Like many cities across the United States, Missoula has been grappling with how to accommodate people who are forced to sleep outside when housing is out of reach. Unfortunately, the Missoula City Council has ignored expert recommendations and significant community input related to Missoula’s “urban camping” policies; instead some City Council members pushed ahead with a harmful and restrictive urban camping ordinance that will demonstrably make life harder and more dangerous for Missoula’s unhoused residents.
For months, the ACLU of Montana was part of an urban camping working group in Missoula, alongside dozens of other organizations, impacted community members and passionate advocates. This working group repeatedly made recommendations to the City Council about the importance of a comprehensive and coordinated approach to supporting Missoula’s unhoused community. Our recommendations emphasized the importance of basic services–including trash collection, sharps containers, and access to bathrooms–and prioritized support for unhoused community members over punishment. These three services, which support survival, were among the most discussed within the working group and the collective community would benefit from those services being provided. We also called for Missoula to recognize and advise people who are unhoused where they can go prior to any regulatory action.
For the most part, the City Council seems to have ignored those recommendations and moved forward with a very different plan.
Substantively, the plan is untenable. It restricts camping across the vast majority of Missoula, pushing unhoused community members away from safety, resources, and community. Exacerbating the problem, the ordinance lays out a confusing maze of buffer zones where camping is prohibited, but fails to acknowledge where camping is allowed. The City Council stated that the system for enforcement would be complaint based. This will further pit housed and unhoused neighbors against each other and creates an arbitrary enforcement scheme. Similarly, it is unrealistic and cruel to require individuals to “dismantle…and remove all personal property” between 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM, opening another avenue for removing unhoused individuals and causing destabilization of their lives. This will prove impossible for many community members.
You can read the working group’s minority report at bottom; it expands on these issues and goes into detail about short and long term outcomes, proposed steps, and a comprehensive strategy to move forward.
City Council had a final vote on the ordinance in a public hearing on Monday, June 24, 2024, and the ordinance passed with a majority of Council support. The ordinance goes into effect on July 25, 2024, but this isn't the end.
Please continue to put pressure on by contacting the Missoula City Council and encouraging the city to do the right thing and treat our unhoused neighbors with dignity and respect. All community members need a safe place to exist, and deserve access to essential services. Make sure our elected officials know that they work for all of us, not just those that are housed. Tell City Council members that we want to see our unhoused neighbors safe and in community and that focusing on regulating survival behavior is ineffective and expensive across the country.
In the meantime, we encourage you to treat the unhoused members of our community with respect and dignity. Support some of Montana’s many shelters, connect with the Open Aid Alliance, or visit the Montana Continuum of Care Coalition to learn more about the resources available across the state. You can also check out the National Homelessness Law Center and consider getting involved at the national level.
Despite the recent Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v Johnson, unhoused people still have the same constitutional rights as anyone else. The ACLU of Montana and our coalition partners are continuing to explore other ways to protect unhoused people and hold governments accountable.
Ultimately, the answer to solving homelessness lies in providing more support, not less. Cities need to work hard to create and maintain more affordable housing. Housing is the solution. We will be closely monitoring the situation in Missoula. Please reach out through our intake system if you are impacted by these decisions in Missoula and you need help.
