Month: May 2023

by Travis Mateer

Back in my day of service providing, the Missoula Coordinated Entry System (CES) used an assessment tool called the VI-SPDAT, a fun acronym to spit out to houseless individuals wanting to be assessed and entered into our grand service delivery system. What’s used now? Something called MAP, which I assure does NOT mean minor attracted person.

This assessment tool is provided by a company called Pathways Community Network Institute, so I clicked the link, downloaded the questionnaire, and now we’re going to take a look at how the houseless proliferating along the Clark Fork River, and in nearly every park, are being assessed by this assessment tool. Let’s begin.

Ok, in this first little part of MATCHING FOR APPROPRIATE PLACEMENT, health is the focus. Will a person’s potential disability supplemental income be identified? I don’t know, because we’re quickly on to assessing for the potential of domestic abuse.

The shelters that can temporarily house those fleeing domestic violence are generally VERY restrictive. For example, if a person’s abuser is NOT physically in Missoula, the person fleeing abuse may not be eligible to stay at a place like the YWCA shelter. Organizations can, and oftentimes MUST, put restrictive filters on in order to ensure limited resources are spent wisely. Are municipalities not able to act in a similar manner?

The assessment tools ends with 10 more questions. Here they are:

Before we get to the score sheet, let me point out some things I am NOT seeing. I am not seeing questions that assess HOW LONG a houseless person has been in Missoula, or anything that could determine their ability to SUSTAIN housing, like a local support system. Maybe that information isn’t important to Missoula service providers.

Now, here’s the scoring:

When I look at this assessment tool, what I see is a basic capability to determine whether or not someone is in crisis, thus in need of “crisis intervention”, and nothing more.

What I would like to see are questions like these:

Where did you last receive mail?
What kind of financial assistance do you receive?
Do you have to register as a violent or sexual offender?
Do you WANT housing?
Describe your social support network?

Is it unreasonable to want a better assessment tool in the midst of a homeless tent-bloom unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my 12 years working in the non-profit sector?

Yesterday my day began with a 911 call because a man beneath the Russell bridge was so fucked up, he couldn’t get his pants pulled up, something I implored him to do several times. He just sat there, in a chair, with his pants around his ankles, barely conscious. While on the phone with 911 dispatch, I was told about the non-emergency line. I thanked the woman, but insisted a welfare check be completed anyway.

Since our helpless leaders are looking to THE NATIONAL PROBLEM of drugs as a way to abdicate their own responsibilities locally, here’s a tweet from Seattle worth considering. That city is in serious trouble, as this attempt to scrape back some control clearly indicates:

If you appreciate the context and on-the-ground reporting I’m bringing to this issue, please consider supporting Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), or making a donation at my about page.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

There’s a term that describes a portion of the “houseless” population that eschew conventional methods of assistance toward housing, and that term is “shelter resistant”.

Why would someone be “shelter resistant”, you might be wondering? And why would someone, if given the chance at housing, possibly say NO to that chance?

Well, housing costs money, even when it’s heavily subsidized, and though it might be hard to believe, there are plenty of individuals who have some form of financial assistance, like a monthly disability check, and how they misuse this limited resource is often ENABLED by well-meaning support services.

There are also people who are just plain menacing with their drug-induced behavior, like the guy to the right of the woman in red walking into a local dentist office off Higgins yesterday. Here’s a screenshot from the brief clip I recorded:

I heard this guy before I saw him because he was yelling quite loudly at something. When I finally saw him, and observed his outbursts, I realized he was doing what the mental health professionals would call “responding to internal stimuli”. Here’s a closer look at the dude:

Do you see the direction he is looking? That’s right, he is looking toward the dentist office where the woman in red entered. And guess what he did next? That’s right, he went in right after her. What did I do? I got the magic numbers ready to go on my phone in case he flipped out, then I walked in myself and sat down in the tiny waiting room.

The man approached the desk and said something I couldn’t hear, then left. It was a quick interaction. After he exited the dentist office, he stopped on the sidewalk and started punching the air. I pointed this out to the two older women in the waiting room. I asked the woman in red if she had been worried about him, and she said yes, she had noticed him on her way in, then was worried when he came in after her. She made note the drink in his hand was a Rockstar, not alcohol.

How will our city leaders respond to the houseless drug epidemic? Probably blame the state for not giving them enough money while ALSO claiming the bully transphobes in Helena are murdering democracy like a Missoula County Sheriff Deputy shooting a black man in the back.

If you want to hear what well-paid scapegoating sounds like, my former boss is a REAL professional. What did she have to say at the recent press conference about the city’s inability to address homeless camps popping up everywhere along river trails and parks? Something about homes and pipelines. The quote is below the link (emphasis mine):

“We know the only solution to homelessness is a home. That remains our primary focus,” said Eran Pehan. “We have good things to report with Trinity and Villagio leasing up right now. We’re continuing to build that pipeline so we can provide more homes in our community.”

Pehan, director of the city’s office of Community Planning, Development and Innovation, joined city and county officials last week in warning that funding available to shelter the homeless is limited. Without a new revenue stream, many programs and services they feel are valued by the public will vanish.

The issue was amplified in part by last year’s failed levy, which would have provided up to $5 million annually for local crisis services. Inflation also has added costs to basic necessities while Medicaid changes at the state level will rob thousands of Montanan’s of critical medical coverage.

I will continue to note that the failed crisis mill levy is NOT money that would have been coming online right now, so what we are seeing, very visibly, in everyone’s faces, is NOT the result of voters saying no to the money our city and county leaders did a piss-poor job of selling to the beleaguered taxpayers.

So, who has the money to subsidize the development to cover the inflation to make the right people enough money so that something magical called WORKFORCE HOUSING can be created? Let’s hear from the Senator (who is worried about his reelection prospects) about squeezing Uncle Sam for some Federal loot (emphasis mine):

“Everywhere I go in Montana, I hear about the lack of affordable housing,” Tester said. “It’s killing rural America, and it’s driving folks out of the communities they’ve lived in their whole lives. Too often, one-size-fits-all policies from Washington don’t work for Montana, and that’s why it’s critical we work with folks on the ground on solutions that actually work to increase affordable housing supply in our rural communities.”

Ah yes, politics. For the AG who might be challenging this flat-topped showman, might I suggest a counter-offer of some sturdy, iron-barred, micro-housing?

As I continue to go about ASSESSING and ADDRESSING local issues around the houseless population and public safety, a focus of my messaging will be around trash and the flood stage that could be reached later this week.

I actually spoke with Office of Emergency Management Director, Adrienne Beck, about this yesterday and the shift in how houseless people are dispersed this year could be a variable that provides new challenges. In past years the “shelter-resistant” population most at risk of getting caught in rising river water were primarily under and around the Reserve Street bridge, but that area has been cleaned up and is not being patrolled by private security.

Instead of piling on more serious news about unstable people on drugs and homeless river encampments, how about seeing this stuff through my artistic lens?

Below is an audio recording of a poem I wrote while sitting where Todd’s meth shack once stood, and it leads to a song about revolution. I’m calling this one Meth Shack Revolution! I hope you enjoy it, and please consider supporting Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), or you can make a donation at my about page.

Thanks for reading/listening!

by Travis Mateer

On a hunch that I’ve seen this Zooey Zephry film before, I rewatched a 1985 movie about a hot piece of trailer trash who unwittingly starts a movement for female empowerment by symbolically appropriating a male haircut inspired by a historical woman by the name of Joan of Arc. Are there any relevant messages for today’s movement to ensure young people can make lasting, sometimes irreparable, changes to their bodies? Maybe, so let’s take a look at the legend lesson of Billie Jean.

Here’s how the film begins, from Wikipedia:

Billie Jean Davy, a teenager from Corpus Christi, Texas, is riding with her younger brother, Binx, on his Honda Elite Scooter to a local lake to go swimming. Stopping for a milkshake, they have to deal with Hubie Pyatt, a rowdy local teen, and his friends hitting on Billie Jean, but Binx humiliates Hubie by throwing a milkshake in his face. Later on at the lake, as Billie Jean tells Binx about the weather in Vermont, a place he has always wanted to visit, Hubie steals Binx’s scooter.

As Binx goes to retrieve his scooter later that night, Billie Jean goes to the authorities with her friends Putter and Ophelia. They report the theft to Detective Ringwald, who is sympathetic but urges them to wait and see how things play out. When Billie Jean returns home, she finds Binx beaten, and his scooter severely damaged. The next day, Billie Jean, Binx, and Ophelia go to Mr. Pyatt’s shop to get the amount of $608 to repair the scooter. While initially appearing helpful and understanding, Pyatt propositions Billie Jean and then attempts to rape her.

The attempted rape is disrupted when Binx and friends come to find out what’s taking so long. Binx finds a gun in the cash register and accidentally shoots the sleaze ball, Mr. Pyatt, immediately transforming the kids into fugitives. So, how do the tides turn from helpless kids on the run to the symbolic rise of a rebranded version of feminine power?

Before the haircut that transforms Billie Jean into a legend occurs, the young fugitives meet a rich kid with daddy issues. Conveniently, this rich kid has the technology (video equipment) and social awareness to understand the playing field, not to mention the daddy issues to act on them. And who is daddy? Oh, you know, just a district attorney running for Attorney General.

With the video technology, political acumen, and catchy messaging embodied by the slogan FAIR IS FAIR, all that’s needed is something eye-catching to turn this hot piece of powerless trailer trash into a equalizing force powerful enough to counter the male-dominated world of rapists she was setup to be victimized by. Thanks to a televised depiction of Joan of Arc playing on the TV at the rick kids’ house, Billie Jean gets an idea.

Here’s the lead up to Billie Jean cutting her hair. To set the scene, our merry band of wayward youth are watching their circumstances get terribly misconstrued by television news reports.

Change the channel. Who wants to hear this?

I do.

You like anything that’s on the TV.

While there were no shot fired. The gang head north from here in a late model Sedan…

Late model I wish.

…and reportedly robbed a truck stop on the boarded community of Juliet.

I love it. We’re everywhere.

…yeah, sure they had guns that’s how they got me tied up.

Liar!

…and they broke up the register and cleaned it out. Took $427.

Great now we’re thieves.

Probably took it himself.

Was there anything said during the harass? Just words. Profanity. Vile words. They were bombed out of their minds.

Bastards! They’re all bunch of liars.

I told you.

How can they say things like that?

They can say anything. We’re in the news now.

‘I cannot live.’

Is that a boy or a girl?

‘I was crying through the frost. Blessed church bells, send my voices to me on the wind.’

It’s a girl. Joan of Arc. She dressed up as a man and all the French followed her to fight the English.

Did she win?

Yeah and no. She heard voices. ‘Stop being a peasant, be a soldier. France needs you. Truth. Justice.’ And she won. She beat the English.

And then…

Then what?

The French burned her…

After this exchange, the son of the District Attorney comes up with the idea of countering the false narrative with their own video-taped truth, and Billie Jean comes up with the idea to look like this:

With her newly acquired power–bestowed, in part, by the youth who start idolizing and emulating her (adopting her hair style, for example)–Billie Jean is able to stop abusers from abusing. There’s a bizarre scene where this power is enlisted by kids in a neighborhood where they all know a particular kid, a boy, is being physically abused by his father. Billie Jean enters the home and when the abusive father realizes it really is the now famous Billie Jean, he folds like a spineless punk.

Billie Jean’s own father died in some unspecified accident, that’s why her younger brother had the money for the scooter in the first place, because of the insurance payout. To protect her younger brother, Billie Jean is, in some way, becoming the “man” of her own household.

The power Billie Jean acquires by cleverly marketing her own righteous side of the creep/victim dynamic is emphasized when her own brother emulates her by wearing a dress and copying her hairstyle, while Billie Jean deemphasizes herself by wearing a feminine wig, in a final ploy to get the money owed by the creep.

While it doesn’t go as planned, Billie Jean ultimately exposes the creep through his own inability to not be an obvious fucking creep, and a sort of mob-mentality takes hold of the crowd as everyone decides NOT to help the creep after his store catches fire, including the cop who knows he screwed up at the very beginning by NOT taking Billie Jean’s report seriously in the first place.

Is there a message somewhere in all this for today’s revolutionaries? I don’t know, but I do think the movie is an interesting cultural artifact to consider in light of current events. Maybe it could even help broaden the perspective on an issue making lots of people very upset for very different reasons.

If you appreciate my work reporting on local issues from unusual perspectives, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is one way to help, while using the donation button at my about page is another.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Over the weekend there was a SWAT incident in Missoula, but where? If you check the comments, it appears there was confusion about the location of the incident. Here’s a screenshot of the comments:

So, the reporter got the WHERE wrong at first. And the WHO? Nope, that information is also not available in the “news” article. So, WHAT actually happened? Here’s the extent of what was reported over the weekend:

Well, the Missoulian won’t report on the extent of the man’s injuries, but thankfully I’m not as constrained as our dying local media outlets are, so I’m going to report on the likelihood that the man is dead. How did I come to this conclusion? Simple, I consulted the jail roster and found a mugshot of a woman arrested over the weekend for deliberate homicide.

Later this month, City Club is going to be discussing our deplorable media landscape in Missoula. I am super excited to attend, since I represent the kind of NEW media filling the void left by shit media companies, like the one former CIA agent, John Talbot, married into over half a century ago.

Where do YOU get your local news, Zoom Chron readers? If you are increasingly finding yourself benefitting from my FREE content, posted every weekday at 7am, and the podcast post on Sunday at 8am, then please consider making a donation at my about page, or contributing to Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF).

Later today I’ll have an interesting movie review that might get you thinking a little differently about a certain issue getting ALL the local media attention right now, so stay tuned.

And, as always, thanks for reading!