Viewpoint: Missoula can’t afford to close homeless shelter
Daniel Carlino
Missoula cannot afford to close the shelter without another alternative in place. When the Missoula City Council votes to defund the Johnson Street shelter without providing alternative places for people to sleep, it negatively impacts all of us. This decision is not just a logistical challenge– it’s a humanitarian crisis in the making.
Every night this winter, over 150 of our neighbors relied on this shelter as a last resort. These are veterans, workers, seniors on fixed incomes, and young people facing systemic barriers. When we talk about shutting it down, we’re talking about forcing our neighbors to sleep in cars, alleyways, riverbanks, and doorways. Hot or cold, rain or smoke, the outdoors will be their only option. That is not the Missoula I know or one I want to see.
The consequences of this decision ripple far beyond those who lose access to shelter. We will all feel the effects as unsheltered homelessness becomes more visible downtown, along the river, and in our neighborhoods. Our emergency services will face increased strain by responding to preventable crises that could have been avoided with stable shelter. And in this year’s city budget, taxpayers will shoulder higher costs in the form of increased security patrols, police responses, jail stays, and new hired staff to remove people’s tents and tow their cars.
These are not real solutions. It’s far more fiscally responsible to address the root causes of homelessness than to waste millions of taxpayer dollars shuffling vulnerable people from one unsafe location to another, only pushing them further away from permanent housing.
We can fund this shelter without cutting any other vital city services. One clear option is to rethink how the Missoula Redevelopment Agency has been using our tax dollars. For years, public funds have gone toward subsidizing redevelopment projects like the downtown Stockman Bank, Marriott Hotel, and even a Starbucks. Just this year, millions of our tax dollars were spent on redeveloping high-end luxury housing units.
Missoula’s economic system is punishing the people who sustain Missoula and sustaining the people who exploit it. Imagine if we redirected this money to people who actually need help. We could ensure everyone has a safe place to sleep and invest in long-term solutions instead of short-term optics.
Closing the Johnson Street shelter without an alternative plan is a short-sighted move. It won’t make homelessness disappear; it will make it harder to manage and more dangerous for everyone. Missoula needs a real plan. That means having enough permanent, year-round shelter solutions paired with resources and plans to get people into permanent housing.
The Missoula that we’ve all come to love is a community that takes care of one another. We must have the political will and common sense to fund safe places for people to sleep at night. The solution to homelessness is housing.
On the City Council, I have pushed for policies that address affordable housing, housing-first solutions and wrap around services that address homelessness at its roots. This is how we build a safer, more compassionate, and sustainable future for all of Missoula. It is our moral and civic duty to ensure that no one in our community is left without a safe place to sleep. We can do better, and we must. The cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of compassion.
Daniel Carlino represents Ward 3 on the Missoula City Council.