On Our Way Home: Missoula Community Houselessness Strategy 2025-2028

We're excited to announce that On Our Way Home has been adopted and supported by four community agencies! United Way of Missoula County, Missoula's City County Board of Health, Hope Rescue Mission, and Missoula Interfaith Collaborative and their Action Network have all adopted or formally supported On Our Way Home and are excited to take the next steps together as a community.

Adoption presentations will continue throughout the spring. Stay tuned for more updates.

The process to seek adoption of On Our Way Home is officially underway. Members of the On Our Way Home Leadership Group, which steered development of the strategy, are in the process of presenting the strategy to community partners in Missoula to seek adoption and endorsement.

In exciting news, we have our first adopting agency! Hope Rescue Mission's staff and Board of Directors reviewed the strategy and officially adopted it earlier this month. What does it mean to adopt On Our Way Home? Community partners that adopt the strategy agree to support the strategy areas and associated actions outlined in On Our Way Home and commit to considering these approaches within their own organizational and programmatic decision-making and design.

Adoption presentations will continue throughout the spring. Stay tuned for more updates.

After one year of work between Homebase and community partners, we are excited to share the new On Our Way Home: Missoula Community Houselessness Strategy 2025-2028. This document is the result of hours of community input, leadership group conversations, local data review, and analysis of best practices across the country. It reflects Missoula's current greatest needs in addressing houselessness and creating a houseless services system that can function most effectively to meet the needs of Missoulians without housing. Explore the strategy to learn more about the three key strategy areas: 1) Right sizing the number of beds and supportive services, 2) Securing funding, and 3) Supporting increased capacity at service provider organizations.

City of Missoula Houseless Programs provided an informational update to City Council's Housing, Redevelopment, and Community Programs Committee on Wednesday, November 20. This update included a status report about this project with Homebase to create a new community strategy to address houselessness. You can watch that presentation here - minutes 1:20:55 through 1:25:20 are specifically about this project. You can also find the slides here - slides 11-15 are specifically about this project.

In addition to tabling at community events, we will be setting up our table in various locations around Missoula this summer to build connections and hear from you. Stop by one of the locations below to say hi, learn about the work underway to craft a new community to address houselessness, and share your thoughts. We hope to see you there!

• Tuesday, August 6th from 9:00am-11:00am - Inside the Salvation Army (355 S Russell St)
• Monday, August 12th from 3:30pm-5:30pm - Outside City Hall on the corner of Woody St and W Spruce St
• Thursday, August 22nd from 9:30am-11:30am - Inside the Missoula Public Library (455 E Main St)
• Thursday, August 22nd from 12:30-2:30pm - Inside the Salvation Army (355 S Russell St)
• Wednesday, September 4th from 4:00pm-6:00pm - Outside City Hall on the corner of Woody St and W Spruce St
• Tuesday, September 17th from 2:00pm-4:00pm - Inside the Missoula Public Library (455 E Main St)

Wednesday, July 31, 2024
6:00pm-8:00pm
McCormick Park
600 Cregg Lane, 59801

Pro Housing Missoula is hosting informal community events in parks across Missoula this summer to chat with you - the neighbors of Missoula - about housing in Missoula. It's a great, informal way to chat with the Pro Housing team and other partners working to address housing needs in our community and ask any questions that you might have. Staff from City of Missoula Houseless Programs will be there tabling. Come on by to say hi and ask us questions about the project to create a new community strategy to address houselessness! Stop by any time between 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Tuesday, July 9, 2024
5:00pm-7:00pm
Playfair Park
1500 Mcdonald Ave, 59801

City Chats in the Parks is a drop-in, informal, and awesome way to chat with City staff, ask questions, and meet your neighbors. Come hear about the project to create a new community strategy to address houselessness and other City-wide projects and initiatives. Stop by any time between 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Attendees at the Town Hall on April 4th placed stickers indicating their support or disagreement with a number of national best practice approaches and programs to address houselessness. Take a look here to get a sense of what stood out and where current local interest lies.

Town Hall on Thursday, April 4^th between 6:00pm-8:00pm at Missoula Community Theater (200 N Adams St, in the Meeting Room)

All Missoula community members are welcome! The town hall will be an interactive forum to gather community priorities and discuss existing and future strategies to respond to houselessness in our area. Join us to learn about Missoula’s houseless response system, share your experiences and expertise, and participate in community-wide strategy development. The event will include presentations starting every 30 minutes, local experts who can help answer your questions, and activity stations to share your ideas and vote on best practices and strategies. Come and go as it fits your schedule! To have enough snacks and resources for everyone, we encourage you to email missoulastrategy@homebaseccc.org if you plan to attend.

Focus Group: Experiencing Houselessness for the 1^st Time, Wednesday April 3^rd from 3:30-4:30pm at Revive Church Basement (2811 Latimer St)

This focus group is open to anyone who identifies as a person currently or recently experiencing houselessness for the 1^st time. Homebase will facilitate focus groups and ask questions about participants’ experiences and ideas for improving the local response to houselessness. There are 20 spots available for this focus group and all participants will be compensated with a $35 Visa gift card. The 20 spots are first come first serve. If you plan to attend either focus group, we encourage you to email missoulastrategy@homebaseccc.org to reserve a spot OR to arrive 5-10 minutes early.

Focus Group: Unaccompanied Houseless Youth, Thursday April 4^th from 10:30-11:30am at Currents Aquatic Center (600 Cregg Ln)

This focus group is open to anyone who identifies as a person under 24 years old who is, or recently was, living outside, in a shelter, or couchsurfing and does not live with parents or other family members. Homebase will facilitate focus groups and ask questions about participants’ experiences and ideas for improving the local response to houselessness. There are 20 spots available for this focus group and all participants will be compensated with a $35 Visa gift card. The 20 spots are first come first serve. If you plan to attend either focus group, we encourage you to email missoulastrategy@homebaseccc.org to reserve a spot OR to arrive 5-10 minutes early.