MISSOULA — The city's mayor and the Missoula Redevelopment Agency have proposed allocating excess funding from the Johnson Street Shelter to help fund the city's housing sprint as shelter operations wind down over the next few months.
But questions over the legality of using tax increment to fund a social program prompted MRA board members to seek a legal opinion from the City Attorney's Office before the funding is allocated to the housing effort.
MRA Director Ellen Buchanan advocated for the proposal, which would direct $44,000 remaining from a temporary bathroom project at the Johnson Street shelter to the housing sprint.
“This is really an investment in protecting our previous and future investments in the inner wards of the city,” said Buchanan. “That's where our districts are and it's where our work has been done, and it's ground-zero impact for folks not fortunate enough to have a permanent home.
Last year, MRA allocated $500,000 in tax increment from Urban Renewal District II to help fund bathroom modules at the shelter. Private donations also raised around $275,000 in an effort to minimize the amount of tax increment needed to fund the bathroom project.
Currently, around $2,200 remains from the private donations and $42,000 remains from MRA's investment into the bathroom project. Buchanan believes the funds can be used to help fund the city's housing sprint.
“This is not going to be an inexpensive undertaking,” she said. “The estimate is that we'll need $400,000 for this initial (housing) effort. The motivation is, as we phase out the shelter population, we work with them intensively to get them into housing. We're already seeing the fruits of that.”
Housing sprint
The city last winter applied a $30,000 grant from Community Solutions to explore an atypical response to homelessness. The effort resulted in a housing sprint where the city worked intensively with 15 homeless veterans in a push to get them housed.
The resulting effort found housing for 12 of those veterans and the entire effort was conducted over 60 days, or what the city dubbed a “sprint.” The city is now looking to take the same effort to the Johnson Street shelter and work to get its residents housed before the shelter closes this September.
“We have turned our entire houseless program team on this. They're doing office hours at the shelter. They're working with folks to find out what their solution is,” said Mayor Andrea Davis. “At the end of these five months, I don't expect 165 people to find housing, but we'll work diligently to do that.”
Backed by a majority of City Council, Davis opted not to fund the Johnson Street shelter's $2 million annual operating cost after this year. The city had funded that cost using federal Covid dollars, which have since run out.
“I did make the decision to not continue to fund the shelter after this fiscal year, because we didn't have any federal funds left,” Davis said. “The federal dollars we had to operate it are no longer available to us, and the city doesn't have the ability to absorb that cost into its general fund.”
Signs of success
Based on its experience with the veteran housing effort, the city has placed the cost of the housing sprint at around $400,000. It's a fraction of the shelter's operating costs and success places shelter occupants into housing.
Davis said the city has $40,000 currently earmarked for the effort and has received a $150,000 commitment from an unnamed source. If the $44,000 contribution from MRA is legal, it would bring the housing sprint's budget to more than $200,000.
Efforts to wind down the shelter have already begun, and Davis said they've found housing solutions for four shelter occupants in the last two weeks.
Buchanan said the Johnson Street neighborhood is also eager to see the shelter close and the property redeveloped. Helping fund the housing sprint could expedite that effort.
“If there are concerns over the legality or appropriateness of using the funding this way under state statute, there's no need to transfer the money tomorrow,” Buchanan said. “The neighborhood would like to see that next step go forward. But to get there, we have to do this first. We have to do what we can to find people housing.”
