Effort launched to create local warming center

Keeping warm during the Flathead’s frigid winters presents a challenge for those without a place to call home and who cannot enter any of the community’s established shelters.

There exists a void in the community’s provision of warmth and safety for the homeless residents of Kalispell unable to meet the standards of the various shelters across the city, according to Tonya Horn, a social worker from Kalispell who has partnered with a team of volunteers to fill that gap with a new low-barrier warming center.

Horn’s 20-plus years of social work includes a stint at the Bozeman warming center, a facility set up to provide basic warmth and safety for the city’s homeless during the coldest months of the year without the stipulations of sobriety or a clean history.

Now, Horn and her allies, Luke Heffernan of Kalispell and Ashley Steyh of Whitefish, hope to establish a similar facility in Kalispell.

According to Horn, homeless residents who are not sober, have a criminal history or struggle with drug addiction do not meet the criteria that would allow them to enter other facilities that cater to different demographics.

However, those people still need basic shelter in order to survive the harsh Montana winter, leading many to take cover in the local emergency room or police station.

A low-barrier shelter, Heffernan said, would meet those two basic needs, “but it won’t be the Hilton.”

A building contractor in Kalispell, Heffernan plans to oversee much of the facility’s design.

His team said the facility will resemble a bunkhouse, an industrial building where anyone is welcome to enjoy heat and safety while being treated with dignity.

“This will be a place where people will know…they can always go,” Heffernan said. “We’re not encouraging people to stay forever, but we’re not going to push them out, either.”

Heffernan’s experience with volunteering for Feeding the Flathead, a local soup kitchen, brought him into contact with many of the people in need of the services a warming center would provide.

People living on the streets struggle to meet the most basic human needs, such as food, heat and safety, Heffernan said.

During her 15 years in the Flathead working with Western Montana Mental Health Center, Horn said she’s witnessed people sleeping in stairwells and beside dumpsters.

The prospect of a facility like the warming center is encouraging for the Kalispell Police Department, according to Police Chief Doug Overman, who said he and his officers consistently deal with the homeless population in a variety of scenarios.

On frigid nights, Overman said the police station lobby has housed a few homeless residents sleeping on the floor to escape the cold.

“These people exist,” Overman said, “whether at this facility or in the bushes in the park or on the edge of the city somewhere, you know. They exist, and they have to find a way to survive.”

According to Overman, even 10 beds would go a long way for providing a place to ensure the security of the individuals his officers encounter on their city patrols on bitter cold nights.

Through the warming center, she and her team hope to give residents a sense of dignity in how they’re treated. Though the team never encourages negligent behavior such as public drunkenness or drug use, they said those factors alone will not prevent them from being accepted into the facility.

Their behavior during their occupancy, however, will determine their ability to stay, according to Steyh.

No weapons, drugs or alcohol will be allowed on-site, and residents will be required submit to an occupancy agreement outlining the conditions of their use of the facility.

However, there will be no background checks, no valid IDs and no interviews required to enter.

During Horn’s time at the Bozeman warming center, she said she rarely saw an instance where residents did not meet their basic behavioral conditions.

Rather, the center created a sense of community and gratitude among those staying there, and lodgers took on the responsibility of holding each other accountable in keeping the peace.

Horn said she remembers feeling safer in the Bozeman warming center than anywhere because of the relationships built and the services offered.

“Everybody will be thankful to be there,” Steyh said, “not trying to get kicked back out.”

In talking with people in the community while trying to gain support for the center, Horn said she felt the need to redirect a common way of thinking.

Many of the people she’s talked to readily supported the construction of a warming center in Kalispell, just “not in my backyard.”

Horn said she believes in the need to rephrase that to say, “no one is going to freeze, not in my backyard.

“It’s more than just about the homeless. It’s about the type of community we are,” Horn said. “I believe we are the type of community that takes care of people.”

The team has begun working with local law enforcement and city officials to begin planning for a location to build, designing the structure and figuring out how to raise the funding needed.

Reporter Mary Cloud Taylor can be reached at 758-4459 or mtaylor@dailyinterlake.com.