Day: May 18, 2023

by Travis Mateer

Thanks to Lee Enterprises, I now understand that sometimes racially-segregated housing is just fine. Thanks Lee Enterprises!

I remember Linda from the Old Poverello days, when the shelter was located downtown. If my memory is correct, her husband was a white man by the name of Dale, who I knew very well. He’s dead now.

Dale’s alcoholism on the streets got so bad, he would regularly shit himself because he couldn’t physically get to a bathroom. The same thing would happen to David Bishop, who I found out this week from a long-time motel manager, ALSO passed away over the winter.

The motel manager told me it was heartbreaking to have to tell the man, pictured above, that he could NOT stay at the motel she manages anymore. It wasn’t good for business to enable this alcoholic to drink himself to death in her motel, but it was ALSO not good for her heart, emotionally speaking, to tell him no over and over again, especially when he promised he wouldn’t pee in the bed anymore.

The motel David Bishop used to call home isn’t around anymore because the city of Missoula bought it in a shady move at the beginning of the pandemic. Here’s the city defending itself earlier this year:

Deconstruction is underway at Missoula’s Sleepy Inn, but as the property is prepared for redevelopment, some residents say the deal is a waste of taxpayer dollars.

“Million to buy and thousands to demolish,” Mary Worden wrote on our Facebook page. “This is our hard earned tax money and they spend it without blinking an eye.”

Many others shared similar sentiments.

The city purchased the hotel for $1.1 million in 2020 and used it as a shelter for people sick with COVID-19.

Operational costs totaled $1,899,329.52, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursed those costs.

The city paid $24,787.38 in other operational costs but also earned another $718,046 in rent from the units.

Now the city is listing the property for $890,000.

The potential profit once the property sells could be $483,258.62.

When David was living in this rat-nest, it was because part of his foot was rotting off from frostbite. It was the dire situation with his foot that allowed me to convince the manager of the Sleepy Inn at the time to allow him to stay.

Here’s a picture of David’s foot (on the left) along with the foot of “Cock-Eyed” Joe (on the right). I was playing around with a photo-app at the time, so the image includes a stylized version of the Salcido Drop-In Center.

The feet of late-stage alcoholics is a disgusting thing to behold. It’s even worse in person. Because the smell.

Here’s another, more recent shot of a man’s rotting foot. Do I need to point out these are ALL WHITE MEN?

If these images are too visceral for you I’m NOT sorry because I didn’t invest 7 years of my life working at a homeless shelter just to sugarcoat reality for people who would like to pretend our elected leaders have a fucking clue about what’s REALLY going on in their own backyard.

That said, since I know reality can be a stomach-turning affair, here’s a plastic brick rendition of a common scene from my days working at the shelter:

If you would like to help support the injection of reality into local municipal conversations, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is one way to do it, and throwing me a donation at my about page is another.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Did I face a municipal inquisition for being the man who supposedly impugned staff on Monday? No, and I also didn’t SHOUT at officials during the City Council meeting, but that apparently isn’t stopping Martin Kidston’s outlet, the Missoula Current, from pulling out ALL the stops to impugn MY character, starting with this VERY misleading image, which I’ll get to after sharing a definition of the word IMPUGN.

If the picture above is NOT from last Monday’s Council meeting, then when was it taken? And why would Kidston use it? Well, answering the first question may help to answer the second, so I offer something called PROOF that the image above is from the press conference after the passing of our former Mayor, John Engen, on August 15th, 2022.

Same lineup of people? Check. Same clothes? Check. So, why use THIS picture? One reason could be the fact Martin Kidston doesn’t seem to attend Council meetings in person anymore, so a fresh picture of me NOT shouting at City Council couldn’t be taken. Instead Kidston used an image from the live feed of the meeting, as seen below.

Why does Kidston prefer the digital live feed instead of watching the action in person? Is it to keep the consuming of Pilsners and Pale Ales away from the viewing public?

Another explanation for why the Engen-is-dead press conference image was selected could be that little documentary I helped make about Engen’s TIF addiction. In this documentary a local activist describes a conversation with Kidston AFTER a City Council meeting. According to the activist, the aroma of alcohol wafting from Kidston’s yap-hole was noticeable. Is Kidston holding a grudge from this depiction?

If you doubt the potential for pettiness from Martin Kidston, let’s examine MORE PROOF of my claims, in order to avoid IMPUGNING anyone with specious accusations. The proof of pettiness was documented at Strandberg’s place, Big Sky Words. Thanks Greg! This stuff, in hindsight, is VERY illuminating when we’re thinking about WHY our local media is figuratively crawling along the linoleum floor smearing blood with a axe in its back.

This embarrassing Twitter thread went down in March of 2019, less than 10 months before Sean Stevenson was assaulted inside the Poverello Center, then euthanized by the Sheriff’s Office when they pulled him off life support without his family being notified first, something I chatted with a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist about last month.

I’ve also been chatting with some entities that do advertising business with the Missoula Current, and so far I’m encouraged with the direction those conversations are going.

Yesterday I was excited to see the Missoulian selectively report on the disruption that occurred when Mayor Hess took issue with my public comment and point-of-ordered me down. The image that accompanies this article goes all the way back to 2013, when my work in the Reserve Street area was just getting established (I started working at the Poverello Center in 2008).

From the link (emphasis mine):

Early in the Monday meeting, two public commenters stormed out of City Council Chambers after Mayor Jordan Hess instructed one of the men to refrain from making personal attacks in accordance with city rules.

Travis Mateer, who bills himself as an independent journalist, incited Hess to speak out by maligning the executive director of the Poverello Center. Mateer previously worked at the homeless shelter.

“… As long as you (the director) keep your mouth shut about people that were murdered inside your facility and some of the sexual assaults that are happening and some of the other violence, you might be able to ascend…,” Mateer said loudly during a public comment opening Monday.

He claimed his attacks were directed at an organization, not an individual, despite directly citing the executive director position.

With all this fun language being deployed against my terrible, awful, no good, very bad public comments (which you can watch for yourself by clicking here), you’d think maybe the reporter would want to reach out to me BEFORE the article hits, but no. So I asked, but haven’t heard back yet.

To process all the strong emotions I have from 23 years of living in Double Standard Town, I’ve made some songs and visual art I’ll be sharing in Friday’s post, so stay tuned! Even if it’s just to hate-read me, or to take notes for future litigation.

To help what I “bill” as independent journalism, please consider supporting Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), or making a donation at my about page. The donations are definitely starting to trickle in, which I’m very appreciative of.

Thank you for reading!