When a customer steps into the doors of Harmony Salon at the intersection of Helena Avenue and North Jackson Street they are hit with the light scents of organic soaps and haircare products. More than likely, they’ll see shop owner Robin Burk either manning the front desk or with one of her usual clients. 

They would also see out the shop’s front windows, directly across the street, the building that houses Our Place, a support program for homeless men and women and now the proposed location of an emergency shelter. 

The nonprofit, Good Samaritan Ministries, is working toward opening a women’s emergency shelter for the winter at the current location at 648 N. Jackson St. Helena’s zoning commission earlier this month recommended that the Helena City Commission approve the shelter when it meets on Dec. 18. 

The zoning commission meeting gave community members, downtown business owners and neighborhood residents an opportunity to comment on the proposed shelter. About 27 people spoke in support of the shelter and its location; another dozen, including Burk, raised their objections.  

“For me to be on this side of stuff breaks my heart. Absolutely breaks my heart,” Burk told Montana Free Press this week. “It wrenches my guts that I am standing here saying I oppose something for homeless people. And it, I mean, it’s really the location, you know.”

Burk, who is also a recovering alcoholic with 25 years of sobriety, shared that she was one step away from being homeless herself, but that having structure, stability and rules had helped her to her path of recovery. But the proposed emergency shelter will be a “no-barrier” shelter, meaning it will offer anyone, regardless if they have been drinking or using drugs, a place to stay for the night. That worries Burk. 

“That’s part of recovery is having a safe place to go to that has rules,” Burk said. “I think one of the really hard parts for me is … the idea of a low-barrier shelter.”

“It wrenches my guts that I am standing here saying I oppose something for homeless people. And it, I mean, it’s really the location, you know.”

salon owner Robin Burk

But, she acknowledged, “We need something in Helena. I will help if it’s in the right location.”

From feeling unsafe walking to and from her salon’s parking lot to witnessing individuals urinate outside of the Our Place building across the street, Burk said that she has seen and felt a difference within Helena’s downtown district during the past two and half years. Now, if the shelter is approved, she is afraid of what she may lose. 

“I don’t have the money it took for me to open this salon. Do I have to go find a new location that fits all the needs of my handicapped clients, of my older clients that need a safe parking lot to walk in, easy distance?” Burk said. “It took me so long to find this space. How do I find another space that is so centrally located?”

An advocate for the shelter, Jeff Buscher, director of community impact for United Way of the Lewis and Clark Area, said during the zoning meeting that an emergency shelter will actually increase public safety. 

“By providing a shelter, it gives people a place to go so that safety concerns are managed,” Buscher said during the meeting. “I want to remind our community that it costs less to do something about this issue than to do nothing about it. When we do nothing is when we have issues in alleys, in neighborhoods and behind businesses and those kinds of things. But by having a plan and managing this population and working with them to improve their setting, then we’re steps ahead. We’re miles ahead.”

Robin Burk, the owner of Harmony Salon, understands the need for an emergency shelter in Helena but worries how it would affect her nearby business. Credit: JoVonne Wagner / MTFP

Among those who support the shelter was Ara Babcock, the assistance coordinator with Good Samaritan Ministries. She said having shelter is about human dignity.

“Everybody deserves something over their head, they deserve to feel like humans, they deserve a bathroom, they deserve food,” Babcock said during the meeting. “They deserve everything you and I deserve on a daily basis and they do not deserve anything less and to have anybody feeling like they don’t deserve that is not acceptable.”

A Jackson Street homeowner, Staci Evangeline, addressed the zoning commission as well, opposing not only the location but also questioning whether the emergency shelter, now set to operate during the winter, will eventually be open for the remainder of the year.  

“What’s gonna stop this from being approved from this conditional-use permit and then being expanded to a year-round shelter with hundreds of residents?” Evangeline asked.

The Helena City Commission will consider the proposed shelter at its meeting on Dec. 18. The meeting, at the City-County building, begins at 6 p.m. 

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