An unlikely mash-up developed as I drove around Missoula tracking down a rumor about a homeless initiative that would involve opening up church parking lots to host urban car campers. Zeke, the first person to tell me about this rumor, works with the Missoula Interfaith Collaborative, a faith-based organization started by Casey Dunning. Since Casey got his start by loosely associating with the program I coordinated for the Poverello Center, the Homeless Outreach Team Program, I figured he would know SOMETHING about which churches, if any, were thinking of taking this on.

Before I visited Casey Dunning at Atonement Church, I stopped by the First Methodist Church downtown. Once upon a time I helped put on the BIG service-provider event known as Missoula Homeless Connect inside this church, but the event was rebranded as Project Community Connect and moved across the street to the Public Library. After the Missoula Interfaith Collaborative lead failed to pan out, I checked with other churches, like River of Life, Hope Rescue Mission, and the Christian Life Center, none of which were familiar with what I was describing.

Broadening my search, I contacted the Missoula Tenants Union and the Goodworks Venture, but neither organization had any helpful insight to share, though the Goodworks Venture IS up to some interesting investing, which I’ll circle back around to near the end of this article.

While I was tracking down this alleged effort to assist people using PRIVATE vehicles to live in, news hit Monday that Missoula’s fleet of PUBLIC transit vehicles has a new CEO. The headline made me chuckle because the choice to oversee Mountain Line is none other than Jordan Hess, Missoula’s briefly-serving placeholder Mayor, a multi-modal transportation advocate who got himself appointed Mayor after striking a literal back-alley deal with his opponent, Mike Nugent.

Jordan Hess was ALSO a board member of the Poverello Center, the homeless shelter that employed both myself and Montanan’s State Senator, Ellie Boldman, who I wrote about in a previous article for Western Montana News. I hope Hess gave his predecessor, Corey Aldridge, a BIG thank you for establishing such a handsome six-figure salary and the somewhat misleading title of “CEO”.

If Missoula’s new public transit CEO would like to make a symbolic gesture—a signal of virtue, one might say—I suggest he take the bold step of REMOVING the leaning posts and their dangerous sloped surfaces before someone gets hurt. Otherwise, Hess should consider acknowledging that leaning posts have strategic value for getting sleepy homeless people to hop on the free bus for a snooze instead of clogging up bus stops. It’s strategic because, if they ride the bus, they get counted, and when the count goes up, FEDERAL dollars seem to follow. See how this works?

Churches, on the other hand, aren’t chasing Federal dollars when they seek to serve their community. The incentive for acting on faith—like serving car campers in a church parking lot, for example—is much less tangible, and it’s this intangible desire to live in accordance with one’s faith that emits a particular odor of opportunity. Churches that lack discernment, if they’re not careful, can make themselves vulnerable to people with unspoken agendas, which means the priority can quickly become something other than the difficult work of actually helping someone.

If you look closely at the images that accompany this article, you will see signs of political activity, like the Jon Tester sign in the window of the Goodworks office. I recently wrote about how this investment company, which arose in opposition to the presidency of Donald Trump, saw one of their culinary brands hit the market recently after a name change and new location inside the Mountain Line transfer station downtown. In one of my articles examining the originator of this investment fund, Mary Stranahan, I quoted this Missoulian article from 2011 that puts Mary’s name alongside the 2011 iteration of Ellie Boldman’s name, which, at the time, was Ellie HILL. Here’s the quote:

“Corporations do not bleed or feel pain. They can’t die in an unsafe workplace,” Watson said.

Rep. Ellie Hill, D-Missoula, said she pitched a similar piece of legislation in Helena, and she heard support from Democrats and Republicans all across the state. Hill noted Montana history is laced with stories of big money, such as the Copper Kings, buying influence.

“This is a question of whether American democracy itself can beat back a corporate takeover,” Hill said.

Mary Stranahan, who doesn’t live in Missoula but enjoys many of its amenities, said putting power back into the hands of the people is a huge matter. She encouraged people to seek more information about the national movement from The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, http://www.celdf.org.

Missoula City Council puts corporate rights measure on ballot. By Keila Szpaller. Missoulian. August 23, 2011.

After years of raising the alarm about the Homeless Industrial Complex, I can no longer hear the claim that “THE SOLUTION TO HOMELESSNESS IS MORE HOUSING,” without envisioning a very inclusive Venn diagram of murky influence tangling up the seeming GOOD intentions of helping hands. It would also be nice if we, as a community, could identify where things have NOT worked out in order to, you know, AVOID doing the same thing over and over again.

In that spirit, here’s a quote from the NEW investment opportunity branching off of the Goodworks Venture, which isn’t accepting new investors for its original fund. That’s because they want to promote Goodworks EVERGREEN. From the link:

Starting and running a company is hard. And at the end of the day, any investment is about the people who started, founded, and manage the company. Therefore, those relationships come first. Above all, we value integrity, direct communication and fun.

Montana’s baby boomer generation has led our state in the creation of small businesses and are now at a transitional point. The business owner is 65+ years old and still working. The business needs the next generation of ownership, as many lack willing family members to take over the operation. An increasing number of these businesses struggle to transition as the acquisition price is too large for local individuals and too small for institutional buyers. The impact on local jobs across our state can be substantial especially when a community loses its only local grocery or hardware store. In some cases, the owner chooses to close the business, become disabled, or die and the family is left to manage the transition. Goodworks Ventures LLC is launching Goodworks Evergreen, which provides transition opportunities to retiring owners by acquiring their local Montana businesses, with the goal of keeping quality jobs within the community.

We are here to meet business owners that need help with their next phase, and to keep Montana “The last best place.”

Thinking this post was done, I made one final call, and got one final clue that an initiative DOES exist, but to what degree it exists IN REALITY, on the ground, is still yet to be determined. Here is the screenshot from the website Love Missoula that confirms a Safe Parking Initiative exists:

Did I press the LEARN MORE button? Yes, I did, but the deadline for this article has arrived, so you’ll have to wait for a follow up article if I do, in fact, learn more.

Thanks for reading!