3/3/2025
“Helena This Week” is reported and written By JoVonne Wagner. Send your Helena news and tips to [email protected].
Nonprofit officials concerned staffing reductions could delay loans
A Habitat for Humanity project that would bring hundreds of affordable homes to East Helena could face delays in securing funding from a federal development program after staff changes at its state office, according to nonprofit officials.
Rose Hills, a 250-acre, mixed-income housing development in East Helena, is projected to have about 1,500 homes constructed over the next two decades.
Nearly 400 of those units will be permanent affordable housing that Helena Area Habitat for Humanity planned to help build through loans issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development.
The state USDA’s Rural Development office is tasked with processing low-interest housing loans and grants, which are crucial to organizations that focus on assisting low-income applicants with affordable homeownership.
However, Helena Area Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Jacob Kuntz is concerned that the USDA program’s ability to deliver funding aid will slow significantly after key staff members recently resigned. Kuntz said he was told last week by a USDA official that two employees left their roles after being offered buyouts.
“These programs have been critical across the state but have been a part of our planning for housing construction in Rose Hills,” Kuntz told Montana Free Press. “Four hundred units kept permanently affordable through a land trust means we would be protecting upward of $60 million in equity in these homes for future generations of homebuyers.”
Kuntz said the rural development program has assisted the nonprofit in funding about 54 homes in the Helena area through its Section 504 Direct Loan program, which comes directly from the USDA.
In addition to loans, Kuntz is concerned that the program’s Mutual Self-Help grants, which assist homeowners in constructing their houses, could also stall.
Prior to staff changes, Kuntz said the rural development program funding increased construction production from about 10 homes per year to nearly 24. Now, those numbers are expected to slow.
When MTFP last week asked the Montana USDA Rural Development office to confirm the recent reduction in staffing, a staff member declined to comment or provide their name or title.
Another spokesperson at the state office referred MTFP to the national USDA office, which did not respond to inquiries. It’s unclear if the staffing reductions are related to massive layoffs in the federal government during the early days of the Trump administration.
Helena Area Habitat for Humanity is not the only Montana affordable housing organization that relies on rural development program loans.
Butte’s National Affordable Housing Network and NeighborWorks in Great Falls both work with the program in the same way as the Helena nonprofit — by providing opportunities for affordable homeownership.
Representatives from the Butte nonprofit declined to comment. NeighborWorks’ executive director Sherrie Arey told MTFP that the organization will miss working with the experienced staff who had been with the program for years but will do its best to continue securing housing aid through the federal office.
While loans and grants are not necessarily going away, Kuntz said the veteran staff members’ knowledge and experience had greatly benefitted the loan program.
“Without this and other programs and the staff at [rural development], our ability to build homes not just in Helena but across Montana will be severely curtailed,” Kuntz said.
Public Notice
How the Helena?!: On Tuesday, March 11, the local community group How the Helena?! will host a discussion night and panel with local unions and workers at Ten Mile Creek Brewery, 48 N. Last Chance Gulch, at 5:45 p.m. The event will discuss workplace rights, collective bargaining and critical issues for workers in Lewis and Clark County.
5 Things to Know in Helena
City transportation grants on hold: City transportation director David Knoepke last week told members of the Helena area transportation committee that two federal grants that were awarded to the city earlier this year have been put “on hold.” The two grants, which totaled about $4 million, aimed to increase pedestrian safety and connectivity in and around the city. City grant coordinator Amanda Opitz told MTFP that the U.S. Department of Transportation informed the city that the kick-off meetings regarding the projects were “postponed until further notice.” DOT has not responded to MTFP’s inquiries.
Commission adopts neighborhood plan: City commissioners officially adopted the railroad district neighborhood plan during a meeting last week. The plan sets up a guideline for future development, housing and business growth, and potential zoning changes around Helena’s Sixth Ward. It includes strategies for addressing community decay, vacant properties, streetscape designs and non-motorized transportation.
Made in Montana: The Made in Montana Trade Show will be held at the Lewis and Clark Fairgrounds, 98 W. Custer Ave., from Friday, March 7, to Saturday, March 8, to showcase authentic made-in-Montana food and goods. Friday will be reserved for wholesale sellers and buyers from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The trade show will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday with free admission. Visit the Montana Department of Commerce website for additional show information.
David’s Bookstore closed: After being open for three weeks, David’s Bookstore closed last Monday at the Holter Museum of Art. Museum Executive Director Christina Barbachano told MTFP that nearly 75% of David Spencer’s 25,000 books sold, bringing in between $18,000 and $20,000. Barbachano said the remaining books were put away for Spencer’s nephew. The Holter won’t know the exact sale numbers from the temporary bookstore until sometime in March, but about 60% will go toward Spencer’s estate.
KinderSprouts goes full-time: The Helena Public School District announced last week that its early literacy program for 4-year-olds has expanded to full days due to its success. The district is now screening students for the fall semester and will offer the program five days a week. Due to limited availability, parents interested in the program will need to have their child assessed as soon as possible. To register for a free screening, visit the district’s website or call 406-324-2047.
3 Questions For
The University of Montana’s Co-Lab for Civic Imagination and the Montana Repertory Theatre will be in Helena to present its theatre program, “State of Mind,” on Monday, March 3, at the Holter Museum of Art at 7 p.m. The production aims to create a discussion about behavioral health in Montana. MTFP spoke with State of Mind’s project director Michael Rohd about the purpose of the program. His comments have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
MTFP: Can you tell us about the production and tour?
Rohd: It started as a project of the Co-Lab as we began to learn about the behavioral health landscape in Montana and wanted to figure out how artists could contribute to some of the needs across the state, particularly around tackling stigmas, making resources more [understandable] and making opportunities for people who live in Montana communities to talk to each other about mental and behavioral health.
The tour launched in September. It will tour for at least two years, and we’re currently in the middle of the first big leg. We’ve been to nine communities, and we’ll be in about 14 more in the next couple of months. Then in the late summer [and] fall, we’ll start a whole other swing across the state.
We do a public performance, and then we do a coalition meeting with behavioral health stakeholders from around the community. The tour seems to be going really well. We’ve been meeting incredible partners and collaborators in communities around the state. We do workshops with high school students. We do workshops with teachers and local health care providers and local public health officials. Folks feel like there’s a need to be having these conversations, and, in general, folks seem to be really interested in having them in creative and surprising ways.
MTFP: Based on the tour, what does the discussion around mental health look like and how have other communities responded to “State of Mind?”
Rohd: All over the United States, there’s a real mental health crisis, right? The Surgeon General declared last year actually a loneliness epidemic as a public health crisis. We know Montana statistically has been really struggling in the last batch of years with suicide rates, depression, with anxiety, among youth and adults. I don’t know that it’s never not an important time to have these conversations, but certainly in Montana now it’s a very important time to have them.
It’s different in a lot of ways because we’re in really different communities, right? The conversation in Glasgow, in some ways, is pretty different from the conversation in Big Sky, from the conversation in Billings and so on, but there are some themes. Some of them people talk about are social isolation and the challenges of loneliness and sort of through one’s day and what it means to get support, reach out for support and how scary it can be to reach out for support. So a lot of the conversations are about stigmas but also about how to be there for each other. One of the common threads, of course, is the scarcity of providers we have across the state, but also an acknowledgment that the providers we do have are incredible and are working so hard.
MTFP: What would you want to let Helenans know about the production? What can they expect to see?
Rohd: Mental health is complicated and can be heavy to talk about. It can also be joyful and celebratory to talk about how folks come together and connect. So the show itself is a fun show. It sounds strange saying it about a show about mental and behavioral health, but it’s really playful. It takes a lot of different forms. There’s monologues, there’s scenes, there’s music, there’s dance. It’s really kind of surprising and an enjoyable experience, and that’s not just me. We hear that from our audiences over and over again. So I wanted to make sure as folks read this and they think about coming Monday night, that it’s not a lecture. We’re coming to a show that uses performance and conversation to get at these issues in different ways.
We’re there to talk about a serious subject, and you are going to be asked to think about stuff. But you’re also going to laugh. You’re going to feel great joy, possibly community pride, and you’re going to enjoy connecting with folks that you know and probably don’t know.
It’s theater in a way that people don’t typically see. Theater, which I think in some ways makes it more accessible, in a way that sometimes folks feel may be put off by the idea of coming to a play.
