is here. I mean like I said I've been all over the West it's kind of ridiculous how expensive it is here. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you sir.
Christina My name is Christina. I am also homeless. I have the 113 signatures here. Pretty much I asked them to sign something stating you know we need help. I've been homeless for a very long time and I'm nervous I'm sorry. And you know why can't we open the J Street a little bit sooner or fix it so that there isn't not safe and things like that. Not necessarily security but there has to be something that we can do. I do have another comment is the pictures, that's not necessarily from a homeless person that could be somebody just being a jerk. It’s almost like stereotyping and yeah that's all I have to say.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you and I can take those and we can we can get those to everyone. Thank you.
Mary Peterson Hi I'm Mary Peterson and I'm homeless and I live down in the park right now in the tent. I would love for there to be someplace else for me to go. I’m 60 years old. I’ve manage restaurants, I raise five kids by myself. I've done everything that I can do to prove that I'm a good person that I can do anything and end up being homeless has just about broken me. I've done so much just makes me so angry to watch people sit and judge our lives we're not horrible people. Everybody thinks we're out drinking so much, doing drugs or doing all these things, we're not, we're surviving. We're trying to survive people. We're not trying to take over the world. We just would like our own houses. We'd like some place to go. I'd like to cook a meal that's all I would like to do. I'm not trying to ask for millions of dollars I'm just asking please someone put me somewhere. Yes at 60 you know what it's a little rough out there. I've fallen now and I ended up hitting my head and I ended up bruising the side of my face. All because I want to go bathroom somebody pushed me. No we don't know who but how much violence has to be out there before somebody says okay guess we’ve gotta stop this. This is enough old people are getting hurt out there. Who's responsible? Nobody? Come on people, let's care a little bit. Let's think about these homeless people they're not out there because they're mean. I know most of the people out there in this park that I'm in and you know what they don't have jobs to do. They try and find something to be doing but not over at the homeless shelter trying to help them there or finding new jobs it's just so disheartening to hear people sit there and judge us and say guess what they're not worth anything they're just homeless. They won't take any responsibility. Honeys we took responsibility. A lot of us have done a lot of things in our lives and so we're kind of stuck in a hard place. Isn't there something somewhere someplace they can help us? Send us somewhere, let us talk to somebody. I really don't care but you know what people are losing. They're losing the battle out there. The battle of fighting because you know what they have no place to eat, they have no place to bathe, no place to go the bathroom. What you get to do tonight common go home take a shower get yourself ready for bed. Do you know what it's like to go to a tent, climb into a blanket that you slept in for the last month, not been able to wash? Do you know what that's like? I can tell you all the wonderful things that I've been doing but you know what the reality happens to be we need to take care of other people. We really need some help and we need somebody to take care and say you know what, you guys matter. Not just take a look and say oh you're just homeless what do you know. We're not all stupid, we're not all dumb. We've worked really hard lives and yes it's not very comfortable being homeless but you know what with the friendships that I've made and the people that I've met I would rather be homeless than I would to be sitting up in judgment of everybody else's life. It's not my job. I don't want to be in charge. I just would like a place, I would just like a home. I would just like to cook my own meals, just very simple things. I'd like to call my sons and say hello come over and have dinner. I want the things that you want but you know what just because I'm homeless doesn't make me stupid, doesn't make me dumb, it doesn't make me I'll be honest I made some wrong decisions but you know what I'm rectifying those and I'm pulling. No I'm not an alcoholic and no I don't drink. I'm diabetic. I'm on the street that's what I'm doing I'm trying to stay alive. My face is all swollen because I got shoved down the bank over by the river. Yeah it hurts. Yeah it's not safe out there guys it's just not safe. There's nothing that you have to financially to help us but you know what somewhere and some place we have to merit, to merit for that vote that says you know what you have that right. If we're doing something wrong then talk to somebody. There are those of us who would step in and say you know what this isn't okay and have stepped in. It's not that we don't care, we do care. We care about where we live. We care about garbage that gets passed around. I saw people today getting up with garbage bags and going around just picking up garbage all over the park. It was just enlightening, was so wonderful to watch them do this. It is a joke to laugh at everybody that was around there. It's not easy living in a tent. It's not easy going to bed in a sleeping bag. It's not easy getting in there and saying okay tomorrow's gonna be another day or having to fight for anything, but we're trying guys we're trying. We just need a little bit of help. Think about us and not sending us out just say oh we'll get out the parks. Well you know what if I'd been out there by the river would I've been killed? How many people have to die before suddenly we're important. How many people have to get hurt? Please help us.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you for your comments and for sharing your story.
Teen Aline Hi my name's Teen Aline. I'm the lead care coordinator for the Path Program. I'm a local service prep to unsheltered folks in Missoula. I provide direct care case management outreach. If ordinance 12.40 actually makes more accessible urban camping I say that's a moral imperative that that passes because my job is to find other viable resources, viable options for the people that are experiencing homelessness and over the past year we've lost multiple funding sources with the state
of emergency closing with COVID, Mirror being one of the largest Section 8 vouchers. some folks in this room that I have helped refer months ago have not touched that voucher yet, haven't got a letter to come and try to apply for that voucher because it is so backed up. We don't have the funding sources that are necessary to make housing first a reality in our community. We have Blue Heron potentially opening this summer but construction has pushed that back. It was supposed to be open last summer. It was supposed to be up in January. It was supposed to be open February, supposed to be open May maybe July, we don't know. And with that time frame being so loose so uncertain we need more accessible places where providers can actually outreach our clients and know where they're at. Not having them moved constantly shuffled and makes it harder to find them and it makes it harder to give that support, that stability. Really it's the housing crisis that just surges and when our most vulnerable population suffers we all do, our whole community suffers. We aren't able to use the parks for their intended purposes because there's no other options for those people. There's no other options for the people that I work with and care about deeply. I guess what I'd also like to say is that I hear some of the terminology away from sweeps more towards cleanups. Sweeps I would like to make comments do have a negative connotation towards city officials and authorities and I understand some of those preconceived notions and wanting to move away from the terminology of using sweeps. I think using cleanups while maybe there's not those preconceived notions attached to a cleanup using the term cleanup as city officials and public meeting spaces I think it really actually correlates our unsheltered folks with the debris that there may be surrounded with or may not be surrounded with. And we need to be intentional in the terms we use at the very least if these cleanups continue. Maybe a camp removal would be a more appropriate term to be using. It's at least more transparent and describes what it actually is that the process is. I also would like to thank everyone for hearing us speak tonight and allowing public comment and I just want to thank unsheltered folks here too that I know and work with closely and their bravery made it so that I felt a lot more comfortable standing up here to speak too. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you. You're welcome to come on up.
Paula Irwin My name is Paula Irwin. I was homeless. I was raped, lost my job, had to go into the Warm Springs because I couldn't cope with it. Tried to cut my throat. I had Povorello help me out. They gave me a chance. They gave me a resident volunteer position. I cooked and on the weekends I ran in the kitchen. Got me a job at the senior center cooking as assistant lead cook. I have witnessed by cooking for the homeless what none of you have witnessed. The fact that the pictures show tents with trash and debris that's a mental health issue. That is people who are hoarding when they have nothing. I've witnessed people go to the free clothing stores and get clothes and have bags and you'll see them they go on the street, they have their bags because they have nothing absolutely nothing. They have no hope. All of you can give them hope. And how do we do it? I've seen that you were talking about tiny homes. I'm a tiny home movement. There are also 3D injected houses that use mud and concrete-ish kind of materials that are green that we can help these people instead of figuring out what we're going to spend on a giant doobie looking facility I just seen on a roundabout. How about we put some money into shelters. That's how you fix a homeless problem. You also help with the mental health. That's working with Warm Springs not having them bust them here, drop them off, without any resources. That is what these people are doing. I was one. They did that to me. They didn't help me. Yes I helped myself but I'm a strong character. Some other people call me a _____ you know I'm tough. I got grit. Women and children should not be homeless. Men who served our country should not be homeless. Mental health patients should not be homeless. This is our responsibility, Faith-based well love thy neighbor that's us that's them that's all of these people that's you. We are the people that can change it. We establishing a for sale of a hotel room that costs 1.6 I think I read and now we're selling it for $800 which goes to the housing thing I get it but it's under what you paid for it. So spending on your end has to be more ____. Faith-based isn't always the cure. It comes with judgment too. You know how many times I've been offered as a single mom a box of food if I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I said yay but they didn't help me. Jesus didn't help me. Faith-based does not help LGBTQ+ communities who are homeless also. We have to stop looking at this as tents, laws, we got to look at it as community. We all share the responsibility in making sure somebody is not pushed off a bank because she's trying to sleep in an old sleeping bag that is bug infested or sleep at the Pov that has bed bugs and they're being bit up. We have to do something, and we have good ideas as a community not just as a board. We gotta start letting the community who want to help speak up. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you.
Bob Moore Bob Moore, m-o-o-r-e. Hearing all this is sort of heart rendering. Sometimes I get a little uncertain as to whether we should provide massive aid to homeless people or not, and the danger of just providing everything to everybody that the size of city would double and you couldn't handle that. So somewhere you have to balance the two things between providing services for those who cannot and not just old people but can't survive. And I look back at what my main interest is in TIFF as I'm sure most of y'all know. TIFF is a horrible horrible expenditure and development plan for any city. It's a horrible horrible and I can't say that enough to stop this TIFF. What I just read to you or discussed was $270-some thousand dollars giving it to another developer, millions to Southern Bank, millions to Marriott.
Mayor Jordan Hess Mr. Moore, you're getting a bit afield from the question at
hand which is amending the municipal code about camping.
Bob Moore Is mine different from others?
Mayor Jordan Hess It’s warning that I could have issued a little bit ago but I'll just ask everyone to try to keep it to the topic.
Bob Moore Yeah yeah 'll just conclude then by saying all of these millions and millions of dollars is given to the very very wealthy people in this city could be stopped and used for some of these problems that you're hearing tonight. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you sir.
Kathy Glover My name is Kathy Glover and I am a homeless individual and I came today to speak for another and myself but the other 24 tents that are there on the side of the downtown line park. I know that it seems like it's a lot of people that are there in that small area but I'm going to tell you we've kept it clean. We have kept it as peaceful as possible. Any area in town that you go in any city there's going to be some kind of disagreement somewhere along the line between one person or another at one
level or another and I'm here to tell you that we are there because we were told to move from where we were over by the Povorello Center which is a shelter okay and I have took video of the area which I am camped at right now and I would like to just briefly run that past you guys and show it to you real quick if I could please. I think that it's important that you see it so that you can see it's 50 seconds long and I'm just going to step forward if I could please.
Mayor Jordan Hess We're not able to do that tonight, we just take comment.
Kathy Glover You could look at it after the meeting.
Mayor Jordan Hess After the meeting of course.
Kathy Glover Basically they're going to be doing a sweep on the 29th from what I understand. One week after I moved over there um we have kept the place clean and it therefore it's not a safety hazard because it's not a bunch of trash and feces and stuff like that laying all over the place. It is not a health hazard because it's not trash, feces syringes, drugs and all that stuff laying around. And so therefore I don't understand why they are going to do the sweep on the 29th. My question to you is when they do the sweep on the 29th we have to back up and move again. We're all in one area always homeless people are there in that little area and it’s down by the Pov right there in that same area okay. So my question to you is when they do to sleep like they did over by the Povorello, we all moved. We all moved to the same general areas that we have access to the Povorello so we can shower, use the facility bathroom there, things like that. Where do we go when they do the sweep on the 29th? We’re all in an area to where authority knows where we're at. You folks know where we're at. We know where we're at. So when the guys come to do the sweep we have to pick up a move again. We're all going to move to an area that's probably not going to be likable by somebody in that area just like it's not likeable now whether it be the Cider Company or the Group Falls or whatever. You know it's not likable that we're there but where else are we supposed to go? Where do we say enough is enough of sweeping us? Where did we draw the line? If you were in my shoes would you feel the same way I do? Where would you go? What would you do? Over in Boise, Idaho the 9th circuit court rules that it was against the law for them to fine us in excess, and to criminalize us for being houseless. And they are being unfair to us because when we were over by the Povorello if we did not pack our stuff up and leave they brought a bulldozer in and they plowed us all together, and they destroyed the stuff if any was left, and right down to the very minute the bulldozer was going through I was still moving my stuff and so was one other person because we did not have a means of being able to move it all at one time in one load with a vehicle because some of us have things because we've all been waiting for housing since the Blue Heron. Okay there's like 30 of us that are on that list to be able to get into the housing. and that housing has been bumped out, bumped out, bumped out. Back in May we were supposed to be able to move into it. Did you see the tent we were supposed to be able to move into it. Then they changed it to July the first now it's mid-July before we can move in. When do we draw the light on things. Where do we take okay and that's enough. They're not hurting nothing right now and I have video to prove it. I have pictures to prove it. If somebody wants to give me an email address to job check I'll gladly send it forward to you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you for your comments. We're going to need to move on. Thank you. Anyone else. We just ran over time quite a bit so we need to move on to someone else thank you. Anyone else tonight?
Destiny Vale Hello, my name is Destiny Vale and I live in Ward 1. I didn't realize that tonight was the night for this until the last minute but hopefully I can have some things to say here. I just wanted to point out a couple of things with the ordinance itself as it's written seems to be contradictory to the actions of the city. For example the big one the ordinance says there is preliminary notice given to campers to correct health hazards, remove obstructions, etc., and only after that approach has failed will there be a cleanup scheduled. However last week already when the Povorello was being swept or raided or whatever you want to call it there was already a scheduled cleanup for the Lions Park camp and the Lions Park Camp had no noticeable obstructions. There wasn't any like health hazards it's very clean looking camp like if I ride my bike through there all the time it was very it's like almost model camp that you might want to go camp at yourself. It's like very clean and there was nothing there that was notable that would require a scheduled cleanup a week in advance. And yet the ordinance says that nothing will be scheduled unless previous warnings are given and those warnings are not followed and those failure to follow those warnings creates a health hazard of some kind. I also want to say that though it's an admirable idea to open the Johnson Street Shelter sooner than usual the Johnson Street Shelter I don't know the exact numbers I don't remember them but I believe that without the COVID restrictions somebody correct me if I'm wrong, it only can hold less than 300 people per night. And there are hundreds more people at least needing shelter in Missoula every night so that's not like the panacea for solving this problem and making it so that the city can just without consequence remove people from their camps. Martin V Boise also says there is no need for an actual citation although we have heard that people have actually gotten citations and we've heard that over the last few years since Martin V Boise. I don't believe that or at least I heard that the policy was not to prosecute these people but they were still receiving citations. That being said even though the ordinance currently says it's not going to lead to citations Martin V Boise says that there isn't a need for actual citation there is only the need for the possibility of future citation based on a sort of chain of events of actions of somebody who's living in a camp. So there's only a need for possible of future citation or the threat of criminalization of their actions for camping. So it doesn't actually have to be a ticket. There's also the matter of punishing individuals for actions of others in a group when no crime was committed. For example if the people on my block are committing some sort of health crime in their house like I don't know what that would equate to but if the people next door to me are creating a health hazard of some kind will I be arrested for that or will I be forced to move from my house and have all my belongings bulldozed and confiscated because of that. I would hope not. This is a similar situation it's just not a situation that people with houses might think to equate but these are people's houses we're talking about or where they make their home.
Mayor Jordan Hess You're a bit over a time limit I just ask that you close it up here soon please.
Destiny Vale Okay um I guess I'll just end by saying there is instead the ability to provide resources, the number of cops and other city workers who are at Povorello for example being paid for all of those work hours that could have gone into helping people you know on a regular trash collection day just like we have in our neighborhoods for example, things like that. Provide resources for people where they are because people keep coming back to the same places for reasons, access to resources and things like that. Okay thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you.
Miranda Sanderson Hi, I am Miranda Sanderson. I'm here speaking as somebody who works on the Community Care team at Partnership Health Center. We're a team that does outreach in the community working with unhoused population and I specifically work on helping people find housing which you can imagine is very difficult. Our team will also be housed at the new Blue Heron housing that you've heard mentioned a few times tonight. And I just wanted to kind of speak on some of the experience our team has had in the last few months since the winter shelters closed and since some of these camps are being asked to move. Really you know our main goal is to try and provide services so people can have all of their basic needs met but also their health needs met. And our team strongly believes that housing is health care. Our goal is to hopefully get 30 people into the Blue Heron housing hopefully by the end of next month. And there's still people that we’re referring for that housing. They're still people that are in the process and the application process and needing to get things in and it's been extremely difficult for us to be able to consistently work with folks when they're being moved and lots of these folks don't have phones or ways to be able to connect with folks and so in order for us to be able to do our jobs of helping this population into housing some of the first housing of its kind in Missoula, we need to be able to have a consistent place to be able to find people and meet them and go through these processes with them. There's a nurse on our team who also provides a lot of health care to our unhoused population including medication and so for her it's been extremely difficult also to be able to find people, make sure that they're getting their medication on time, things of that nature so I just wanted to kind of share our experience as a team that's really trying to help solve some of these issues. Just the recent ordinances have made it very difficult for us to be able to do our jobs and hopefully like supporting our community members so thanks.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you. Anyone else tonight?
David Quattrochi Hi my name is David Quattrochi. I'm also with Partnership Health Center in the Community Care team. Just wanted to thank you all for continuing to hear more about this before you make a decision. And appreciate what you propose tonight as well as the solution and that's really what I'm here to urge you to do is be more solution oriented. I understand the compliance with the 9th circuit but this essentially will take away another option for people to be camping. And there are health
ramifications for that so I just wanted to run down a few of those hopefully, clock them in the record before everyone decides however they're going to vote on this. This will create another potential side of criminalization of homelessness. And in the absence of providing adequate housing as a solution first the public health and human rights response would be to ensure access to basic determinants of health such as food, water. sanitation and garbage disposal and that's what we talk a lot about in our work is the social determinants of health but what we're looking at here in this hall is the structural determinants. The place of power and decision making where it can come from you to determine what those social determinants are there for people or whether they're not. So dismantling encampments over public health concerns it essentially becomes counterproductive. Why? Because without additional housing capacity which even with opening the shelter we are falling short we probably have a little over half of our based on the point-in-time count from last year, we still have half of our unhoused population living outdoors so we won't be able to criminalize them without threats of lawsuits and other things people have brought up. And we know that from COVID splitting up to these encampments and dispersing people increases the possibility of spreading infectious disease. That's another issue we've got to worry about. The reason people pick parks is because they're trying to get out of view of the public in the first place so they found like a safe quiet space like some of our unhoused neighbors have articulated here, and by pushing them even further away from parks which maybe this will do maybe it won't, but we know how laws are usually enforced it affects our most vulnerable citizens and that's what these people are, our unhoused neighbors living daily in view of everybody else. So we know they're susceptible to these laws a little bit more than the rest of us if we're being realistic. So it's going to push them into dangerous more isolated environments. So we have our health workers who won't have access like we just heard from Miranda and that same nurse who couldn't be here ironically because she's sick says that she goes out with people from Open Aid Alliance. They do needle pick up. They pick up trash. People are actively trying. You have like a great ring an ecosystem of community health workers who are really trying earnestly to curb this stuff and we can fall back on them. We know there's a whole non-profit complex here right. They're all getting paid to do this work and make it safe parks for everybody including the children who are in the encampments and outside because they exist inside the encampments as well. And one thing we also don't want to do is kill the trust between the city and the people in the encampments or the service workers so when we eliminate places for people to live, it kills that trust. Whether they understand the 9th Circuit Court you know whether they understand that or not they're seeing another place eliminated and when service providers try to reach them that trust trickles down so people are less hesitant to receive the services and the service resistant myths start swirling up around again. It's a waste of money too. So we know that it takes based on a study in Denver about 30 to 50 grand to manage people who are trying to navigate homeless services by disconnecting people from services by pushing them further out we're relying on things like emergency rooms, it's just a bigger tax on our health care system as well. So I want to urge you to be a little more solution oriented. Every time we propose a solution or we answer with calls for public restrooms, needle pickup we're actually addressing the pictures that were provided earlier. It's a solution rather than pushing people further away where we can't get to them and the problem keeps going and the money cycle keeps flowing. Thanks.
Mayor Jordan Hess Anyone else tonight? Seeing none.
Chet Phillips Mayor and council, I'm Chet Phillips, Ward 1. I think I agree with a lot of what's been said just the basic question of why the crackdown, why the changes now at this moment right before saying Blue Heron is going to open up. Right before reopening the Johnson Street Shelter etc., it makes it seem a little disingenuous that this is really about public health for instance and more as though it's about aesthetics or tourism or those kinds of things and why not if we're serious about that housing, that shelter and public health is the real goal, why not specifically identify other areas of public land within the city that are okay to camp on rather than continue to just okay we'll move them on from this place and then move them on from that place and we have all the data that we need on why housing first why continuously moving people on and the anxiety and grief that brings, why that has negative public health effects that isn't really a discussion among those who know these things. I guess I want to use my time to say one other thing though which is about the city staff culture and institutional partnership. If we're serious about partnership about gathering the best ideas from other partners, other organizations, non-profits groups who are trying to actually help solve these problems that means real dialogue and that means willingness to hear hard truths about the conditions and what I have observed in my limited
time here in Missoula is instead I would reference the meeting at Burns Street on the 10-year plan to end homelessness which came off frankly as I mean it was I think it was disgraceful. It was all spin, all talking points appeared to be the city kind of patting itself on the back for something which is I don't think can really honestly be called anything other than an abject failure. And wouldn't it be more honest to gather partners together and say we want to hear what's not working. We want to hear the best ideas from other locations other cities from our partners but in order to do that city staff, mayor and council have to be willing to hear hard truths said and not try to squelch those when uncomfortable things are said. I think there's something about the city culture there that needs to be a little bit more open and dialogue oriented if we're going to work together those of us who really do care about these issues and find solutions. Thanks.
Mayor Jordan Hess Anyone else tonight? Seeing none in the room and none online. This is a multi-week public hearing so we won't have substantive discussion tonight. We can certainly have questions from Council if there are any. Mr. Carlino.
Alderperson Carlino Yeah thanks for everybody coming out and speaking about the truth here. I just got the few questions I want to run through. So during your presentation Ms. Gaukler you said that more space to camp would come out of this ordinance not less. Where are you saying that people can camp or how are you saying that there's going to be more space available to camp. Could you clarify that for us please?
Mayor Jordan Hess Ms. Gaukler.
Donna Gaukler In the original ordinance it says no camping or sleeping on any lands public lands in the city. The change is parks.
Alderperson Carlino So where can people sleep then on public land?
Donna Gaukler Lands that would be public that are not park.
Alderperson Carlino Okay.
Donna Gaukler The city has designated spaces because we don't have facilities. I'm not the expert on safe outdoor space and creation of those spaces. We don't have a space like that right now. There was one. It was closed for safety reasons and that is what the city is working on with Partners on the Johnson Street to reopen it.
Alderperson Carlino So just to clarify there's no places that people are allowed to camp in city limits is that is that correct?
Mayor Jordan Hess No that's not correct.
Alderperson Carlino So where can people camp?
Mayor Jordan Hess So this is only pertaining to parks and there is not a prohibition anywhere else.
Alderperson Carlino So you're saying that people can camp anywhere else besides the parks?
Mayor Jordan Hess Ms. Gaukler.
Donna Gaukler I don't believe you would be able to camp on somebody's private yard without their permission.
Alderperson Carlino We've got people in our community who need somewhere to stay and you all are saying that this ordinance will make it to where there's more places where people can camp and I'm asking you to provide us with at least one example of where people can camp that need somewhere to go could you please tell us somewhere that people can camp?
Mayor Jordan Hess You know Ms. Gaukler had some remarks in the initial presentation about why we aren't providing specific locations could you could you go through those again.
Donna Gaukler So there are individuals who have camping in public spaces, parks, right of ways, vacated or not, for as many years as I have been in Missoula. We are not looking to remove people solely because they're camping either in parks or in those public spaces. At some point we get to a place where the site is cleaned up and oftentimes people return but then the site's been cleaned up for a while and it should be cleaned up. We do go through a process that not defined in the ordinance at all what that process is. Personal belongings are taken with the individual or set aside protected for them and we need places for the public for people who don't have shelter to have access to restrooms and showers. I don't think anybody debates that. That's why we're working on the Johnson Street. Recently there was a rather large encampment at Cedar Street. Now there's a rather large encounter at downtown Lions. So I've been trying to explain is parks do have closed hours to address any behavior it's not specific at all so you can shelter. The ordinance change does increase the opportunity of other spaces.
Alderperson Carlino Thank you. Follow up. Yeah so it sounds like the city is not providing anywhere for people to be able to camp and if the goal of the ordinance is to comply with the 9th Circuit Court wouldn't we be providing adequate shelter beds for everyone who needs one not just pushing people from one place to another.
Mayor Jordan Hess But we're working on that through the emergency declaration to reopen the Johnson Street Shelter so we'll continue to forge ahead on that we've got our service provider the Povorello Center that is needing to hire in excess of 30 people and so it's a large operation to start and we'll continue pushing toward that with the exact goal that I think you're referencing to provide more shelter beds.
Alderperson Carlino Follow up, Can I do one more?
Mayor Jordan Hess Sure.
Alderperson Carlino So some people that were staying at the authorized campsite you know after the city decided to close that down had to move to you know camp somewhere else in town or after the Johnson Street Shelter closed at least and some of those people that were staying at the authorized campsite were then staying at the Russell Street Bridge Camp and then the city has resources to move those people from there to there and then after they got moved from the Russell Street Camp some of them were staying next outside the Pov, and then after they got moved from the Pov now some of them are staying you know maybe at another park and then now we're trying to move them from another park and I guess I'm pretty upset about it but I guess I'm just trying to figure out why do we have so many resources to move people from one place to the other and where are we expecting these people to go. Why can't we just provide them with somewhere to go. No one has been pretending at any point in this
process that this is an ideal scenario. These camp removals to utilize the term that was suggested actions are truly based on entrenchment and based on problematic behaviors that that happen when there is a large encampment. And that is as I mentioned at the out at the outset this is a suite of many other things. There's staff work to reopen the emergency winter shelter, the provider Community meets regularly and suggests and recommends different approaches that we are in the process of taking. The provider community's overwhelming recommendation to in the executive budget process was to prioritize reopening sheltering and that is as I mentioned at the beginning that is something that you'll see in the fiscal year 2024 budget and that is something that will remain a priority. You'll also see that the mobile support team and Crisis Intervention training remain prioritized and remain funded and so there's a lot of work going on in this area. This is a piece of that work and this is in my opinion a piece of that puzzle. I'm going to go back to someone else and I'll come back to you. Questions Ms. Jordan and then Ms. Savage.
Alderperson Jordan Thank you, so just questions at the moment,
Mayor Jordan Hess Yeah I mean we’re not taking any action until July 10th.
Alderperson Jordan Minor intro to my question. Thank you. I thought I knew how I felt about the matter when I came in the room tonight and have a bit of a different opinion. I feel like yet again we've made another proposal as decision makers which we have the authority to do so but we've done it without adequate representation and I should know better by now I've got a master's degree in public administration and all they talk about is representation. I'm really grateful to all the folks who came tonight representing the houseless population whether you're right in the middle of it living houseless at the moment or you've been there or you're supporting our houseless population. Thank you for coming. We've made it really hard for you to provide your opinion and to share in this decision-making process. And I personally feel ashamed. You've not had a seat at the table neither have the residents around our community neither has the hot team neither is the mobile support team neither has our first responders. We are sitting here providing a proposal without representation. We do it all the time and I'm frustrated. My questions are you know I agree with my colleague Mr. Carlino about how we just keep shuffling people around and I think in the meantime if we consider providing toilets garbage bins and or needle disposal containers for places where folks are camping. If the biggest concern is a health concern let's provide them places to stay clean, let’s provide them the opportunity to clean their bedding and clean themselves and go to the toilet safely. Have we thought about that in the meantime while we're waiting for all of these very amazing proposals that we have on the table that are going to come to fruition soon.
Mayor Jordan Hess Yeah so we have thought about that and the mobile support team the police department, the fire department, the storm water and wastewater departments, the public works department more broadly the parks department, the city attorney's office, our houseless services initiative coordinator and our community planning development and innovation department have all been consulted and involved in developing these proposals. The homeless outreach team is part of the Povorello Center which is our primary contracted service provider. It has been in lockstep with us in planning has and has been very much at the table and we work with other service providers to provide including the Community Care team to provide the best level of service we can. So they've been consulted. They'll continue to be consulted. They are part of the solution and we'll just keep them at the table.
Alderperson Jordan Thanks I just want to say the only forum that our houseless population has had is to come to City Council meetings to provide their testimony and I think we need to change that.
Mayor Jordan Hess Ms. Savage.
Alderperson Savage Thank you. I was not on Council when the Blue Heron came about or the Bellagio or all of the Trinity all of the pieces that are coming online very soon and I wonder as we have this public hearing open if it would be possible to get a little bit of an update on those particular like pieces as they're moving forward. I know some of them are starting to open I think the one on the west side is open. I'm curious about the Blue Heron and why it is continuing to be sort of delayed. I don't know why but I'd be I'd be interested to know details about that. I'm also interested I think that I read at some point that the city is leaseholder there and so I'm curious about the funding mechanism for that as well so if we could get some sort of, it doesn't have to be an exhaustive staff report but something that just gives us a little bit of an update on that that would be awesome. And then I do have a question and this is not necessarily answered tonight but you know the state of emergency is one thing the funding of the Johnson Street Shelter is something different and so and I'm not talking about the 2024 budget, so I would like some sort of clarity on that as well as what that looks like as we're sort of talking through all of these things.
Mayor Jordan Hess Okay we can provide those updates. We’ll provide those provide those between now and the 10th. Ms. West.
Alderperson West So Donna I was wondering if you could maybe speak to some of the other maybe laws or requirements that get triggered if the city were to provide or designate something, a designated camp site. My understanding is that there are some things that get triggered so I was wondering if you could maybe just give a brief overview.
Donna Gaukler There are a number of requirements to create a designated campsite or campground. We need sanitation systems to deal with solid waste, human waste. There needs to be access to potable water. There needs to be systems related to security so we had one of those and unfortunately the experiment did not work out very well. I don't think it's been taken off the list if I recall correctly. That was part of one of the many solutions in the consent agenda item that was referred but we are not able to just
designate a park or parking lot or public right-of-way as a campground and not provide required services by health code and other codes.
Mayor Jordan Hess Follow up.
Alderperson West The approving entity in my understanding would be the state of Montana they would actually have to approve a site plan and all those details is that correct?
Donna Gaukler I believe DPHHS comes into it in at some degree perhaps the EQ depending on what it is, local agencies even as we explore and again not my area but even as we explore opening Johnson Street we know that we have to make significant investments to the health codes in that facility so it's definitely a difficult situation. We're trying to be cognizant in and cautious and treat everybody with dignity. We think an ideal would be you know dispersed camping and clean sites. We are not out looking. We don't go looking, that's not what employees do or want to do. It is after we've received reports of violence within settings, after we've received reports on sanitary conditions and we haven't actually prevented people from coming back. We all carry stuff out with folks temporarily so we don't know that the council wants to just disregard any public land until it's you know unmanageable or anybody including the people who are trying to live there.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Ms. Gaukler. There was someone else in the queue and the queue is now empty. Does anyone have a question Mr. Carlino.
Alderperson Carlino Yeah I hear a lot from city staff about how we're trying to make sure that we're talking to the people most affected by our policies when crafting
these policies and I guess I'm just curious like how you know the comments from like the provider community that has been coming to council you know with the ACs and with these two ordinances and the people who are living like houseless in Missoula coming to comment how is that affecting our decisions here? Like how is that affecting any amendments that we might make or policies that we're passing and I guess it just feels like you know that's always a priority that I'm hearing from our staff that we want to make sure that these people are included on the conversation and I guess I'm just missing how it's like you know people that are homeless in our community right now are coming and asking us not to close down the authorized campsite yet the staff recommended motion is to you know close it down and then you know people are coming and asking us please stop sweeping us from one place to another it's making our life very difficult like how are we considering that in our decisions here. I guess I just want us to think about that before we just keep passing and pushing and spending all of our resources trying to push people from one place to another. I think we can be a city that provides resources and homes and housing and lifts people up rather than trying to sweep them from one place to another with all of our resources. So I just want us to consider how are we you know including the public comments that we're hearing from people that are living homeless in Missoula and people in the provider community that are asking us to do something different, like how are we considering that and our policy decisions here.
Mayor Jordan Hess To whom are you directing that question?
Alderperson Carlino I guess just to the whole Council and I guess it's just like not really a question to answer but rather just to consider because we're not voting on this today but just to think about how are we considering like these comments in our policy decisions.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thanks, additional questions? Okay we will continue the public hearing until July 10th and we will have this back for final consideration at that time and thank you all for your attendance tonight and we will continue again on the 10th. We'll take a brief recess and be back in order for our remaining public hearings and committee report items and we'll be back in order at 8 pm.