Kalispell City Council revokes overnight homeless shelter's permit

Updated 5:14 p.m.

Kalispell City Council voted 6-3 to revoke the Flathead Warming Center’s conditional use permit during a packed meeting Monday night. 

Councilors Kari Gabriel, Sam Nunnally, Sid Daoud, Jed Fisher, Chad Graham and Mayor Mark Johnson voted in favor of shutting down the low-barrier homeless shelter on North Meridian Road. Councilors Sandy Carlson, Jessica Dahlman and Ryan Hunter opposed the move. 

Councilors favoring revoking the permit argued that the shelter failed to uphold its promise of being a good neighbor, contradicting its permit application submitted to City Hall in 2020. They also cited the collapse of talks between shelter leaders and neighbors during a 60-day negotiation period over the summer.  

“We have a lot of neighbors in that neighborhood that have been so negatively affected as [the Warming Center] hasn’t been operated as it was promised,” Johnson said.  “What we were told is going to happen, isn’t happening.” 

Dahlman and Hunter countered by arguing that shelter leaders abided by the conditions stipulated in its permit and were unfairly expected to address issues of homelessness felt countywide and statewide.  

“There is no question that the problems in the neighborhood are real and serious,” Hunter said. “The unfortunate timing of the Warming Center’s opening made it too easy to cast blame on them.” 

A revocation of the center’s permit was effective after Council voted on it, and the property can no longer be operated as a homeless shelter, said City Manager Doug Russell in an interview on Tuesday. He said that the property can still perform uses allowed under its zoning. 

Horn said in an interview with the Inter Lake on Tuesday that she and others are still in the facility working and are “looking at all our options.” Horn said that revoking the center’s permit was a violation of its constitutional right and that litigation is a possibility. 

During the Sept. 16 meeting, City Attorney Johnna Preble said she was unable to find a case dealt with by the Montana Supreme Court that had to do with the revocation of a conditional use permit.  

Horn addressed Council prior to the vote, speaking during a public comment period that lasted around an hour.  

“We have been truthful with the city of Kalispell, we did not lie on our application,” she said.   

Graham brought forward the motion to revoke the shelter’s permit, presenting what he described as a findings of fact that he said showed the shelter reneged on promises made in its application. 

Graham referenced a section of the shelter’s permit application that responded to resident concerns brought up when the shelter hosted a neighborhood meeting. One such concern was public defecation, which came up several times during public comment and in discussion between councilors on Monday night.  

In the application, Horn wrote that in her experience running a shelter previously, guests often want to give back to the community they are a part of by picking up garbage and generally being protective of the neighborhood.  

Don Johnson, a resident on Seventh Avenue West North, said he lives on a “nasty corner by the fairgrounds” and watched a homeless person urinate on the sidewalk outside his house. He said he has seen individuals smoking drugs.  

“My neighborhood has gone to pot, literally,” he said. 

Other speakers, who wore blue buttons proclaiming, “I stand with the neighbors,” reported cleaning up bodily fluids around their property, walking customers from their business to their parked cars and worrying about their children playing outside.  

Graham cited the city’s zoning ordinance, which states that that the proposed conditional use should not have more adverse effects on the health, safety or comfort of persons living or working in the area than would any use generally permitted in the area.  

Zoning gives Council “a remedy for such times,” Graham said.  

Hunter disagreed with Graham’s interpretation of the ordinance, saying that the language applies to the original application and consideration of the permit.  

“Nowhere does it suggest that these sections apply years after the conditional use permit has been approved,” he said.  

Horn told the Inter Lake that the shelter has not been provided names or evidence that the people committing the described acts were guests of the Warming Center. The only way the shelter can hold people accountable for unlawful action is by denying them service, which has been done on multiple occasions, Horn said. 

Graham argued that the passage of time did not transform a conditional use into a use by right. 

“If it cannot be revoked than what good is the process of a conditional use permit?” Graham asked.   

Fisher, who was not on the Council when the shelter’s permit was granted in 2020, said he recognized the need for homeless shelters in the valley, but was disheartened to hear of the failed negotiations between the facility and its neighbors.  

“That stalemate kind of tells me ... that there hasn’t been a good communication back and forth which was on the Warming Center,” he said. “I am so saddened ... that some compromise couldn’t be found here.”  

Johnson said that the shelter’s hiring of a lawyer may have affected how negotiations with the neighborhood went.  

Horn defended hiring an attorney in her interview with the Inter Lake. 

“Of course we have an attorney, absolutely, any entity would have done the same,” she said. 

Fisher worried that allowing the shelter to operate would adversely affect businesses and decrease property values in the area.  

“What we can do is bring people in right now,” Fisher said, suggesting that residents take in homeless people themselves ahead of the winter.  

Hunter called Fisher’s suggestion “incredibly naive,” saying that the scale of homelessness in the area requires funding and professional services. Fisher said that he has taken people under his wing before and asked Hunter if he has done the same.  

Gabriel, who lives in the ward where the shelter is located, said that in her “21 years on this Council, I don’t think I’ve been met with a more contentious issue.”  

She said that she has heard of public indecency, sexual acts, drug use and other disturbances to people’s homes and businesses in the area.   

“I was elected by my neighbors, and my neighbors have spoken, and I am hearing from them that we have to do something.”  

Hunter said he was skeptical of the city’s legal authority to revoke the shelter’s permit, referencing a memo sent from the city’s legal office that officials said remains under attorney-client privilege.  

“We have to make a judgment. Whose attorneys do we want to face?” Johnson asked. “Because I guarantee you, if we don’t vote to [revoke] we are going to see attorneys from the other side.”  

Jack Underhill can be reached at junderhill@dailyinterlake.com and 406-758-4407.

    Program manager Ray Young at the Flathead Warming Center on Tuesday, Sept. 17. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider