HELENA - Since she lost her home, the four walls of Chloe Carlson’s tent have served as her sole source of shelter.
Carlson’s two cats serve as her heaters during winter storms. She pitches her tent on a slight incline to prevent flooding in rainy weather. She knows a thing or two about surviving in harsh conditions.
“I like when it is actually snowy, because it tends to be warmer out,” Carlson said. “Because those clouds trap a lot of the daytime heat.”
In 2022, Carlson joined the swelling ranks of people without homes in Montana after losing her job in a restaurant in West Yellowstone. Carlson returned to her mother’s place in Missoula to figure things out, but she said her mother’s struggles with mental illness and substance abuse made it an inhospitable environment.
“Things didn't go so well,” Carlson said. “So I actually became homeless instead of just silently homeless.”
Carlson has faced a litany of challenges as she tries to get by. She stayed in a shelter for a little over a year, but several negative experiences caused her to leave. Since then, she’s become an activist for both the unhoused population in Missoula and for the transgender community, which she says is out of necessity.
“It's a matter of survival, really,” Carlson said. “It's not, not because I want to do it, I'd rather not have to do this.”
The numbers show Montana’s rates of homelessness have grown 89% from 2007 to 2023 - the second highest increase in the country, according toa report from the Montana Coalition to Solve Homelessness. Montana lawmakers have explored different solutions to address the crisis this legislative session, with measures that would give local government more power in cracking down on visible homelessness getting the most support.
Urban Camping Crackdown
One approach, championed by Rep. Greg Overstreet, R-Stevensville, is to modify state law to allow cities to pass ordinances disallowing urban camping. Supporters say it will give the cities more control over their local jurisdictions’ needs, while opponents worry that the policy is unlikely to produce the desired effect.
Overstreet sponsored a trio of bills that would allow for these ordinances. House Bill 208 would allow local governments to pass ordinances that regulate camping and garbage collection on public property, and House Bill 642 would define urban camping as a public nuisance and allow for a fine of up to $500 per day. Both bills passed through the House and the Senate committees and await judgment from the full Senate body.
HB 905, which would have deducted property taxes from property owners if the city failed to enforce the ordinances, died in a Senate committee last week.
Overstreet said these bills are part of a multi-pronged approach to addressing homelessness in Montana’s communities. He said while he appreciates the struggles that homeless populations face, it’s also important for cities to have the authority to regulate behavior on public property.
“The status quo, merely providing all kinds of social services and turning a blind eye to the law enforcement side of the equation, I don't think it's working,” Overstreet said.
Overstreet said this is a way to involve the civil side of law enforcement rather than the criminal side.
“I'm not trying to criminalize homelessness,” Overstreet said. “I'm trying to give municipalities tools to control it in the first place.”
Jennifer Olson from the Montana League of Cities and Towns said HB 208 is an option that will give local communities the opportunity to address their unique challenges.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided on the Grants Pass v. Johnson case in 2024, Olson said, municipalities now have the authority to pass regulations against urban camping. In the past, cities were not allowed to ban urban camping if they did not provide homeless shelters for people in need. Olson said the cities need this option to help them regulate their communities.
“We can involve not only local individuals, but local organizations, and we can have a conversation to see what's best for each city, because each city is unique,” Olson said.
On the other hand, Ella Smith, representing the Montana Coalition to Solve Homelessness, said that giving cities the option of fining citizens $500 per day for urban camping is unlikely to produce any effective change. She said from data that she’s seen from the city of Missoula, very few of the fines have currently been paid.
“If you can't afford $25 a day or $50 a day,” Smith said, “how in the world are you going to be able to afford $500 a day? And so I see bills like that as a vehicle to just continue to talk about misinformation we hear so frequently when we're working on these policies and seeking funding.”
During her time urban camping in Missoula, Chloe Carlson was cited three times, two of which she said she has successfully fought in court and won. The third, she said, was dropped before the hearing. The point of these ordinances are unclear, Carlson said, since often, people experiencing homelessness do not have the means to pay these fines.
“There's only one solution to end homelessness, and that's house keys,” Carlson said. “Handcuffs don't end homelessness, it perpetuates it.”
Supportive Approaches Stall
Approaches that aim to prevent homelessness and increase services available in communities have faced strong resistance in the Legislature. Rep. SJ Howell, D-Missoula, sponsored a bill that would have increased funding for a federal rehousing program that is already in place in Montana, but the bill was tabled in committee last week.
Along with the bill addressing the issue from a moral perspective, Howell saidHouse Bill 843 made good economic sense, since once people become homeless, their reliance on community services tends to be more costly.
“Adding some resources to this end of the spectrum … makes a lot of financial sense,” Howell said. “It can prevent people from ending up in a much costlier and more difficult situation, and it can allow the shelter services that we do have to really focus on the folks who really need that care.”
But proposals like this, along with a bill by Rep. Melissa Nikolakakos, R-Great Falls, to increase community shelter capacity, have been struggling to pass in either the House or the Senate. Rep. George Nikolakakos, R-Great Falls, was one of the nay votes on Howell’s bill for rapid re-housing. He said that while the bill had potential, it is hard to get bills with large appropriations passed in the later parts of the session.
“I think that there was promise in that bill,” Nikolokakos said. “There were a few people who were interested in it, but this late in the session, a lot of times, when you have a big fiscal ask after a lot of money has been appropriated and spent, you know, especially in the Republican caucus, there's some spending fatigue.”
Nikolakakos said sometimes a bill takes multiple sessions to pass, and he thought many more people would be interested in the concept if it was presented earlier in the next session.
Howell said the situation is disheartening at this point in the session. They said the possibility of a budget amendment to allocate funds for homelessness and homelessness prevention services is something they’re considering.
“There's not much else out there for homelessness or homelessness prevention, which is part of why I'm really feeling frustrated that we're at this point in the process,” Howell said. “I mean, this is clearly an issue and we are not doing anything to address it.”
Gary Owen, from the Great Falls chapter of the Continuum of Care, said people are often misinformed about the reasons why people become homeless. He said homelessness is, in essence, a “housing problem,” and the way to fix it is through investment in affordable housing.
“A vast majority of the people experiencing homelessness are not the chronically homeless that people see … it's low-income families who have hit that bump in the road that they can't quite get over, and it just, it snowballs to the point of them losing their housing,” Owen said.
From talking to people in his work, Owen said he’s discovered that many people believe homelessness to be a result of poor decision-making on the part of the individual experiencing it. He said it’s a problem that requires a more thorough and open-minded examination.
“It's a situation that we as a society have to really look at and say, why? Why is such a high percentage population experiencing this, and come to terms with working together to come up with solutions,” Owen said.
Many other states in the nation are using upstream approaches to solve these issues, according to a report from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some of these options are housing vouchers and waiving fees for important documents like birth certificates, as well as providing incentives for housing construction to address high housing costs.
In Carlson’s case, she has struggled to find employment due to disabilities that complicate working in environments with high stimulus, she said. She’s a veteran from the National Guard, but she doesn’t qualify for disability assistance under Title 31, and her identity as a transgender individual complicates her job search even further, she said.
Activism is something that Carlson has found success in, and she actively organizes and campaigns for transgender rights and for the rights of unhoused individuals, with the Unhoused Neighbors Union in Missoula. Carlson said she wishes more people understood that homelessness is not a monolith.
“It’s not just for people who have mental health issues or drug addicts or alcoholics. Could be your grandma who can't afford her rent because she doesn't make enough on her social security check,” Carlson said. “Could be your kid.”
Emma White is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association, the Montana Newspaper Association and the Greater Montana Foundation. White can be reached at emma.white@umconnect.umt.edu.
