People sleeping at the Johnson Street Temporary Emergency Shelter now have access to new bathroom and shower facilities after the city of Missoula and private partners built a "modular" building for the space. Officials from the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, the Missoula Economic Partnership and the Poverello Center called the new facilities "a big win" during an unveiling on Thursday. "The biggest thing that I hear from (the homeless) is how nice they are and how special they feel that we are valuing them enough to make this," said Jill Bonny, the executive director of the Poverello Center, which also runs the Johnson Street Shelter.
The space has several bathrooms and two showers that are available yearround. The site previously used port-a-potties, which Bonny said did not meet health department standards. The new bathrooms are also ADA compliant.
Bonny said since the project came online this month, the impact has been major. "We had one gentleman who came and as soon as he went to access the restroom, he saw how nice they were and he got extremely emotional and just said, 'I can't believe we have something so nice to use,'" Bonny said. "Another individual took a shower and said, 'This is the best shower I have had in years.
'" The project was funded with $500,000 in tax increment financing from the Missoula Redevelopment Agency. The Missoula Economic Partnership also raised $325,000. Contractor Dave Edgell donated his time as the project manager for construction.
Other in-kind donations came from Home Architects and Builders, Morrison Maierle Engineering, Taylor Timber and Montana Excavating. Grant Kier, president and CEO of the Missoula Economic Partnership, said the project came together after hearing about homeless people with jobs struggling to get a shower while they were at the shelter. "For people to show up everyday and try to do better for their lives, they need the basic services of toilets and showers and probably a lot more, frankly," Kier said.
The building is also movable, allowing the city to use it at another shelter, or for other city events like a parks and recreation camp or a summer concert. The Johnson Street location, which opened as a temporary shelter during the winter months in 2020, started operating yearround this spring. The shelter can house roughly 160 people.
The city is seeking another year of funding for the shelter, but city officials said the space is not a permanent solution to house the homeless. "This (shelter) has served a wonderful purpose frankly for the last three years now," MRA Director Ellen Buchanan said. "We have had no one die on the streets in the winter from freezing to death, and that is the bottom line.
We did have that before (Johnson Street)." On the backside of the bathrooms, a large cooltoned mural depicts the Clark Fork River with wildflowers and Mount Sentinel's "M" in view. Averi Iris, a local artist from Bozeman and Edgell's granddaughter, painted the mural at no cost.
"We really wanted to bring the beauty of the river and the history of Missoula to a place that might not always seem so positive," Iris said. The shelter's new bathrooms come online as the city nears the expected July 25 start date of its new urban camping laws, which restrict camping to between 8 p.m.
and 8 a.m. and implement buffer zones between residences and businesses.
Griffen Smith is the local government reporter for the Missoulian. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
