Missoula's municipal primary election will take place on Tuesday, September 12. 2023, and five candidates are running to be mayor.
MTN's Kathryn Roley spoke to each of the candidates on a variety of topics, including how each candidate plans to address the unhoused issue in Missoula.
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Andrea Davis, the executive director for Homeward, an organization that strengthens Montana communities by offering homebuyer education and building financial skills, says that when it comes to the unhoused crisis that Missoula is facing, it’s not just a problem in Missoula, but all over the country.
"Municipal governments are really not in a position to be able to solve this overnight, we don’t have the resources. So, I will say that this is a national crisis and one of the things that I will do as Missoula Mayor is advocate at the federal level for the federal response that is needed because we need access to mental and [behavioral] healthcare. We need access to behavior, mental and substance abuse treatment.”
Current Mayor Jordan Hess says that the City of Missoula is ultimately seeing a housing issue and that the city needs a second shelter to help with the unhoused population.
"So, we have to keep in mind that it’s fundamentally a housing issue and we need to keep working on our housing goals. In the meantime, we need to continue to provide short-term solutions around sheltering and access to services and around maintaining our parks and trails in a safe manner. We need a second shelter in Missoula, we don’t know where it needs to be, and we don’t know who it needs to serve. And we need to have a community about that second shelter.”
Brandi Atanasoff, who says she’s had a diverse background when it comes to her ties in Missoula, told MTN News that having resources available is how the city should move forward with the unhoused.
"To get any resources they need to have their identification, you have to have all of that information. What we need to do to support getting out of this situation is a lot [more] than what...we need to do. We need to put our feet on the ground next to them over and over and over again and show them that we are standing right next to them when they are ready to take that step to get that resource that they need to continue to survive in a house.”
Shawn Knopp, the project manager at Montana Glass says that there are two steps that he would implement if elected mayor.
"The first thing we have to do is designate a place for them to go to be safe and then secondly we have to identify the ones that don’t want help and which ones do want help and then we have to identify what help they need whether its mental health, addiction problems until we solve the root of the problem we’re never going to solve it.”
Current Missoula City Council member and Realtor Mike Nugent says that helping those in the unhoused population reunite with their support system is how he would address the unhoused population if elected.
"I would like to see us be a little bit more proactive and see what people’s stories are and if somebody's here in Missoula and they have a support system somewhere else -- like they're from Bellevue or they're from somewhere in Texas or from Arizona -- we are probably better off saying how can we help you get home to your support system that’s not just the completely over taxes safety next of Missoula. And I think that looking at that on a case-by-case basis and not a one size fits all and kind of seeing how can we help would provide better results for Missoula in the long run.”
We will continue our profile of the candidate's opinions on issues that are facing Missoula prior to the municipal primary.
