by Travis Mateer
I like public lands and because I like public lands I do NOT like urban camping.
Did any of the “roughly a thousand people” who showed up on Sunday feel the same way I did? I don’t know because my sign was NOT like all the other signs at McCormick park, so instead on enjoying some communal solidarity because orange man bad, I felt acutely alone in this large crowd.
(I’m calling this piece A TALE OF TWO DUIs)
Since I’m not a part of the resistance network to Trump I didn’t know Missoulians were being herded into a public turnout against reducing government. After seeing the size of the crowd my first thought was WHO IS DOING THE HERDING?
The posters for Sunday’s event were slick, the Instagram account is fresh, and the claims of organic support are out front for everyone to see and feel fuzzy about, but what, or who, is actually spending the money and time to do all this? It wasn’t until the KPAX article came out that I finally saw a name, and the name led me to an organization. Thanks KPAX!
The “March for Our Public Lands” protest began at 11 a.m. with several speakers — including several Democratic Missoula lawmakers — marking the start of the protest by addressing the crowd.
“By taking away the people who take care of the land, it’s going to open it up for potentially private sale or turning the land over to the states, which could then lead to private sale, which is not what we’re trying to do,” said march co-organizer Haley Gamertsfelder.
Here are some unpopular data points about the person and the organization involved with Sunday’s showing of public support. Haley is a “Mid-Atlantic” transplant who had the money to travel around Europe with her sister for 4 months before coming to Montana in 2018 for an internship with the Continental Divid Trail Coalition, a non-profit interested in telling states to fuck off so nature can be nature again for all the privileged hikers who like taking their Patagonia gear into the woods. If you think I’m exaggerating, go take a look for yourself.
The selection of “public lands” as the topic to rally around is, I suspect, a highly calculated move because public lands casts a wide net of support in Montana, which is why Democrats so often use it to turn out their voters. It’s also why these same advocates are incapable of dealing with “urban camping”, or the even more amusing phrase used by Missoula’s whiniest socialist, Kristen Jordan: SURVIVAL CAMPING.
In an article today at Western Montana News I’m quoted regarding the impending closure of the Johnson Street Shelter, a “low barrier” bandaid that would have become permanent had the neighborhood not organized against it. One of my answers addresses reducing homelessness in Missoula by better assessing who has genuine ties to this town because having genuine ties greatly increases the chances of getting into and STAYING IN housing.
The drunk man who hassled my friend and I for money near Flippers on Friday night, then asked to join us at the bar, does NOT have genuine ties to Missoula and he IS staying at the Johnson Street Shelter. He arrived from Colorado in May of last year and hopes to be moving from the Johnson Street Shelter to the Transitional Safe Outdoor Space soon.
Later that night, at the same bar, a woman putting coins into a gambling machine wanted a cab ride back to the Poverello Center. She was old and VERY dirty, visibly scratching her head and skin like she had scabies or bed bugs or something. Without teeth, her speech was barely understandable, but the bartender managed to decipher enough to call this woman an Uber, since there were no other cab service, she said, at this time of night.
I helped this woman get to her walker and exit the bar to the parking lot where shortly her ride showed up. The black man with an accent I’ll hazard the assumption is a refugee took one look at this woman and sighed. I used my service-provider 6th sense to ask him a question: “Have you had issues with her before?”
I asked out of ear-shot. He said yes, just the other night, and it was bad. He was VERY reluctant to even consider taking her on again, so I said that it wasn’t his job to and explained my former role as someone who dealt with this exact kind of thing.
After the refugee Uber driver canceled the ride, I updated the bartender. The old woman did a really good job pretending she was in a dire, intractable situation as I left her on the sidewalk. I didn’t feel bad because I knew this type of case from years of experience.
The following night I stopped at the same bar and the guy gave me an update on the welfare check they called as they closed up. When the cops came the woman who said her legs barely worked SPRINTED away from the cops and hid somewhere, apparently hiding good enough to elude law enforcement. Impressive.
This type of case would normally fall under an agency like “Adult Protective Services” in a functioning state, but Montana is NOT a functioning state. I watched the decay up close and in real time, which is why I’m so damn effective at showing readers how the gears of the HIC con operates. HIC, of course, stands for the HOMELESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.
While Los Angeles tries to account for BILLIONS of unaccounted money for homeless services, a comment on X reminded me that even those in EXPOSURE positions on social media can turn out to be less-than-credible grifters, which is the category I’m tempted to put Kevin Dahlgren in after finding out about his fraud case.
A former homeless services specialist for the city of Gresham who was accused in 2023 of abusing his official position and committing multiple counts of theft has pleaded guilty.
On Monday, Kevin Dahlgren pleaded guilty to one felony count of first-degree theft and one felony count of aggravated identity theft, as well as one count of first-degree general misconduct, which is a misdemeanor, according to Multnomah County court documents.
…
Dahlgren was arrested that fall, accused of stealing thousands of dollars and committing identity theft as a city employee. A Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office investigation had centered around his use of a city-issued procurement card, an official source told The Oregonian/OregonLive. A grand jury then approved an indictment on Oct. 26, after hearing testimony from witnesses.
At the time, Dahlgren had 25,000 followers on X, formerly known as Twitter, where he posted videos of homeless people, often accompanied by his own opinions on “empowering not enabling” them. He now has nearly 56,000 followers and continues to post the same brand of content, referring to himself as an independent journalist.
Another potential grifter posting CRITICAL content I would normally be sympathetic to about homelessness stopped responding to me for an interview I was trying to set up with him at the time.
Determining what’s genuine and what’s grift is nearly impossible these days, so I recommend staying vigilant, including ME. Of course, since I have such a public proclivity for Lego play, I don’t think I’m at risk for being taken too seriously.
If you would like to support my citizen journalism, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is one way to do it (thanks you Mr. Warrent!). I’m still working on those alternatives.
Thanks for reading!