Author: Philip M. Faccenda

At the June 14th Great Falls Planning Advisory Board/Zoning Commission members voted unanimously to recommend the denial of a conditional use permit submitted by the First United Methodist Church to operate an outdoor emergency homeless shelter on their property in downtown Great Falls.

At the meeting several local owners and managers representing downtown businesses in the FUMC neighborhood provided public comment on the impact of the ‘encampment’ on their businesses.

E-City Beat will be publishing some of their comments and thoughts, directly quoted, continuing today with Wes Bentley, manager of the downtown Zip Trip. The entirety of Mr. Bentley’s public comments can seen here, his remarks start at 00:48:00 of the video.

“Our parking lot is right across from where this is going down and I’m just gonna touch on a few things.

Our employees can’t even park in our lot anymore because of the people in the encampment over there vandalizing the cars, they’re spitting on the windows, they’re taking off license plates off of vehicles, I can’t send my employees over there without sending two at a time.

I have people that walk home walk to the job and walk home I now have to go provide them rides by one of my employees because we do not feel safe at 12 o’clock in the morning with one single employee walking by there because we’ve had to kick every single one of those people on that encampment off of our property for stealing or drinking, causing problems, harassing my employees, spitting in their faces…

This isn’t a houseless problem as he calls it. I’ve managed that downtown location since 2017 now and I would say that 75% of the people that he’s allowing on that property have been a problem downtown for five years.

They were recently kicked out of the Mission because of drinking and doing drugs which is what they now continue to do on that property.

They make it dangerous, they’ve attacked other workers from a business right behind us and I’m afraid they’re going to do that to me or one of my employees when we go down to work every day.

I have a family of four… I don’t wanna not go home to my family because of something that’s going on in this encampment that he’s (FUMC’s Rev.Wakeley) trying to allow.

I think that he has the right idea, but downtown isn’t the place for it and the way he’s handling it, it’s not appropriate.

There’s nothing being done about the drug use, the alcohol, the violence, prostitution, masturbating, urinating, I mean we can’t allow for that, we gotta do something about it.

It’s got to be somewhere else. We’re trying to make downtown a better place for businesses and really bring business to downtown, and this is not the right direction.”

At the June 14th Great Falls Planning Advisory Board/Zoning Commission members voted unanimously to recommend the denial of a conditional use permit submitted by the First United Methodist Church to operate an outdoor emergency homeless shelter on their property in downtown Great Falls.

At the meeting several local owners and managers representing downtown businesses in the FUMC neighborhood provided public comment on the impact of the ‘encampment’ on their businesses.

E-City Beat will be publishing some of their comments and thoughts, directly quoted, continuing today with Darrell Becker, owner of Perkins restaurant and the Midtown Motel. The entirety of Mr. Becker’s public comments can seen here, his remarks start at 00:36:20 of the video.

“My name is Darrell Becker, my wife and I own the Perkins and Midtown restaurant, or Midtown motel, across the street (editors note: ‘across the street’ from the encampment at First United Methodist Church) and you’re absolutely right our Sunday morning you look out our windows and we have a little old lady who’s there for her breakfast and that’s her day out and she gets to watch the lady drop her pants and defecate into the street.

We have found more needles within a block of this homeless, excuse me, your houseless encampment, and let’s face it they’re not all diabetics, I’m not stupid.

You know when you walk down the street and you see the orange tabs every 2 feet and that was not like that last year that was not like that anywhere close to it two years ago.“

“…he (Pastor Wakely) has allowed this, he has not only had them, not him personally, making them come into our building, we have to watch our front door 24 hours a day because they come in they want to sleep in our hallway they want to go use our restrooms which we used to allow, we can’t allow it now.

It is a safety issue – you don’t know what these people are going to do, and I don’t mean any disrespect by referring to anybody as ‘these people’, I don’t know their names, it’s the people from across the street at his houseless encampment.

And I’ve tried to talk to the pastor. I’m sorry, I don’t see where what he is doing is helping in fact I don’t even I don’t know what he’s truly trying to accomplish except to make himself feel better I believe.”

At last week’s Great Falls Planning Advisory Board/Zoning Commission members voted unanimously to recommend the denial of a conditional use permit submitted by the First United Methodist Church to operate an outdoor emergency homeless shelter on their property in downtown Great Falls.

At the meeting several local owners and managers representing downtown businesses in the FUMC neighborhood provided public comment on the impact of the ‘encampment’ on their businesses.

E-City Beat will be publishing some of their comments and thoughts, directly quoted, starting today with Frank Headley, manager of the downtown IGA. The entirety of Mr. Headley’s public comments can seen here, his remarks start at 00:43:50 of the video.

“With my business being within walking distance I have seen an increase in theft, trespassing, fighting, and no respect to the neighbors or neighborhood around the general area.”

“I do believe that we do need a place like this in Great Falls but not on the property of the First Methodist Church.”

“As it evolved into a tent city rules were not set in place, the camp is not secure or safe, laws are being broken the occupants have disrupted the community.”

“From what I have witnessed in the last five months more occupants have moved into the property, it’s growing.”

“I’ve seen individuals from the camp urinating and defecating behind my building and in some instances on the building itself. I have witnessed one individual masturbating behind the building and with this another couple having sex on the street corner.”

“I’ve discussed this with Pastor Jeff and was asked not to call the police and deal with him directly, he doesn’t want a police presence on his property. it has been a daily occurrence to call 911 for the disturbances, theft, fighting. I’ve personally been spit on, punches have been thrown at me horrible name calling by some of the guests that stay on that property.”

“I do believe that a low barrier shelter is needed for Great Falls which should not be located in the heart downtown.”

“My employees is do not feel safe, our customers do not feel safe either.”