Homeless shelters in Montana are overwhelmed with demand, seeking state funds to expand operations
Montana the Surprising Mid-West Homeless Hub
We read in this article you get to read about a lot of experts and one single homeless lady who made it off the streets. But you also get a clear picture of why resolving homelessness is failing nationwide, but they also slip in the formula for turning that around.
Introduction
This is a fairly brief article filled with numbers, facts, opinions, and a story of a lady struggling to get off the streets. You must learn how to read in between the lines to glean away truth from these numbers.
Housing prices increased, affordability dropped, rents skyrocketed, jobs shrank, medications increased, and food vanished, a very bad combo for those living on the edge.
Who, you ask, is living on the edge? Just about everybody these days after the Pandemic and housing shortage came to bear on the average American who is not an illegal.
Let’s look at His word as we start today
Isaiah 1: 17
Learn to do right, seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless., plead the case of the widow.
Micah 6: 4
He has shown you o mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
What say you…
Spend millions year after year and have the title of the best do-gooder or actually slow down and find the solution, which, oh, yeah, one means truly caring….
You know it is just a bunch of numbers that the government gathers up to defend their careless spending of our hard-earned money, there are no lives attached to those numbers, not really, are there?
The Numbers are Staggering in Montana
If I were to simply write out the number quoted from this short but powerful article you may not fully believe, but they are accurate. And they are fully reflective of the national numbers if the other states would admit to the crises in their own states. Montana has the greatest increase in Chronic Homelessness across the United States, the number is nearly beyond comprehension, 551% since 2007.
Trust me, I had to read the article twice before it dawned on me how high it was. We know of rent increases and the mortgage problems, so that will translate to more shelter days. In Montana in 2022 the average was 100 days and in 2023 it went to 180 days, time will tell where it will land for the year 2024, I am sure it will be more the 180 days with the rent problems nationwide right now.
Shelters are busting at the seams; one must do emergency demolition during the winter to prevent people from freezing to death. The demand for shelter beds has risen 30% in the past five years. Now let’s flip the script and end on a great note, 82% of a test group of Formerly homeless people who received housing, services and employment and accountability have remained housed and stable.
Who Wins When Money is Divvied Up?
The article references the $300 million that the legislator is working on divvying up, but we do not read that they involved anybody from the community who works with the entities that are involved with the homeless. Personally, I find that strange. If you have that amount of money, would it not be best to go to the ones who need it, who are supposed to be using it, to ask them how to break it down for them?
When I hear of something that is to be divvied up I immediately know that it is so that money can be taken or given to people who are not directly involved in the organizations that are supposed to be receiving the money. I mean why else would the state legislator be working on this lump sum of money without input of the community that is to be impacted by the money?
The situation is most likely this, competing demands for not allowing shelters, low-income housing, and the like to be developed in any given area of the state of Montana. People do not like shelters, they do not like low-income housing, and they do not want the homeless in their area, you cannot have all three, something must give, unless you are ready to send the homeless to jail like FL is trying to do with its new law. If you do not want street-dwelling homeless then you have to allocate areas for shelters and supportive housing and homelessness will surely go down in a short and given time frame.
So Many Causes, Including Food Deserts
I have a term that I like to use when I am reading through these articles, it is ‘word salad,’ and no it is not an overly positive term, but it is effective for some of the stuff the ‘leaders’ are trying to shovel out thinking we will simply accept it. This article’s word salad award goes to something that is not stated but it implied, inability to get food and afford food, it is a serious component of homelessness.
So, in Montana 30 of the 56 counties are considered Food Deserts, which boils down to this, it is very difficult to obtain and afford good, healthy food at a reasonable price. Then it goes a step further in talking about food issues, Montana is also known to have many barriers to the Consumption of Nutritious Food. When you take these two together it comes up as Food Insecurity! And no I am not making light of it, it is simply the weird wording that they use, food insecurity is real, and it causes problems for every age group, especially for the homeless.
Trying to pay for rent, having to work extra hours, and then having to drive an extra-long time to find a good food source for the family is not going to happen, so that is where health problems start, poor school performance comes in, and many other issues. But more subtly it also can hasten the road to homelessness by eating away of a tight budget more quickly, while depleting the health of the family
There is a Formula for Success
Now I must credit this article for allowing us to slip the real formula for success as well as an analysis of the costs of failing to end homelessness. It was a brave move that many agencies want to keep hidden from the public because it protects the idea that it is too big to solve, which it is not. $200,000 in a limited area for homelessness costs per year with no impact for the good of the people trapped in homelessness.
That is what the article says. What that means is they are still trapped, dying and suffering on the streets year after year, costing more and more money to maintain.
The first item that must change is staffing at the local shelters, and that is part of the hope that is mentioned in the article, without that change little else can change. Right now, the average shelter in Montana is running on 4.5 staff to 300 people in the shelter over a given weekend, there cannot be much-needed one-on-one service with those numbers.
So, if the staffing can be changed then these are the parts of the formula that can begin to end chronic homelessness not only in Montana but across the nation. First and most important is accountability, despite what you hear, the vast majority of street dwellers do not have an issue with this when the results are a home and a roof over their heads. Then the application of the three-part formula, housing, coupled with services and employment or benefits is the strategy that can end homelessness for anybody.
Note the housing was not independent of services, I am not an advocate of dousing alone, it does not work, it is giving a reward for no work and it will fail a good portion of the time In the small test group noted in the article 82% remained in the homes and off the streets, with an estimated saving of $140,000 annually per person. To me, it is common sense to apply this formula, but it requires large investments up front to work long-term and with NIMBYism running rampant it is hard to establish, but it is worth fighting for.
Collaboration or Collusion, Foster or End Homelessness
There is no other end possible for this national problem, and it is national, it is going to sweep a large portion of this nation into despair and jail, or we will wake up and resolve to solve it, which will it be. We have already begun the wrong answer manifestation with the turn toward caring for the illegals over our own people, and it is not going to get any better until we stand up and demand a radical change, we must stand up!
The Cicero Institute and others like it are working overtime to shift the national heart and mindset toward the homeless person regards of the cause of the situation, they do not care, they are set on enacting criminal measures for homelessness. Domestic violence, addiction, foster kids, disabled, injured workers, and veterans, all have a story, and all have a right to help and hope and mercy.
Now is the time, after reading this short story we must decide, will we collude with Cicero or Collaborate with agencies that are willing to buck the trend, foster the continuance of homelessness or buckle down and look at the formula here and seek to end it? As a bible believing Christian, I know this, we will all give an account for what we did and did not do on this earth, I would rather buck the trends here and work to end homelessness than too give an account in heaven on that day, no thank you. Will you consider joining me?
Conclusion
First, there are parts to the puzzle of homelessness that cannot be solved outside of massive national government changes. They have simply overreached and now we are all feeling the effects. They can impact housing, interest rates, and food shortages. Also, curtail some of the wickedness going on with the homelessness laws.
Shelters must switch as the face of homelessness has changed, now shelters have to adapt and change. It is no longer just the alcoholic and the mentally ill coming in but the worker, the grandparent, the disabled, and older adults raising nieces or grandkids.
Finally get the business of moving the money to the organizations into the hands of an outside company, one that has zero interest in the end result and will only look at the track record and the service being provided and do not allow the government to make decisions. This can increase housing availability, food resources, and schooling for the kids and bring an end to homelessness, not the perpetuation of it.
CTA…
Answer this,
Answer this, in the city where you live what is more important, answers and results or a bunch of numbers thrown around with no results or solutions
Do human beings lose their humanity if they become homeless, if they do not, why do we feel comfortable burying their needs under a bunch of numbers
The Bible states, what you do to the least of these, you have done to Me, what is out track record, not only in Montana as it struggles but in the rest of America
