by Travis Mateer

If you aren’t excited about the new hotel in downtown Missoula with the piss-yellow color scheme called “The Wren”, KPAX is going to try and MAKE you excited by using the word “unique” in the title of the advertisement news article.

What makes this hotel UNIQUE, you ask? Well, it’s not the ugliness of its modern architecture, since these soulless modern buildings are popping up everywhere in Missoula. For a stark visual example of this juxtaposition, here’s a picture I took this morning showing the difference:

No, what apparently makes this hotel unique are marketing gimmicks, like telling prospective customers about the exciting feature of NO PHONES in the rooms. I bet human traffickers will appreciate this feature, since the replacement option is to rely on text messaging. From the link:

An interesting fact about the Wren is that there are no phones in the rooms and hotel staff communicate with guests via text. Also, the Missoula Art Museum will rotate lobby art every few months.

It’s interesting for me to consider the physical location of this hotel because it used to be the kind of dumpy place unstable homeless clients of mine would get rooms in, but this stretch of Main Street has seen LOTS of changes, like the new library to the east, TWO Andy Holloran hotels to the west, and a brewery to the north, right next to the building where the Union Club recently sold off a portion of its soul so the production of Yellowstone could have a nice, authentic backdrop for a Beth Dutton catfight:

While the physical landscape in Missoula changes, the delivery of limited-to-non-existent services for a growing population of unstable people who can’t maintain conventional housing is NOT changing, and a new report is finally substantiating what I’ve known for years about how our people are discharged to home shelters from mental health facilities. From the link (emphasis mine):

The state’s psychiatric hospital for adults has been discharging patients to homeless shelters with no plan for care and sometimes without medications, according to a report from a designated watchdog group.

Disability Rights Montana’s report found at least 16 instances of state hospital patients being discharged straight to homeless shelters, which the organizations says aren’t equipped to care for recent psychiatric patients who often need ongoing care or prescriptions.

Executive Director Bernie Franks-Ongoy says discharge documents reviewed by Disability Rights Montana suggest the practice of discharging patients to homeless shelters is widespread.

“There’s a line on these documents that say ‘discharge where?’ And there’s choices. One is ‘personal residence’, ‘hotel’, ‘homeless shelter’. It’s enough of a practice that it’s on the form,” Franks-Ongoy said.

Yeah, no shit. Glad someone is finally paying attention and reporting on this deplorable situation. Maybe some anecdotal examples of what this can mean for someone’s chances of survival will compel sanity to prevail at the legislature next year. Here’s more about what I’m talking about from the link:

Franks-Ongoy hopes Disability Rights’ report will push the state to end the practice of discharging patients to shelters.

She said that at least two patients documented in the report attempted suicide soon after being discharged to shelters and one patient jumped to his death from a building in Portland days after disappearing from the shelter he was discharged to in Montana.

“That should never, ever happen. He wasn’t ready to be discharged,” Franks-Ongoy said.

Franks-Ongoy said her organization is willing to take the state to court over these cases if the state hospital’s discharge practices don’t improve.

If Franks-Ongoy wants a former homeless service provider as a witness, I’m more than happy to testify about what I’ve seen directly during my years working at the Poverello Center (2008-2016).

For example, there was a young Native woman with a discharge-history that included trying to stab someone with a knife on a basketball court less than 48 hours after her LAST discharge from Warm Springs. The Poverello Center was actually contacted about providing overnight shelter services to this woman, and we said NO. So what happened?

I found this woman had been discharged anyway, but to a nasty motel with a spanking-new caseworker from 3-Rivers who had no idea how to handle the fact her client was already off medications and drinking alcohol with the sex-offender next door.

Does this sound like a recipe for success?

Needless to say this type of bullshit contributed to my burnout and departure from direct services, but not after chewing out the director of 3-Rivers mental health for putting our community at risk just to suckle some billable hours from the Medicaid tit.

Getting back to Missoula’s newest UNIQUE hotel, there’s one more thing worthing noting, and that’s the properties listed in the portfolio of the investment group behind this phone-less hotel. From the link (emphasis mine):

Other properties in the ownership group include the LARK in Bozeman which opened in 2015, the Rialto Theater in downtown Bozeman which opened in 2018, and the FINCH in Walla Walla, Washington, which opened in 2019.

Additionally, a hotel is being planned for Boise.

Why am I highlighting the Rialto in Bozeman? Because I want readers here in Zoom Town to know about the inevitable Checota connection:

Montana-based concert promoter Logjam Presents has entered into an exclusive long-term agreement to promote and produce events at the 500-capacity Rialto Theater in Bozeman, Mt., adding to its portfolio of venues in the region.

The venue recently underwent a major renovation and reopened in early 2018. The Rialto will be the sixth venue in Logjam’s growing portfolio.

According to Logjam Presents owner Nick Checota, “Logjam is excited to partner with The Rialto to bring world-class artists to Bozeman. With the renovations made to the Rialto in 2018, the Rialto offers a best-in-class, 500-capacity venue to promote and produce live events. Having a venue of this quality along the I-90 corridor will ease routing for artists traveling through the Northwestern Rocky Mountain area.”

This is a good reminder that local players in the hotel/entertainment industry have regional ambitions. These ambitions are shared by affordable housing schemers like Missoula-based Blue Line Development, a savvy developer skilled in sniffing out local and state subsidies.

If you would like to help expand MY geographic capacity, the gas for driving to and from Helena will still be expensive in January, so please consider making a donation at my about page.

Thanks for reading!