A Message from Mayor Davis

Last month, council passed an ordinance that provides time, place, and manner restrictions around overnight sheltering in our parks, public lands, and rights of way. It also directs the City to provide the services necessary to do this safely. It’s my job to implement the ordinance in a common-sense way. Our initial approach has been to continue gathering information and assessing how effective our efforts are. We will make thoughtful adjustments to our approach and our enforcement based on what we hear form the community and what we hear on the ground. Directly because of comments from residents and service providers during the past week, we will slow the process of implementing the ordinance by focusing on a few locations.

For the time being, here’s what that will look like:

First and foremost, people sheltering outdoors will be encouraged to use emergency shelters operating in the community. This will be the primary goal of every enforcement conversation with a City staff member.
Shelter is not an option for everyone. Knowing this, we will work with houseless service providers to identify a few community parks most likely to be used for overnight sheltering between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., and we will focus our service and our enforcement efforts there. Specific areas within these parks will be identified. Bathrooms and trash receptacles will be placed in these parks. We are asking for partnership from homeless service providers.
Additionally, we will continue the development of our Vehicle Sheltering Permit Program with the goal of issuing permits within the next 60 days.

Over the last week, many of you were surprised to find temporary bathrooms placed in parks across the community. This was a mistake that resulted from a miscommunication between our team, who is working swiftly to meet community expectations regarding this ordinance, and the vendor providing the service. The bathrooms that were placed are currently being removed. Our plan is to only place bathrooms and trash receptacles in the small handful of parks identified by service providers.

I do want to note that overnight sheltering, between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. will still be allowed in specific sections of parks across Missoula. The ordinance allows this. However, enforcement of the time, place, and manner restrictions outlined in the ordinance will be focused on parks and City property that contain bathrooms and trash receptacles. Our enforcement efforts will be more limited in parks that do not contain these amenities, along the river corridor, and on our other public lands. However, we will always act in instances of documented public health and safety issues related to sheltering outdoors.

If you see sheltering outdoors you feel is in violation of the current ordinance, please make a report here so we can follow up.

Useful info on Seeking Shelter.

To comment on the ordinance, use the tools on this page.

Thank you,

Andrea Davis