Allison Thompson leaving Poverello on ‘firm footing’ in struggle to end homelessness ~ Missoula Present-day

Stating the organization is on business footing, Amy Allison Thompson is completely ready to relinquish her function as the director of the Poverello Heart to a person with fresh strength and new strategies, and whoever actions in will have the parts necessary to tackle the troubles in advance.

5 yrs soon after signing on as the director of Missoula’s homeless shelter, Thompson on Monday declared her plans to action down come July. The time was proper, she reported, to go on and go the group onto someone new.

“I have been listed here for 5 a long time now and I really really feel the Pov is in a good place,” she reported. “We have a excellent leadership team and we’re in a potent area fiscally. I just made a decision that if I was going to go away, appropriate now is the suitable time to do that so someone else could stage in and acquire us to the upcoming degree.”

Thompson replaced Eran Pehan as shelter director in 2016, nevertheless she was not new to the facility or the line of work. She worked at the previous downtown shelter operating the Joseph Home. Thompson stepped into the purpose as the Pov’s director about one calendar year just after the new shelter opened on West Broadway.

Considering that then, the shelter has found its populace operate at or further than ability. Over the wintertime of 2019 and 2020, the Pov reached its capacity of 175 individuals nightly, even during a relatively delicate winter season.

Turning those people in need to have away wasn’t straightforward and the shelter and the town scrambled to find a alternative. They designed preparations at the Salvation Military, which picked up as numerous as 30 inhabitants a night time.

Then the pandemic struck and the shelter was forced to lower its capability even more. The Pov was also strike with numerous high-priced plumbing problems that slash into potential even much more. Thompson helped see the shelter through the problems, even though she admits it wasn’t effortless.

“It’s been extremely demanding. The gatherings we have seen this earlier calendar year at the Pov have been really making an attempt,” she mentioned. “But I’d also say that the awesome thing is how potent we are even with all of that and how a great deal our crew has come collectively. We’re owning much more conversations associated to our mission much more than ever and concentrating in on the critical solutions that we provide and building guaranteed they materialize.”

For the duration of her tenure, addressing homelessness in Missoula has designed progress. Homeless advocates and provider providers proven the coordinated entry method to move people into long term housing extra speedily.

The arrangement with the Salvation Army also marked a new coordinated technique concerning the two shelters. Advocates adopted a housing first product to shift the most vulnerable up the waiting around record for housing.

The city also adopted a new housing coverage and applied a cell support workforce to assist individuals in crisis. Each the metropolis and the county have invested deeply into developing forever economical housing, which include the Trinity job, which is set to commence development this summer time.

When it opens, Trinity will consist of supportive housing and wrap-around products and services that handle long-term homelessness. Insert it up and Thompson believes the needle is shifting in the suitable direction.

“We’ve completed a ton listed here,” she said. “We’ve set together the Missoula Coordinated Entry Program, which has allowed us to superior comprehend what people are dealing with in our group as significantly as homelessness and what people figures glimpse like,” Thompson mentioned. “I also experience we’re making some definitely fantastic progress toward ending homelessness.”

When development was gaining momentum in advance of the pandemic, the challenges of the past calendar year have been hard to maneuver. At times, they’ve introduced new challenges to the equation.

“I am disheartened to see the results of the pandemic and what it has performed to our endeavours in that we were battling now with a very low emptiness level in our local community,” she explained. “The pandemic hits and individuals are shifting all above the location to escape urban areas and we’re experience that in Missoula. It is effected our development at ending homelessness.”

All through Thompson’s tenure, the Poverello also shifted its insurance policies all around medication an liquor. While the shelter previously operated all-around a zero tolerance policy, winter temperature and the absence of alternatives for unsheltered people today with addictions prompted the facility to shift to a policy dependent on actions.

Mixed with a extensive net of efforts and new plans, Thompson thinks progress is being built.

“Some of these measures acquire some time to appear to fruition. All all those seeds that have been planted and the way persons are chatting about homelessness as program has shifted,” she stated. “I really do have this want to bring another person in with new vitality who is prepared to just bounce in and be imaginative and address the challenges that obviously appear up in this line of operate.”

Thompson strategies to continue to be in Missoula and will document her last working day on July 31. The shelter is at this time seeking for a new director.

“The software method is open up,” claimed Jesse Jaeger, director of advocacy and growth for the shelter. “They want applicants in by the 26th of this thirty day period.”