Schweitzer renews Montana Council on Homelessness

When planning a gathering for a day when the temperature turned out to be 30 degrees, most organizers would opt for an indoors meeting out of the elements.

But those who coordinated a service on Thursday chose to meet on the icy steps of the Capitol on a date they knew it would be chilly —n the first day of winter. Thursday also had the shortest number of daylight hours of the year.

This was to raise awareness of the need for efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate homelessness in the state.

“We had to stand here 45 minutes, imagine standing all day long in this and not having a choice,” said Sherrie Downing, coordinator of the Montana Council on Homeless, shivering with her arms tightly wrapped around her chest.

“I was so delighted that people cared enough to come and stand out in the cold,” she added after a service in honor of the memory of four homeless people from Helena who died this year.

The ceremony was to commemorate National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day and recognize the lives of Shirley Genn, Bill Remmick, Rex Keeling and Dennis Winjum.

Thursday’s gathering of about 50 people focused on awareness of the needs of those without homes and was seasoned with music and poetry. Downing said last year’s service was attended by fewer than a dozen Helenans.

Vocalist and guitar player Will Ayers, who said he grew up homeless as a “street kid,” performed his song “Dreaming and Chasing Rainbows” in which he sang about grasping for hope and finding it in God’s grace.

He was asked for an encore but said his hands were too cold to play, as he rubbed them together and blow air into his cupped digits to help warm them.

Ayers, 38, has lived in Helena a little more than a year. He works with troubled teens and teaches them to play music. Ayers said children need to have a positive outlook on life and should be taught how to deal with pain and aggression so they don’t end up on the streets or reliant on drugs and alcohol.

Ayers said he hopes Thursday’s gathering and the council’s efforts are “a snowflake to create an avalanche.”

Also on Thursday, Gov. Brian Schweitzer signed an executive order renewing the Montana Council on Homelessness — a group charged with eliminating homelessness in Montana within the next decade with the aid of state agencies

During the service, Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger, who is co-chair of the council, pointed out two steps the council has taken: making $300,000 in federal funds available to the city of Billings through Mayor Ron Tussing’s Committee on Homelessness; and compiling an extensive biennial report, which focuses on the homeless in the state and is due for release in January.

Bohlinger told the crowd, who were solemn and shivering, they are fortunate to have coats and sweaters because many in Helena do not have proper winter gear.

“Remember those for whom winter is a fight for survival,” he said.

Bohlinger said the homeless often are thought of as an “ugliness we have a difficult time facing.” He said Montanans have both a moral and spiritual obligation to reach out to those in need.

“Death, I feel, is a reminder call for all of us,” Bohlinger said during the memorial.

A statewide survey conducted Jan. 31 found 2,311 homeless persons, who ranged from babies to veterans of the Korean War, living in Montana, according to a press release from Bohlinger’s office. Of those, more than one-third were diagnosed with a mental or physical disability and more than one in four had been homeless for at least a year.

A once homeless man known as Frog was scheduled to speak at the gathering, but friend Gretchen Olheiser said he likely “had cold feet.”

Olheiser spoke in his place. She told the story of reading a headline, which reported “an unidentified body found up Grizzly Gulch” and how it made her wonder if it was one of her many cohorts who lived in that area. She said she meets a multitude of vagrants during her dog walks downtown in the wee hours of the morning.

“I see the people who live up in the hills. I know them by name and many are my friends,” Olheiser said to the crowd.

The deceased man was not an acquaintance but she attended the funeral services anyway and wrote a poem about it in 2002 entitled “Anthony,” the man’s name.

“Five people, strangers to Anthony, stood near the plain casket,” she read. “Two women watched, honoring the respect and dignity being given to this unknown man who, in this final act by fellow humans, was loved.”

Olheiser said she was pleased with the turnout.

“It makes me really sad that people are out in the cold, but happy that so many people care,” she said.

Daryl Shortman, who said he has been homeless many times during his 51 years of life, played his rendition of “Amazing Grace” on a cedar sweetheart flute to honor his “homeless brothers and sisters out there.”

“Stay strong,” he urged those in the same predicament as he has been.

Shortman said people without shelter are “just like anybody else but they’re homeless.”

“It’s not prejudice — it takes everybody,” he added after the service concluded.

Angela Brandt can be reached at 447-4078 or at angela.brandt@helenair.com.