Day: May 24, 2023

by Travis Mateer

I had already begun reassessing my opinion of a specific private security firm before listening to Pat Montgomery describe his deep appreciation for how patrols in the neighborhood around the Poverello Center lessened the criminal behavior that had been causing YEARS of concern for those who live in proximity to the homeless shelter I used to work at on West Broadway.

Since I’m NOT enthusiastic about having to consider being wrong about something I felt so righteously RIGHT about, I did a mental inventory to determine what, exactly, I found so problematic about the contract Rogers International had with the city to provide security around the Poverello Center and surrounding neighborhoods, and that is the fact WE WERE NOT TOLD about the extent of the geography being covered by this security firm.

It was this failure to communicate to the public that ultimately led to suspicions from myself and some other people living on the Northside about what was actually happening with a city-funded contract for private security.

To understand this time period, you have to ALSO understand that I was working on the documentary Engen’s Missoula, which is about how Tax Increment Financing was being thrown around to rich developers, like Nick Checota, so it was unsettling to have private security constantly parked on the street where my main documentary collaborator lived without knowing WHY they were parked there.

After the news broke in February of 2022 about how private security patrols were being used in the surrounding neighborhoods, a damage-control effort by city officials ensued. I wrote this post the following month, after speaking with the principal of Lowell School, showing how few people seemed to know about the extend of these patrols, including the principal of the elementary school.

Here’s a quote from the NBC Montana article that I would have resisted believing was accurate at the time:

Rogers has been patrolling these areas since September, and so far president of operations David Pritchard says they have seen some success.

“I would say definitely if anyone was to drive by that area and look at it, it’s quite a bit different than it was three to four months ago,” Pritchard said.

…

We sat down with Pritchard, who says they have been successful in limiting some of the chaos that surrounds Montana’s largest homeless shelter.

But in our sit-down interview, he says success hasn’t come from the use of force.

“We build relationships, so if a couple of people are ready to fight out in the street, we are able to go up talk to them, separate them and mitigate that situation so PD doesn’t need to be called,” Pritchard said.

It’s not just the claims about the POSITIVE impact experienced by Pat Montgomery and his neighbors, thanks to the patrols, that shifted my thinking on Rogers International (RI), it was ALSO a conversation with a young homeless man I know that convinced me to reassess my opinions and how they were formed. This young man is VERY challenging to deal with, especially when escalated (and/or on meth), so I was impressed to hear that the head of RI put himself as the point-of-contact for this client because he had established the best repoire with him. I guarantee this relationship absolutely DID prevent calls to police for assistance.

I have since talked directly with RI’s David Pritchard and it was an incredibly illuminating conversation for a number of reasons I won’t get into here. Instead, here’s a tweet:

To further emphasize this failure, which is a SHARED failure by BOTH city officials AND local media, take a look at what Holly Michels tweeted earlier today. For context, here’s her role within local media:

Yep, this is the HEAD of the Montana State News Bureau, which makes this tweet even MORE impressive to me:

I agree with Holly Michels, this is actually a drug hub and working kitchen LARPing as a refuge for poor, desperate campers with NOWHERE ELSE TO GO. It’s encouraging to see someone in the Montana media information-sphere acknowledge reality.

Later today, after this posts, I’ll be attending the committee meeting where the emergency ordinance to deal with urban camping is being discussed. Here’s a screen-shot of a portion of the referral for this emergency ordinance (emphasis mine):

How will this play out? I don’t know, but stay tuned for my coverage, which I’ll post tomorrow. Will I make public comment today? Of course, and I’m even going to attempt to provide a productive suggestion about something relatively simple that COULD be done to help with this all-around breakdown in effective communication.

If you appreciate my work, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is one way to support me, and making a donation at my about page is another.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

With no clear plan on how to proceed with the impending City Council meeting later in the day, I sat in my car wondering what to do. Maybe I should call the Lemhi County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO), I thought, because if there’s a chance of someone knowing Glen “Harley” Stephens, the Sheriff’s Office would be a good place to start.

During my days working at the shelter, when Harley was on the streets, I recalled him mentioning Salmon, Idaho, and work he had done cutting timber. Did he still have family there? When I called the LCSO, the woman who answered wasn’t familiar with the name, but took a look anyway and, sure enough, found an old report from 2003. There was the name of a woman on the report as well, and she worked in Salmon at a grocery store, I was told, so I decided to take a day trip South on Highway 93.

It was an uneventful drive, unless you consider catching a glimpse of the famous Yellowstone ranch from the show an EVENT. My first few stops in town were obviously grocery stores. The last one is where I surmised the woman worked, based on the response of the customer service person, so I left my contact information. If that had been all it would have made the trip worth it. But then I stopped in the Lantern

I almost left town before doing the most obvious thing if you’re looking for family of a chronic alcoholic who died on the sidewalk in Missoula, Montana, and that’s check a local watering hole for stories, so I did and found out a few things about “Buddy”.

Since the bartender’s family went three generations back, he knew Harley’s father, who was also named Glen, so that’s who he thought I was talking about at first. After realizing that Harley–known to the bartender as “Buddy”–was the elder Glen’s son, it made more sense to him, since “Buddy” was known to be homeless on the streets of Missoula.

Harley’s dad had a nickname, which was “Heavy”, and he was known as a tough son-of-a-bitch. Before becoming homeless, Buddy was known to be a hard worker. I confirmed that was something Harley told me, but the car accident in East Missoula was the catalyst for Harley making the streets his new home, because he couldn’t work anymore.

Even though Buddy was a hard worker, he had mean streak, and almost killed a man named Lance when he stabbed him 4-5 times. The bartender also had a tussle or two with Buddy kicking him out of the bar. Sounds about right.

Speaking of BARS, these METAL ones I took a picture of outside The Badlander are a part of Harley’s street notoriety after he tore similar metal bars out of the brick and concrete with his bear hands:

It was this incident that made former Municipal Judge, Kathleen Jenks, desperate enough to have me in her office in order to provide what insight I could on how to address Harley’s extremely unmanageable street presence on the streets. If my memory serves me correctly, Harley had around 85 open cases in just her court alone.

Did I, or DO I, have any magical solutions for someone like Harley? No, but I’m in the process of ensuring his hard life on the streets might inform SOMETHING productive going forward, and this step of finding scraps of his past life is important because I get the feeling there’s ALSO a credibility crisis happening when it comes to our elected leaders, their operators within the Homeless Industrial Complex, and the general public being shamed and coerced into throwing more money at the problem.

The woman who I traveled to Salmon to find called me back on Tuesday, and WHY her name popped up in an old report from 2003 is now puzzling both of us, especially since she (let’s call her Ruby) was only 2 years old at the time. Ruby was familiar with the name “Buddy”, but since she was so young at the time, there wasn’t much else she could add. I did get her assurance she would ask around, since she knows a lot of the old timers in town, and for that I am very appreciative.

Finding next of kin is important for a number of reasons. For me, there’s a chance at some closure, and for the community, there’s a chance to take an unknown and scary reality, which they are being told to just accept as their NEW NORMAL (can’t remember which City Council member said this), and make it a little less unknown and scary by showing the monetary cost of this one man’s impact, and identifying WHY he was so impossible to contain in the first place.

If this sounds like a worthy endeavor, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is one way to support my work, and making a donation at my about page is another.

Thanks for reading!