Month: November 2020

by William Skink

An RD reader who trusts my perspective on the issue of homelessness in Missoula asked me in an email if I was going to opine on the formal encampment being set up to relocate the inhabitants of the sprawling encampments under and around the Reserve Street bridge.

I’m reluctant to rush into any armchair-criticism of these preliminary efforts, so instead I’d like to share how I USED to think realistically about these issues. I am emphasizing the past tense here because today’s NEW NORMAL may necessitate NEW IDEAS, as we shall see.

When I say “realistically” I may be actually conveying a degree of cynical pessimism about how resources are prioritized and allocated in Missoula. I’ll try to unpack that lurking prejudice a bit so readers can understand where I’m coming from.

When I was being “realistic” in my conversations with new clients at the shelter, that usually meant I was educating them on the immense difficulty of getting into housing in Missoula. If they were coming here without any community contacts, or with one of the many marks that makes renting nearly impossible (former incarceration, bad credit, no rental history, fixed income, etc), I would tell them to consider ALL their options, like OTHER PLACES where they might have a better chance at finding housing.

I was thinking about those many difficult conversations I had with clients when I read this KPAX article about life under the Reserve Street bridge. The article details a couple’s first experience of Montana’s propensity to get cold. From the link:

When the temperatures dropped to zero last month and the wind blew at gale force, Stacey Barnett and Bear Legault hunkered down in their tent below the Reserve Street bridge, waiting for the weather to pass.

That night, the wind ripped away the door to their tent, starting at the zipper. They stayed warm under layers of blankets, nestled up with their little dogs, each no larger than a cat. They had scored a free mattress off Facebook in the nick of time. It kept them off the frozen ground.

Still relatively new to Missoula, the late October storm was their first taste of what’s to come, and they both know they’re in for a long winter. But their status among Missoula’s chronically homeless isn’t foremost in their thoughts.

Rather, it’s the day-to-day struggles that cause the biggest problems.

“The challenge for me is probably because I have a walker,” said Barnett, pointing to a nearby tree where the walker sat covered in snow. “My first walker got stolen, so we got that one from the Poverello, but the seat’s broken so I can’t really use it. Right now, that’s kind of the main issue for me.”

Now, you can dismiss what I’m about to say as evidence of “compassion fatigue” from a burned out social worker, but I find this type of narrative to be profoundly frustrating, and for good reason, as I will explain.

When clients with this level of need arrived at the shelter (or called in at Aging Services) I would often explain to them that the state of Montana, with only a million people, simply doesn’t have the same level of resources as a state like Washington. I would say I know this because I have family with a special needs kid in Washington and the state Medicaid programs to help them (including resource limits) are much more substantial than what we have here.

That is what I call “reality”.

So, what would a shelter program that incorporated this reality look like?

Before the pandemic I would have said a responsible shelter program could offer a 90-day stay on condition clients who are on fixed income show bank statements indicating they are saving money toward housing, considering the shelter provides free food and housing. If, at the end of 90 days, it doesn’t look feasible that progress is being made, then finding a more suitable community could be the next goal.

BUT the pandemic has changed EVERYTHING, transforming Missoula into a sizzling hot ZOOM TOWN for wealth to flee to and work remotely from.

So why not leverage that?

If I was running this fiefdom and empowered by the state to levy taxes, I would require incoming wealth with no social/community ties to Missoula to pay the housing costs for an eligible homeless Montana resident for up to 6 months.

That might sound punitive, and would probably further inflate the cost of housing, but it might also get us to think about the rapid changes happening here as this pandemic wealth migration makes housing in Missoula even MORE out of reach for those at the low end of the socio-economic spectrum.

While this new outdoor homeless encampment is billed as being “temporary”, the pattern for the last few winters has been band-aid after band-aid as the weather predictably turns cold.

For a community that has done so much studying and planning and virtue-signaling for the past 8 years of our 10 YEAR PLAN TO END HOMELESSNESS, this latest band-aid is just one more placation plan with the dual purposes of “helping” the homeless while ALSO helping Missoula’s political establishment keep their cushy jobs.

by William Skink

Last August I emailed the Executive Director of United Way, Susan Hay Patrick, about Project Safe Neighborhoods. The reason I reached out to her is because this article indicated United Way would play a coordinating role with Project Safe Neighborhoods. Here is the quote I excerpted in that post:

“Meth is overwhelming our courtrooms, our jails and our hospitals, it’s devastating families and kids, and it is nurturing the next generation of criminals and addicts,”Susan Hay Patrick CEO of United Way of Missoula County said. “We can and must break this terrible cycle by providing greater access to effective treatment and prevention.”

Later in the article, US Attorney Kurt Alme had this to say:

Alme said cracking down on violent crime is only the first step. Moving forward, he said drug treatment and prevention is the next step to address the issue.

Over this past weekend, a big meth bust was announced, which I wrote about here. And today, quickly following on the heels of that announcement, there is an article about a $248,000 grant to do what is always done in Missoula with any difficult problem–STUDY IT!

Before getting to that, it’s important to frame the problem, and thanks to the pandemic, the trend we were being told about these past two years by Aulme’s office–that violent crime IS GOING DOWN–has suddenly been reversed.

That last link is to an article from last June, three months in to the pandemic. Now, five months later, this is what we are being told about violent crime in Montana (emphasis mine):

A new substance abuse prevention coalition has been awarded $248,000 to get its members, more than 40 in total, on the same page and into gear, the U.S. District Attorney for Montana said last week. 

The grant comes at a time when violent crime in Missoula is up 40% since the beginning of the pandemic earlier this year, according to the U.S. District Attorney’s Office. Law enforcement agencies have almost universally attributed methamphetamine use as the fuel to violent crime.

Now that we suddenly have a meth-fueled violent crime problem in Missoula, what are we going to do about it? This is where money and a community fixer like Patrick comes in.

The methods of placation in Missoula when it comes to intractable problems, like addiction and homelessness, are well-known to fixers like Patrick. And since I spent a decade of my life working in this world, I am VERY familiar with what happens next.

The first thing to do is FORM A COALITION. It’s important to insulate your efforts with a bunch of well-meaning non-profit do-gooders, and since they are usually money-starved and grant-dependent, they won’t criticize your efforts, even if they’ve seen this show a hundred times before.

Next, after forming the coalition, talk about how you are going to study shit like GAPS IN SERVICES. This sounds very professional and creates the impression that once gaps are identified THEY CAN BE FIXED. From the link (emphasis mine):

The coalition will first look to gather information from every angle it can acquire through its new network, so that the landscape becomes clear and gaps in resources can be addressed.

“There’s a lot of data out there that hasn’t necessarily been synthesized in one place to determine where are our gaps in treatment,” Hay Patrick said. 

The Missoula money/study regime keeps pulling this shit because it works. Just look at homelessness in Missoula for a similar example.

Speaking of homelessness, there’s new news on that front as well, but readers will have to wait until tomorrow for a breakdown on our illuminated brain trust’s latest efforts to address that intractable problem.

Stay tuned…

by William Skink

I’ve been interested in how local law enforcement might be using CIs (confidential informants) for nearly a year now. Some of that interest relates to the Federal initiative Project Safe Neighborhoods, which I wrote most recently about in August.

Though my attempts to get information about statistical reporting have not been fruitful, some news that hit over the weekend about a big meth bust provides an interesting window into the end result of coordination between different levels of law enforcement.

When I say coordination, here is a list from NBC Montana’s reporting that explicitly outlines what I’m talking about:

This investigation was conducted by the FBI Montana Regional Violent Crime Task Force (MRVCTF), with the assistance of the Drug Enforcement Agency and Missoula High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force. The FBI MRVCTF consists of agents from the FBI and investigators with the Missoula Police Department, Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, the Kalispell Police Department, Flathead County Sheriff’s Office, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office, and Montana Probation and Parole.

In the Missoulian’s reporting, it’s made clear how and when local authorities became aware of this meth trafficking ring. From the link:

Law enforcement became aware of the alleged network in Missoula in March through a confidential source, according to charging documents. That source met Kavis roughly five months earlier, and told the FBI he had purchased about a pound of meth from Kavis over that period. Separately, another confidential source in June described Kavis to law enforcement as his meth supplier in Missoula, according to court filings. That source told law enforcement Kavis received large quantities of meth from California and then distributes it to Missoula, Kalispell and Great Falls. 

From December 2019 through February 2020, the Missoula Police Department’s street crimes unit began gathering information on Mace, who at the time was known to be a large-level meth and heroin dealer in the Missoula area, according to court records.

I’m going to leave it there, for now.

by William Skink

At the end of the day, it all comes down to money.

We can dress things up by talking about abstractions like “values”, but if you don’t have money, you don’t have the means to take care of yourself.

At the macro level, America’s economy is a bullshit house of cards detached from sound fundamentals in order to prop up Wall Street’s terrible gambling addiction. There was a chance to address this massive economic time-bomb in 2008, when Democrats had the presidency and Congress, but we know how that turned out.

Now that the pandemic has become the primary reason for our economic decline, allowing Wall Street to fade back into the shadows where they continue peddling toxic financial instruments, the state of Montana is already looking to tap the rainy day fund in anticipation of reduced state tax revenues. From the link:

During a news conference at the capitol, Bullock proposed using $75 million, or two thirds of the state’s rainy day reserve, to offset revenue drop offs from the novel coronavirus pandemic. 

Bullock says transferring reserve dollars allows Montana to avoid cutting essential services or raising taxes, as other states have done this year.

Is the rainy day fund the ONLY large pool of money that can be tapped in order to help our community as it struggles financially amidst a pandemic? No, it is not.

The Headwaters Foundation in Montana is currently sitting on 100 million dollars. What is the Headwaters Foundation, you ask?

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you might already know that the Headwaters Foundation was created from the sale of Community Medical Center, a non-profit hospital in Missoula. The money from the sale is SUPPOSED to benefit our community (if you would like to learn more about Headwaters, I wrote this post in 2018 and another post last summer)

Back in April, this 100 million dollar foundation threw some chump change at front-line workers, and the Missoulian happily gave them some good PR for it. From the link:

Some $450,000 to fund organizations on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic was pledged last week by the Missoula-based Headwaters Foundation.

“As the COVID-19 crisis rapidly became more widespread, staff talked extensively with our grantees to understand their changing needs. …,” said Headwaters CEO Brenda Solorzano in a Friday news release.

“This funding is meant to respond to what our grantees told us were the most urgent needs they see in our communities.”

This chump change was dispersed over SIX MONTHS AGO. What else has our 100 million dollar foundation done to help our community adapt to our NEW NORMAL?

I went looking for evidence that this foundation is helping our community, but didn’t find much. Headwaters has a blog that staff updates, but the last post is about summer camp.

I did find a post about philanthropy and Jeff Bezos at the Headwaters blog that I found interesting. Titled True Philanthropy Is More Than Money Delivered Fast, Headwaters staff member Brenda Solorzano has this to say about the world’s richest man:

I applaud Bezos for cutting the red tape and quickly getting money where it’s most needed; but what appears to be missing from his approach is a commitment to power sharing and collaboration with an emphasis on relationships. Without these two components, this type of funding approach runs the risk of being as challenging as some of the traditional philanthropic models it attempts to combat.  

Headwaters practices trust-based philanthropy, an approach that attempts to redefine the power dynamic between funders and grantees. Quiet conversations about how traditional philanthropy could reduce the barriers of its own making have been circling for years. Streamlined applications. Transparency. Multi-year, unrestricted funding. Grantees have been asking for these things, and some foundations have attempted to shift their grantmaking as a nod to these requests but, for a number of reasons, few have been able to fully adopt this approach. 

Headwaters, like Bezos, wants to reduce the burden on grantees that often comes with cumbersome applications and reports. We want to quickly get funding to those who need it. But we also want to build lasting relationships with the nonprofits we fund so that, together, we can move forward the vital work that brings about transformational change.

What a bunch of crap.

Headwaters, with their paid staff and 100 million dollar pool of loot, hasn’t updated its blog since summer. Meanwhile, little old me with no financial backing or paid staff, has put up dozens and dozens of posts about what is happening in Missoula and how people are struggling.

Speaking of money, if you value the writing I do here and want to support my work, you can throw me a donation at my about page. Any amount helps.

You can also buy my book of poems, titled WELCOME TO THE COVAXICON, by going to the ZACC’s online artist shop, or visiting the Loose Moose in downtown Missoula at 219 N. Higgins.

Thank you for reading.

by William Skink

It’s difficult to conceptualize the scale of winners and losers being selected right now as this pandemic is exploited by despicable opportunists, so let me use a local, personal example. Allegiant Airlines are winners, and my kids will be the ones losing out because of it.

While the fear of spiking cases and hospital staffing shortages are ramping up, the Missoula Current has this article about Allegiant starting non-stop routes between Missoula and Orange County. From the link:

Missoula landed it’s second nonstop flight into the Los Angeles basin on Tuesday when Allegiant Airlines announced new year-round service to John Wayne Airport in Orange County.

The flight brings to three the number of year-round, nonstop flights offered by Allegiant from Missoula International Airport, including Mesa, Arizona, and Las Vegas.

“We’ve been working on it with them for a couple weeks,” said Brian Ellestad, deputy director of Missoula International Airport. “They had additional slots out of Orange County and announced several new cities and we were one of them. It’s good news during unprecedented times.”

I don’t know, Brian, IS IT good news? Because where you see job security, I see a major contributing factor to my kids probably going back to 100% remote learning soon. But who cares about their deteriorating mental health when there’s money to be made flying Californians to Missoula.

I can’t imagine being a small business owner right now, taking hit after hit, while cheery news about increasing flights is merrily reported by our online gentrification cheerleader, the Missoula Current.