After months of Kalispell City Council work meetings (where the Flathead Warming Center has been under scrutiny), the Council voted on Monday night whether to pull or permit the Center’s ‘Conditional Use Permit.’ A 6-3 vote was cast, and the Center is now forced to close its doors for overnight use; it will still be open for daily usage.

Council members have been hearing for months from the nearby neighborhood residents how the homeless in the area have been “defecating in resident’s yards, strewing needles, breaking into homes, threatening neighbors, spitting on neighbors,” and more. Several council members (including Mayor Mark Johnson) sided with their constituents (the neighborhood), revealing how unacceptable these criminal acts are.

The Flathead Warming Center chose to discontinue meeting with the neighborhood (where mediators were present to listen to both sides and concerns) because it felt it couldn’t meet the requirements the neighbors requested of the Center.

Buttons were made and handed out (at the City Council meeting on Monday evening in the lobby, where several community attendants took them and wore them in solidarity standing with the neighbors) by the neighborhood, which shared the following (See below). Topics of concern are safety (especially the safety of children, security, property values, and so forth, etc.).

Obviously, with a 6-3 vote, most of the council felt these issues were of grave concern, as did the neighborhood, which has been forced to endure these atrocities.

To learn more about the FWC’s antics and the truth of the matter, read the following articles previously published by Montana 1st News by clicking here, here, here, here, and here.

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To be clear, not all crimes committed by the homeless in that vicinity of Kalispell are committed by the guests at the FWC, but some of the inhabitants, as well as the homeless who cannot obtain a bed for the evening, definitely add to the crime and chaos in that portion of town. The proof is in the pudding; in the summertime, when the Center closes down for overnight use, the level of crime in the area goes way down.

The most significant point of contention between the ‘FWC’ and the ‘Neighborhood’ is that the Center refuses to take responsibility for actions caused by its ‘guests’ while they are away from the Center itself, as well as those who we know come to the area in hopes of getting into the Center and cannot for lack of beds. Numerous ‘guests,’ for example, have been reported to Montana 1st News as harassing and begging for cash in nearby stores’ parking lots, knocking on citizens’ car windows outside of nearby apartment complexes, sleeping in stairwells, etc. Local residents have seen such persons standing in line for a bed, meandering and causing chaos within the surrounding neighborhood. These same neighbors are distraught as their businesses are plummeting due to the rise of homelessness in that region, and yes, the Flathead Warming Center has had an enormous effect to that end. In fact, the Meridian Post Office closed its nighttime mail pick-up doors (due to homeless camping out inside) after the FLC opened, not before.

Aside from the homeless guests, volunteers from the Center have asked for handouts from a nearby grocery store. When told they’d need to “go to the nearby foodbank” (as that is where the grocery store donates day-old items), volunteers still continued to beg other store workers for “food for guests”; there is instance after instance where the Center inhabitants have hassled the neighbors and thus have not been good neighbors and in this example, volunteers have done so as well. Another such report to M1N shared how ‘guests’ from the FWC entered a nearby convenience store (drunk), and their children would steal candy.

Local neighbors and business workers/owners often fear revealing this information at public City Council meetings as they are nervous about repercussions from those who run the Center.

We know that the Flathead Warming Center has helped some people in need, but once you read the inserted articles (above) and listen/understand the pleas of the neighbors (over 300 signed a petition in hopes of bringing attention to the Council in hopes that they would close down the Center by revoking its C.U.P. -(Conditional Use Permit), it is entirely apparent that the Council made the correct, logical, and proper choice.

Be sure to follow this story as it continues at Montana 1st News.