Local agencies working to build transitional housing for homeless; GFPS program serving homeless students
A group of local nonprofit agencies and the school district are working to serve the unhoused population in Cascade County.
During an Oct. 20 meeting with Cascade County Commissioners, representatives from Alliance for Youth, Family Promise and St. Vincent de Paul discussed their effort to develop a transitional housing facility.
The group received a planning grant through the Montana Healthcare Foundation to help solidify their plan for “newly employed Native and non-Native American adults, teens aging out of foster care, victims fleeing domestic violence, Native Americans and families with children,” Cari Yturri, Family Promise’s development director, told The Electric.
They also partnered with Opportunities Inc. last year to apply for a grant for permanent housing through the Montana Continuum of Care, but it was never funded, and they’re hoping to “dust” off that application and tailor it for a new grant opportunity for transitional housing.
During the Oct. 20 meeting with county commissioners, Yturri said they’re looking at options to fund services for the unhoused.
They’re looking for funding and property.
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The recently opened Baatz permanent supportive housing by NeighborWorks Great Falls serves a segment of that population, but she said the local need is greater.
Baatz opened this fall and is now fully leased, NWGF Director Sherrie Arey told The Electric earlier this month.
Baatz aims to help the chronically homeless and is coupled with supportive services to address related issues of addiction, mental health, employment and more.
For the group meeting with the county on Oct. 20, they said a particular need is housing for teenagers aging out of foster care, those who are employed but unhoused and others that fall through cracks of existing programs.
Yturri told commissioners that they’re not to a point, “we’ve really got to dial in on a place and how many spaces we need” and partnership agreements, which they’re hoping to solidify in the coming months.
She said they need about three acres of land for about 30 units and 8-10 tiny homes.
It would have to be a Montana tax credit project, she said, and they’d prefer new construction.
“If people have housing, it makes a huge difference in their lives,” Yturri said, especially for children.
Deb Kotel of St. Vincent de Paul, said she thinks it works best when housing is segmented, since all housing types don’t work for everyone in the unhoused population.
At Grace Haven, a female veterans home, they’ve been full, but run into issues if the women have male children older than 12, since they don’t allow them to live in the home for the safety of everyone else.
“Family housing becomes absolutely critical,” she said.
Kristy Stroop, director of Alliance for Youth, said that there’s a significant need for transitional age youth housing.
She said they get a lot of calls for group homes around the state with 17-year-olds turning 18 with nowhere to go.
“It can be really challenging,” and about 50 percent of foster youth become chronically homeless, Stroop said. “That’s just not okay. They didn’t choose their situation.”
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Stroop said while there’s a need, her agency can’t afford and doesn’t need an entire facility, but would need specific units, making the partnership for housing appealing.
Kotel said that the facility would likely need to be near public transportation since many of their clients don’t have vehicles and need to get to work.
Yturri said Family Promise has a shuttle and both see their clients with cars.
Stroop said that Alliance for Youth pays for their clients to get driver’s licenses, but then they need a vehicle.
Greg Grosenick, Family Promise director, said that it’s an invisible crisis, as people are spread out across town, living in vehicles and campers.
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The proposed facility could serve multiple agencies and they could pool services to offer interim housing.
They’re two units were designed as 90-day stays. They have two moms in them now, one for six months, one for almost a year, since there’s so much to tackle.
Kotel said there’s no use getting people out of transitional housing quickly only to have them fail again.
Grosenick said they get so many phone calls but they have nothing to offer for housing.
“We’re like an island, if we don’t have emergency housing, there’s nowhere for them to go,” he said of Great Falls.
The proposed housing project wouldn’t solve all of the community problems, he said, but would help alleviate some.
“What a shame for the people who are ready to change, who can change, not to have the support and the resources to do it,” Kotel said.
Asked for potential funding or land, Commissioner Joe Briggs said it was unlikely as they’re cutting positions out of their own budget due to limited resources.
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Yturri said they also wanted commissioners to be aware of their effort and to invite them to Night Without a Bed on Nov. 20, an event that highlights how local agencies work together to address homelessness.
Briggs said he was glad they asked to meet with commissioners, because he wasn’t aware of the effort, but “I’m just trying to figure out what we could do. We can’t put money on the table.”
The county was able to support the Baatz project through federal COVID relief funding, but that had run out.
Briggs said the county was currently reviewing it’s property and facilities, but were limited by statute on donating property only for low income housing, and they recently granted their one large parcel near city services to NWGF for a potential housing development.
They have a larger parcel south of Great Falls, Briggs said, but they’d likely try to sell it since it doesn’t fit for low income housing.
He said they’d keep an eye out for potential property as they review county holdings.
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Kotel asked commissioners if they work with the city on homelessness issues.
Briggs said he was meeting with the city planning director that week on housing and annexation, but the problem was the city lacked a strategy on where it wanted to grow, making it hard for the county to match its zoning.
The city is currently developing its new growth policy, which was last done in 2013, and Briggs said they’d see what came of the discussion.
Briggs said tiny homes should be part of the discussion on homelessness and land use, but there was significant push back within the current city commission on that idea, though state lawmakers had mandated it.
Kotel said that the community has become upset with issues of homelessness, but often put them all in the same bucket.
She said that the city had moved the homeless and transients out of the downtown area, but they’d moved to the west side, and residents in that area are upset about it.
Kotel said some residents in the area had tampered with the gas meter at Angel Home and threatened violence over it. Another keyed an employee’s vehicle because they were mad the homeless were in their area, making some of her volunteers scared to come.
“The nature of the community is changing a little as the problem gets more severe,” she said.
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During the Oct. 27 board meeting, Great Falls Public Schools officials discussed their demographics and services for homeless students.
Erin Bucher, student services coordinator, said one of her roles is supporting the liaisons who work with homeless students and their families.
Their programs operate under the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, which provides federal funding to ensure homeless students have access to public education. The program has specific guidelines for qualifications and students and families are reviewed annually for eligibility.
Lee Houle, one of the district’s two homeless liaisons, said he’s been in his job about 17 years.
Homeless students are a “wounded population” whose parents aren’t necessarily able to provide for them.
They transport students to and from school, which can be challenging as they’re always changing locations,and deliver food to some families in need.
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Houle said they keep lists of rentals and when someone’s in crisis, they try to connect them with resources.
The liaisons spend time with the students and try to be an extension of what they’re teachers and counselors are trying to instill, Houle said. “We just build good relationships with them.”
Bucher said the GFPS program “is about leveling the playing field and providing equal access to education for students who have difficulties depending on living situation.”
Eligibility includes students living in the Rescue Mission, with another family, with too many kids in a bedroom in a house, hotel or motel, living in a car or camper, a home without sufficient facilities or unsheltered.
They have to review annually to see if students qualify and be re-enrolled in the program, and also throughout the year as situations change.
Staff is working on identification now, Bucher said, and last year they had about 400 students identified through the McKinney–Vento program with about two full time employees.
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That’s down from the 2021-2022 school year, when about 500 students were identified, but they also had four full-time employees working on identifying students and connecting them with resources, she said.
Bucher said that they’ve focused on graduation rates for the students identified as homeless and in recent years, they’re data was:
- 2021-2022: 82 percent, or 9 of 11 students
- 2022-2023: 22-23: 92 percent, or 11 or 12 students
- 2023-2024: 90 percent, or 18 of 20 students
- 2024-2025: 100 percent, all seniors identified within the homelessness program graduated
This year, Bucher said, they’re focusing on identifying and supporting unaccompanied youth.
Marlee Sunchild, school board member, said Houle is “an absolute hidden hero of this district. We’re so lucky.”
Kim Skornogoski, school board member, said national graduation rates for homeless students hovered around 50 percent, so to be graduating the majority of those students from GFPS “is amazing. Truly, truly amazing work.”
She said that the students that fall into GFPS’ program, don’t necessarily fit the definition of homelessness used by other agencies, so the Bucher and her staff were providing resources that other local agencies can’t.
“Really there’s no words that we can share,” Skornogoski said. “To capture the impact of what you do.”
