by Travis Mateer
What do I mean when I say the Homeless Industrial Complex in Missoula is fucking adorable? I don’t even know anymore. Maybe I’m being sarcastic, or passive aggressive, or maybe I’m trying to stave off a megaphone rant so vile I’ll trigger this whole goddamn town.
One of the things that makes the HIC so fucking adorable is the ability to seamlessly pivot from WE DO SO MANY AMAZING THINGS FOR HOMELESS PEOPLE to WE HAVE NO ABILITY TO PICK UP ANY OF THEIR TRASH!
Since I have such a fun, behind-the-scenes perspective on this difficult to understand topic, I’ll produce my favorite moments from this NBC Montana article with plenty of insightful commentary. Let us begin.
After two days of cleanup efforts and over eight tons of trash hauled away, community volunteers say there’s still much more to be cleaned under the Reserve Street bridge in Missoula. As the Clark Fork River rises over the next few weeks, there’s a chance of that trash going into the river if it’s not picked up.
Let me give some perspective on why these impressive tons of trash removed are barely moving the dial.
After the first major clean-up of this area was done by contractors, I set up ongoing, twice-a-year clean-ups with the Health Department and the Clark Fork Coalition. The first one we did, just nine months after the effort with heavy machinery, we hauled out nearly 8 tons of trash.
That’s after nine months. Now we’re talking YEARS of failure. And excuses! Lots of fun excuses, right Susan?
In an email from Susan Hay Patrick with United Way, she said, “United Way and other nonprofits (like the Poverello Center) go ‘above and beyond,’ operating at or above capacity in terms of our efforts to provide housing, services and support to our unhoused neighbors. While we work hard and effectively, with very limited resources in proportion to the problem, we simply do not have the capacity to join clean-up efforts.”
I highlighted Susan’s use of CAPACITY because within the same email this long-time ED of United Way is literally boasting of going BEYOND capacity while, gosh darn it, just not having any of that capacity left over to address an environmental disaster.
And it IS a disaster. If you don’t believe me, go out there for yourself and check it out.
Despite the dire timing of water rising and therefore trash flowing in the river–something I really thought liberal Missoula was adamant about stopping–another organization that’s HAPPY to take your money had “prior commitments”.
Jim Hicks, executive director of Hope Rescue Mission, said they’re not a part of the cleanups because they have prior commitments.
Are you starting to see why I think these people are fucking adorable?
Taking the cake in excuse-making and counter-shaming is the Poverello Center’s newish Director, Jill Bonny. Taking pictures of reality for social media must really cross a line for this organization’s leadership, otherwise it wouldn’t keep coming up.
Here’s where NBC Montana rediscovers the fallout from…pictures.
We found out the Poverello Center’s Homeless Outreach Team helped with Reserve cleanup efforts in 2021.
In an email to cleanup organizers with the Reserve Street Public Working Group in April 2021, Bonny said the HOT team agreed to be involved with the understanding there would be no media involved and no other volunteers would be recruited to help clean up through social media.
She went on to say the Homeless Outreach Team works hard to establish relationships with people living unhoused and publicly posting photos of the area on social media is not respectful.
Sorry, Jill, I’ll try and remember how disrespectful I’m being as I’m walking on hypodermic needles and rotting food left to waste by people we ARE NOT SERVING WELL by allowing them to live like this year after year.
To leave this post on a positive note, I’ve got to seriously commend the organizer of this effort, Kevin Davis, for having the tenacity and positivity to slog through more opposition than can be detailed in these brief updates on this expensive failure of the Homeless Industrial Complex.
The work continues! Thanks for reading.
JC
I’ve always wondered why the Clark Fork Coalition never focused the effort of the “River-Clean Up” on riverside homeless encampments. It seems, like you mentioned, that the good liberal earth saving Missoulians would want to concentrate on those areas of the river most at risk. I imagined that hundreds of volunteers pooling their efforts could have a huge impact on an area such as the Reserve Street encampment.
This curiosity led me to contact the Coalition (right after receiving yet another solicitation for money). I was informed that the encampment was inconsequential in terms of river health – rather it was agriculture east of here that was really harming the river. I mentioned that tons of feves,urine, bodily fluids and toxic chemicals (aside from just trash) washing into our river from the encampment WAS analogous to agricultural politician (ie cows and fertilizer). At that point, I was told that the Coalition was apolitical (Ha!) and that social issues were best left to other non-profits (such as United Way, etc).
This is all very disappointing as the Clark Fork Coalition has served as a farm club (baseball term) to public office/ government positions. Apparently, its more important to accrue power/standing/prestige than actually using those to find solutions
This idea of Missoula being a haven of liberals is mostly a myth, or at least all in their heads. It’s all talk. Just consider these common examples:
Most Missoulians drive instead of walking or riding a bike;
Over half of Missoulians use plastic bags at stores;
The majority shop at corporate establishments, not local;
Big banks dominate the town, not local banks;
We have two Walmarts;
The bus does not run on Sunday.
And of course, what was mentioned here: needles in all parks, shit in the river, garbage everywhere.
But as long as local liberals keep driving their Subarus, listening to NPR, pick up garbage once a year, and volunteer at the Pov occassionally, they feel they’re making a difference and their liberalism is justified.
Meanwhile, nothing in this country seems to get better. Indeed, things seem to be getting worse.
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