The Flathead Valley’s only low-barrier homeless shelter announced Wednesday that it had filed a lawsuit in federal court against the city of Kalispell after the city council voted to revoke its permit following complaints from neighbors. As part of the lawsuit, the Flathead Warming Center is seeking an emergency order to remain open as cold temperatures approach and the legal saga unfolds.
Officials with the Flathead Warming Center and the Institute for Justice — a national nonprofit public interest law firm that was partnering with the shelter to file the lawsuit — said in a press release that the center’s constitutional rights were violated when the city council voted to close it.
“Kalispell’s decision to shut down the Flathead Warming Center without citing it for breaking any law is not just heartless — it’s unconstitutional,” said Jeff Rowes, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, in the press release. “The center has a vested property right to continue serving the homeless, and the city is scapegoating the center because it doesn’t want to deal with the realities of homelessness.”
The decision by the council to revoke the conditional-use permit in September followed a months-long debate about the future of the shelter. The facility opened in late 2019 as a low-barrier shelter near downtown Kalispell. Kalispell has one other shelter, the Samaritan House. Many shelters require people staying there not to be using drugs or have a criminal background, but a low-barrier shelter does not have those requirements. The shelter was open nightly from October until April. When the shelter first opened it had 20 beds but later expanded to 50. The shelter’s executive director, Tonya Horn, said those beds were full almost every night, and the shelter often had to turn people away.
But since the shelter opened at its current location on North Meridian Road in 2020, there have been complaints about the facility and its impact on the surrounding area. City Council President Chad Graham said he had heard from constituents who had found human waste and drug paraphernalia in their neighborhood. He also alleged that the warming center was attracting more homeless people to the area, although officials with the Flathead Warning Center refute that claim. Graham said that ultimately a condition of the original permit was that the operation of the warming center have little impact on nearby residents and businesses.
On Sept. 16, following two hours of public comment and debate, the Kalispell City Council voted 6-3 to revoke the Flathead Warming Center’s permit, effectively shutting it down before winter.
On Tuesday, the warming center filed a lawsuit against the city in U.S. District Court in Missoula. Attorneys allege that the city violated the warming center’s property rights by revoking the conditional use permit. The suit notes that the non-profit would have never purchased the building on North Meridian if it did not have the right to use it as it saw fit. The suit goes on to allege that the city was unfairly targeting the warming center because it helps homeless people.
“The government can’t act as judge, jury, and prosecutor to strip the center of its property rights, just because it doesn’t like what an owner is doing,” attorney Christie Hebert in the release. “Kalispell is scapegoating the warming center for serving the homeless when it should be supporting its mission. Shutting down the center won’t make the homeless disappear — it will only make the problem worse.”
The warming center asked that a judge issue an emergency order allowing it to reopen before winter.
“Winter is coming fast, and for many people in our community, the warming center is the only thing standing between them and the deadly cold,” Horn said in the release. “The city is treating us like we’re the problem, but we’re part of the solution. We provide a safe, warm place for people to stay in an emergency. Without us, they have nowhere else to go. It’s inhumane to shut us down just as temperatures are about to plummet.”
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