City to transfer former J Street shelter bathrooms to county facility
Martin Kidston
(Missoula Current) An agreement between the city and county of Missoula will keep a set of modular bathrooms constructed for the old Johnson Street shelter in use at another facility that also serves the homeless.
In 2023, at the request of the city and other partners, the Missoula Redevelopment Agency allocated roughly $500,000 in funding to place modular bathrooms at the shelter to support the facility's population.
The restrooms went into service in 2024 and continued into the fall of 2025, when the shelter ended operations. The shelter is now being deconstructed ahead of planned redevelopment, and the bathrooms need to be moved.
“The city no longer has an active use for those (bathroom) facilities, but the county does,” said Eric Halstrom, the city's chief operations officer. “We see this as a beneficial transaction.”
The county several years ago established the Temporary Safe Outdoor Space off West Broadway. The facility provides shelter to the unhoused, along with an array of services intended to find residents permanent housing.
The county has made several investments into the TSOS to make it more comfortable for its occupants. The modular restrooms from the Johnson Street shelter mark the latest improvement. The facilities were funded by MRA, private investment and partnerships ranging from a private developer to the Missoula Economic Partnership.
“This was a good investment and I'm thankful to everyone who helped make it a reality,” council member Amber Sherrill said of the bathrooms. “I'm glad we can continue using them and not tearing them down as we do reconstruction of that site.”
The bathrooms were placed at the old shelter and connected to city utilities, but with portability in mind. Transferring the bathrooms to the TSOS will save the county $120,000 in construction costs. In exchange, the county will contribute that to the city's housing sprint, which has successfully placed 63 former shelter occupants into permanent housing, according to city officials.
“At least we're getting some form of recuperation of that money back to be used for a good purpose,” said council member Bob Campbell. “We're getting a return and it's going somewhere where there's an effective program in place” at the TSOS.
Council member Kristen Jordan cast the only opposing vote, suggesting the city's housing sprint hasn't proven its success.
“I think that as a city we've failed to uphold our end of the bargain in what we promised our unhoused neighbors,” she said. “From what I've seen as far as effectiveness, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund has better results than the housing sprint.”