At a packed Monday meeting of the At-Risk Housing Coalition, Missoula social service providers said the Poverello Center should have talked with the coalition before launching a plan to open a satellite drop-in center.
“Everybody has questions here, which means it wasn't discussed ahead of time in a way that was thorough,” said Shantelle Gaynor, grants administrator with the Office of Planning and Grants.
A location and opening date for the center are temporarily on hold, according to the Pov.
Still, plans that happen in a vacuum mean others have to pick up the pieces, answering questions and planning meetings, critics said Monday.
“It turned into a lot of work for a lot of people in the neighborhood,” said Bob Oaks, executive director of the North Missoula Community Development Corp.
Nearly 50 people attended the coalition meeting; At-Risk Housing Coalition members represent health and human service agencies as well as government departments, and collaborate to prevent and address homelessness.
They wanted to know precise plans for the Poverello's proposed drop-in center. They also raised questions about the need and the target population and asked where clients would go at night.
The Poverello Center applied for and received a mental health grant from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services to open a drop-in center. The Pov receives some $68,000 this fiscal year and roughly $52,000 next fiscal year, according to the department.
It also received a $133,000 operations grant from the Steele Reese Foundation to support the new facility for three years, according to executive director Ellie Hill.
Patty Kent, housing and development director for the Western Montana Mental Health Center, said the proposal indicated ARHC members were partners when none of them knew about the plan. She wanted to know why Pov leaders believe the center will work in Missoula and exactly what would be happening there.
“We still don't have any specifics,” Kent said.
The At-Risk Housing Coalition had earlier discussed opening another kind of center that used to exist in Missoula, a volunteer, consumer-run facility where people working on recovery from substance abuse could go for peer support.
Providers raised questions about the need for the Pov's drop-in center and asked which populations it would serve. The grant supports people who have mental illnesses, but the center has been discussed in the same breath as panhandling. And many providers say they're not one and the same issue.
Melinda Mason, also with the WMMHC, said the majority of people with serious mental illness are reclusive, paranoid and frightened. They're not violent or panhandling. And the connection stigmatizes people who do have mental illness, she said.
Hill said she saw the grant as a short-term solution to the Pov's expansion plans. The Pov isn't currently fulfilling its mission of serving all who ask, and she said she must have the courage and conviction to continue advocating for a center.
At the same time, Hill said she was under the gun to get the grant and did not intend to disrespect ARHC.
“I certainly in retrospect would have done more outreach,” Hill said.
She and other Pov leaders said they were still working on details for the center and planned to invite others to focus groups on the topic.
Now that the center is on the table, Kevin Stewart, program director for the detox and transitional living facility of WMMHC, said he sees it as a good way to strengthen referrals. And a Missoula Indian Center representative said she was excited to learn the drop-in was opening.
“I couldn't believe that it was actually going to happen,” she said.
Mary Jane Fox, community program officer for the state department's addictive and mental disorders division, said the drop-in is a long-term answer for people who need time to develop trust in order to get help. And Fox said it isn't ARHC but the state that decides whether the center is a good idea.
But the center presented as a long-term solution doesn't come with long-term funding, and that also troubles some ARHC members.
“It's a very expensive project that also may not be able to be sustained a year from now when the funding runs out,” said Cindy Weese, executive director of the YWCA.
Reporter Keila Szpaller can be reached at 523-5262 or at keila.szpaller@missoulian.com.
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