Flathead Warming Center offers daytime services while seeking injunction

The Flathead Warming Center reopened Wednesday afternoon to offer limited daytime services in Kalispell, but the revocation of its city-issued conditional use permit means overnight stays remain impermissible.  

A federal judge next week is expected to hear the Warming Center’s arguments for a temporary restraining order to reopen the shelter for overnight stays while a lawsuit seeking reinstatement of the permit works its way through the court system. That process could take years, said lawyers for the North Meridian Road shelter.  

Lawyers representing the city of Kalispell have filed an opposition to the motion arguing the shelter “failed to satisfy the required criteria for issuance of a restraining order.” Civil litigators Todd Hammer, Marcel Quinn and Seth Rogers of Hammer, Quinn and Shaw PLLC are representing City Hall. 

A hearing on the emergency motion is scheduled for Oct. 25 at 9 a.m. at the federal courthouse in Missoula. 

Showers, laundry and a space to keep warm are available from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week, according to a press release from the national nonprofit legal firm, Institute for Justice, which is representing the Warming Center in the suit. Social workers and a licensed addiction counselor will be onsite to provide services.   

The former overnight homeless shelter saw its conditional use permit revoked on Sep. 16 in a 6-3 decision by Kalispell City Council. Councilors argued that the shelter reneged on promises made in its permit application and negatively affected the neighborhood, citing public comments made by concerned neighbors over months of public hearings and work sessions. Loitering, public defecation, drug use and other criminal activity by shelter guests were some of the complaints made by nearby residents.  

In the lawsuit against the city, lawyers for the Warming Center argue that the revocation violated state and federal law by taking away the shelter’s “vested right” to the property. The city’s revocation process was set up retroactively in a politically charged attempt to vilify the homeless population and blame the shelter for issues of homelessness felt city-wide, they said. 

Flathead Warming Center Director Tonya Horn learned that the shelter could retain its daily operations after reviewing the city’s response to the injunction request filed in federal court. 

“CUP recission does not prevent [shelter leadership] from operating the [Warming Center]. The rescission effectively means [shelter leadership] simply cannot offer overnight lodging,” read the city’s response to the motion. 

Horn said the news was “a surprise to us, because that’s not how we understood anything through that process or through the resolution. The resolution that the City Council passed didn’t say any of that.” 

In a September interview with the Inter Lake, City Manager Doug Russell said that revocation means the property can no longer operate as a homeless shelter but can still perform uses allowed under its zoning.  

Russell declined to comment on pending litigation. 

Jack Underhill can be reached at junderhill@dailyinterlake.com and 758-4407.