Warming Center helps solve the challenges it is accused of creating

Kalispell City Council’s upcoming work session to discuss challenges surrounding homelessness demonstrates they are doing their job. 

Concerns raised by residents and business owners neighboring the Warming Center are alarming and need to be addressed. However, it is troubling that several council members have already floated the idea of revoking the Warming Center’s conditional use permit. Approaching the upcoming work session with the preconceived notion that the Warming Center makes our community’s challenges with homelessness worse belies the reality of the crisis at hand.

The Flathead Warming Center opened the winter of 2019-20. Initially, the center sheltered 20 individuals a night in the basement of a church. At the time, there was a growing need for a low barrier shelter, which many social workers attribute to a devastating set of budget cuts in 2017 that gutted services to our neighbors struggling with disabilities, mental illness, and substance abuse.