MISSOULA — Brad Carlson is more familiar than most Missoula residents with the city’s new rules restricting where and when homeless people can camp on public land.
He served on the community group that wrote recommendations leading to the ordinance — although he was one of several members who dissented from the final report — and since the rules went into effect at the end of July, he’s been cited twice for breaking them.
Carlson has camped under the Russell Street Bridge for about six months. He was cited for being too close to the Clark Fork River, too close to a path or sidewalk and for having belongings outside his tent, all which he disputes.
The rules are too confusing and the city should start over, Carlson recently told Montana Free Press. The restrictions, particularly the rule banning camping from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., cause undue hardship to those without permanent shelter, he said.
“Nobody is happy with this,” Carlson said. “The people who didn’t want the ordinance are not happy and the people who wanted it are not happy.”
Nearly two months after the new rules went into effect, the city’s staff is still working to implement and enforce the controversial ordinance. The slow rollout and unpredictable enforcement have caused confusion and frustration in the community. Some residents are upset that the ordinance isn’t being enforced as promised or that people are allowed to camp in parks. Others are concerned about how the restrictions will affect unhoused people, especially as winter approaches.
Dale Bickell, the city’s chief administrative officer, said Missoulians have a lot of expectations, and disparate expectations, of how the ordinance should work. The city is taking time to measure and expand its capacity to implement and enforce the new rules, Bickell said. When local laws are passed, there’s not a switch flipped to implement them right away, he said.
“This is an incredibly comprehensive and complicated ordinance dealing with a really complicated issue,” Bickell said. “For local governments, we’re plowing new ground. We’re learning how to deal with [homelessness]. It hasn’t been resourced, and that’s an overall challenge we’re facing.”
The city previously banned all camping on city property but had not enforced the rule in recent years, in part because of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that cities couldn’t criminalize homelessness if there is not adequate shelter available. In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling.
Missoula’s new law, which took effect July 25, sets buffer zones around houses, businesses, nonprofits, schools, daycares, shelters, trails, sidewalks, rivers and creeks where people are not allowed to camp. Camping is banned within conservation lands, as well as in McCormick, Caras, Westside, MRL, Playfair, and Downtown Lions parks, Fort Missoula Regional Park, the Clark Fork Natural Area and Jacob’s Island Dog Park.
Individuals can camp in other city parks but not within 100 feet of features like a playground, splash pad, paved sports court or pavilion. Where camping is allowed, tents must be taken down from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day.
The new law establishes a vehicle-camping permit system allowing someone living in their vehicle to stay parked in certain areas for up to 90 days before needing to move to a different street.
Under the new rules, city officials must refer individuals to a shelter or other temporary housing and provide information about services before enforcing the ordinance. A first violation gets a written warning with suggested remedies. Subsequent violations may be enforced as a municipal infraction, which is not a criminal charge.
The city is still “phasing in” enforcement of the buffer zones and other restrictions, Bickell said. City officials are not strictly enforcing the 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. restriction in certain areas, like lower-priority buffer zones, but are enforcing it in priority areas such as developed parks, he said.
“We’re moving towards enforcement of certain aspects of this, but not in a big way,” Bickell said. “We’re trying to be methodical and thoughtful about how we do it.”
Bickell said the city doesn’t have a deadline for full implementation and enforcement because “we need to be right more than we need to be fast.”
The new law promises an “urban camping resource guide” that will show the locations of public bathrooms and a selection of sites where camping is allowed on city property. In late July, the city put out a flier with a summary of the ordinance and a map showing examples of parks where people could shelter overnight.
Staff selected the 10 locations around the city as examples because a map including 56 parks where camping is allowed seemed “untenable,” said Ginny Merriam, the city’s communications director. The map was “quickly co-opted” by people saying the highlighted locations were where the city would put homeless encampments, Merriam said. After many calls from “irate” residents, the city discontinued its use of the map around the first week of August, she said.
The city is working on a new map that will likely show the location of resources, including shelters, public bathrooms, water, the Missoula Food Bank and mental health services, Merriam said.
The ordinance calls for the mayor to develop a support program to provide storage spaces, bathrooms, trash collection and other resources. While portable toilets were initially dropped off at several parks, they were removed shortly after. Many parks have permanent or seasonal bathrooms, and the city is determining what locations need extra resources before adding them, Bickell said.
The ordinance also directs the mayor to investigate creating designated camping and safe parking sites, and those conversations are underway, Bickell said.
The vehicle-camping permit system is still in the works. Bickell said staff were waiting for budget authority and are onboarding new code compliance employees and working out program details. The city doesn’t have an exact timeline of when the system will be ready, but Bickell said it should be in the coming weeks.
The city has been slowly implementing the limitations to sheltering on public lands and is measuring its capacity to provide education, warnings and citations as outlined in the ordinance, Bickell said.
In the meantime, city staff are reaching out to those needing shelter to educate them about the new rules, he said. The city has “made contacts” with people camping in places where people have traditionally sheltered outdoors, but staff are not asking people to move until the city knows its ability to provide services and enforce the rules at locations where camping is allowed overnight, Bickell said.
The city is doing some enforcement, including cleanups this month at the Downtown Lions Park, West Broadway Island and under the Russell Street bridge, Bickell said.
From late June to the end of August, the mayor’s office received 73 complaints regarding the ordinance, Bickell said. The code compliance department received 277 complaints, most about a specific instance of someone sheltering outdoors. The city received 191 reports of people sheltering outdoors through its online complaint form.
As of Tuesday, the Missoula Police Department has issued 93 written warnings and 21 citations under the new ordinance, according to the department.
Along with police officers, code compliance staff and the city’s contracted security firm, Black Knight Security, can provide education and warnings. So far, only police have issued citations.
Staff training on the ordinance is ongoing as the city continues to implement the policies and procedures, Bickell said. Missoula Police Patrol Capt. Matt Stonesifer said the department gives officers information and training about how to implement the ordinance through emails and during daily briefings.
“Just as the community is learning about this new ordinance and the things it requires, so is the police department,” he said. “We’re doing the best job we can to get folks educated and understanding how to use the ordinance as a tool to be part of the larger solution.”
Stonesifer said the department’s current enforcement strategy is complaint driven and officers are not searching for people violating the ordinance. Not all calls related to urban camping result in a warning because sometimes no rules are broken or a camp may be on private property, which could instead lead to an arrest or criminal citation, he said.
When officers respond to a complaint, they should inform the person about the ordinance and describe any violation, Stonesifer said. The written warning should also identify the violation and provide a remedy, he said. The law gives people 24 hours to fix the violation.
Stonesifer said the department aims to generate voluntary compliance and would like to see people fix the problem and access resources. If the violation continues, officers have discretion to issue a citation, he said. Whether police follow up after issuing a warning depends on a variety of factors, including if there are health or safety issues, further complaints or if the camp is in an area the officer prioritizes, Stonesifer said.
“This is all resource dependent,” he said. “Urban camping is a matter of great public concern, but officers have an entire city to police. The department responded to over 50,000 calls last year. There’s a whole lot of other stuff taking up our time.”
To ensure someone violating the ordinance has been given a warning before a citation, a copy of the warning is turned in to the police department’s 24-hour desk and added to a spreadsheet that all enforcing agencies can access, Stonesifer said.
Bickell and Stonesifer acknowledged there is some confusion about what police, security officers and other staff enforcing the ordinance can and cannot do. Police and security officers can’t force people to move, even if they’re given a citation for violating the rules, Stonesifer said. People may be removed for breaking other laws or to allow the city to clean up the area, he said. The rules allow directors of the public works, parks and recreation, and community, planning, development and innovation departments to determine when removing urban campers is necessary for a cleanup.
Stonesifer encouraged residents to read the ordinance and improve their understanding of what it does and doesn’t allow.
While the ordinance states enforcement should be compassionate and “attempt to minimize adverse impacts,” Carlson, the unhoused resident, said enforcement creates barriers that make it harder for himself and others to escape homelessness.
Carlson said the city isn’t equitably enforcing the rules, and judging from the warnings and citations he’s received, some police officers seem to be following a summary of the ordinance, rather than the text itself. The summary and the ordinance have several discrepancies, Carlson said.
On Sept. 4, the ACLU of Montana sent a letter to the mayor and city council highlighting similar inconsistencies and requesting they be corrected.
The summary includes four additional parks on the “no camping” list, states that camping is not allowed 50 feet from the river’s high-water mark instead of the water’s edge, and bans open-flame appliances except approved barbecues in allowed areas, while the ordinance allows certain portable camp cooking stoves.
Marthe VanSickle, the ACLU’s staff attorney, told MTFP the organization noticed some discrepancies and was contacted by partners who did a more comprehensive review.
“We believe it’s incredibly important at the bare minimum that the city be consistent in its explanation to the community and make sure unhoused neighbors know where they can go and what resources they do have access to,” VanSickle said. “While we don’t agree with the ordinance as it’s written or with criminalizing poverty, we want the city to be fair with what they’ve enacted and make sure everyone understands the boundaries of it.”
VanSickle said the city needs to issue an accurate map people can use to find a spot they’re legally allowed to stay. The city also needs to establish consistent resources, such as trash disposal, storage, needle disposal and potable water, she said.
“They need to provide people with their basic needs so they can survive in the city,” VanSickle said.
Bickell said the city is considering its response to the ACLU.
“They raise important questions on how we define these things,” he said. “Those are things we will consider. Particularly, in some of those river corridors, we’re taking a slow pace on trying to enforce those things. … Over time, our enforcement will change in those areas, but we’re just really trying not to create confusion and chaos as this rolls out.”
Parks department leadership determined the additional parks are unsuitable for camping for a variety of reasons, including the number of kids’ programs at some and a history of criminal behaviors at others, said Merriam, the city’s communications director. The ordinance states camping isn’t allowed in areas temporarily or permanently signed “no camping” because of health, safety or welfare concerns. The nine parks closed to camping have signs stating such, she said.
Council member Kristen Jordan said she is frustrated by the lack of accurate information on the ordinance, as pointed out by the ACLU, and that the RV-permitting system is not yet available.
Jordan said she and many members of the Urban Camping Working Group wanted the city to set up authorized campsites before enforcement actions, which is one reason she voted against the ordinance in June.
The city and Missoula County ran an authorized camping site on Reserve Street for about 11 months in 2022 before shutting it down due to budget constraints and difficulty managing the space with limited staff and resources. Jordan said the site wasn’t set up properly, got too big and didn’t have enough resources.
While not perfect, the designated sites would provide fixed locations for unhoused people to store their belongings and stay where service providers could find them and provide resources. The designated sites could make “all populations more comfortable,” she said.
“Because we decided to pass a really confusing regulation, including exclusionary zones, nobody can figure it out,” Jordan said. “And suddenly houseless people are getting cited and residents are ticked because camping is allowed in parks.”
In August, the city received a slew of calls from Ward 4 residents upset that portable toilets were placed at nearby Bellevue Park and that people could camp there, the Missoulian reported.
Amber Sherrill, Ward 4 councilor, said on July 25, the day the ordinance went into effect, portable toilets were placed at multiple parks because of a miscommunication with the vendor. That created a lot of confusion, especially since it was the day after a major windstorm left Missoula grappling with widespread damage and power outages, she said.
Sherrill said she has talked to lots of constituents about the ordinance and takes their concerns seriously. The city removed the portable toilets and slowed the implementation of the new rules, she said.
“We’re looking at it overall and more comprehensively because it doesn’t make sense to have people in every place,” Sherrill said. “We have not perfected how we’re rolling this out and how we’re enforcing it at this point. It’s a work in progress, and we’re making sure we’re doing it in a humane and thoughtful way instead of just trying to get it done.”
Across town, in the neighborhood north of the Clark Fork River between Russell Street and West Broadway, Kari Neal and many of her neighbors are concerned about the apparent lack of enforcement of the new rules.
Neal said she has seen urban camping and unsafe conditions in the area increase over the last three years. The lower-income neighborhood feels disproportionately impacted because of its proximity to the Poverello Center homeless shelter, nearby parks and the California Street pedestrian bridge, she said.
Mayor Andrea Davis said in a statement that one goal of the ordinance was to lessen impacts of urban camping by creating smaller, less-concentrated areas across the community, but not all neighborhoods are experiencing the same effects, Neal said.
“I feel the city owes it to us to be more diligent in these areas and actually uphold, stringently, their own rules and policies,” she said.
Neal said by relying on citizen complaints to prompt enforcement, rather than responding proactively, the city is not doing its job. Implementation of the ordinance is confusing, and the apparent lack of enforcement and accountability is reducing compassion among some residents as they become more upset and frustrated, she said.
“I want to not judge people for this, but I feel unsafe,” Neal said. “I have a house to go into, so I’m privileged. But I have to pay for this and I’m frustrated.”
Bickell, the city’s chief administrative officer, said moving unsheltered people around all the time isn’t helping anybody.
“We’re trying to make sure that the shelter can be as attractive to as many people as possible,” he said. “Trying to find that balance of what is going to be acceptable to the general public and what is going to be the least harmful to our unsheltered neighbors is key. And it’s hard. There is not a lot of agreement on either side of this.”
Before the ordinance was approved in June, several service providers, including the Poverello Center, raised concerns that it would make it difficult for people to find or maintain jobs, attend medical appointments and access other basic amenities.
In the last couple months, the Poverello Center’s Homeless Outreach Team has heard from unsheltered people that the rules create instability, said Katie Leahy, the team lead. Not knowing where they will spend each night and carrying their belongings around limits peoples’ ability to get a job or housing, she said.
“It’s a huge burden on folks and it’s stressful,” Leahy said. “When you don’t have stability, it’s hard to work on things that would bring stability.”
Most of the people complying with the ordinance are able-bodied and have jobs, Leahy said. Many who aren’t are older, have disabilities or health conditions that make it difficult to move a tent every day, she said.
The team is having a harder time connecting with people who are moving around daily, Leahy said. Outreach workers don’t start until 9 a.m., an hour after people are supposed to have moved, she said. The team, typically a go-to source for other service providers looking for folks, is struggling to find people and help them make those appointments, Leahy said.
It’s hard to say if the ordinance is encouraging people camping outside to stay at the shelters instead, said Jill Bonny, Poverello Center executive director. The number of people staying at the Poverello Center has remained about the same, but the Johnson Street shelter has seen a slight uptick, she said. The bump could be because of the ordinance, the change in weather or the new bathrooms, Bonny said.
While more people stay at the shelters during the winter, some don’t for a variety of reasons, including past trauma or because they are on an “out” from the shelters for breaking the rules, Bonny said.
“No matter how many shelter beds we have, we’re still going to have some people going to stay outdoors,” she said. “My hope is that number is very small but there will always be some people that will be there.”
Bonny said there has been some misunderstanding of the ordinance in the community, and it will take time to figure out what will work and what won’t.
“The Pov knows that homelessness is not good for anybody,” she said. “It’s not good for people experiencing it, it’s not good for the neighbors around our shelters and throughout the entire community, and it’s not good for the environment. We just need to keep working towards a solution so people can move forward. I think communication and respectful communication is key.”
The last two months have been difficult because the city is changing things and still figuring out how enforcement is going to work, Leahy said. Telling people where they can’t go but not where they can go is confusing, she said.
Bonny said the Poverello Center has heard from people living in vehicles who want to know how to get a permit. They, along with those sheltering in tents, want to know what the rules are and how to comply, she said.
Bickell, the city’s chief administrative officer, said an updated resource guide should be available in the coming weeks to point people in the right direction.
Measuring the ordinance’s success is difficult, as it’s unclear how many people are sheltering outdoors in Missoula right now, Bickell said. Success could include a variety of factors, such as shelter use, number of citizen complaints and citations, he said.
The ordinance calls for an annual review in January. Council member Sherrill said it’s more than likely the council will consider tweaks to the rules at the beginning of the year, if not before.
“Implementing and having something on paper sometimes don’t always line up perfectly,” she said. “I was sure on this first iteration there would be changes, but how big, I do not know. We’re really just rolling out the program, so it’s hard to know what those look like yet.”
Despite varying views of the camping restrictions, many Missoula officials and residents agree it won’t solve homelessness.
The city is working on an updated plan to address homelessness with a focus on housing solutions, but solving the problem will take a national effort, Bickell said.
“Getting people into permanent housing where we don’t have a lot is difficult, and we don’t want to do anything drastic or harsh that can upset that goal or take us steps backwards,” he said.
