Investing early: Missoula County’s strategy for at-risk youth

She grew up in the foster system. He had a felony conviction for a violent offense. They had been living in a van. When the Missoula County, Mont. Community Justice Department housed the couple in its four-unit apartment building, “The Cube,” the county ran the risk that something would go wrong.

It turned out, Justice Initiatives Coordinator Chelsea Wittmann said, that they were so overwhelmed by their newfound stability that they adopted a dog. In a pet-free building.

“Boy, did we have a learning curve ahead of us on that one,” she told the Rural Action Caucus July 18. “The good news is that the people and the puppy are still housed.”

As lease violations go, that was on the lighter side, and it served as a teachable moment for exactly the population that the program aims to help, including by offering credit counseling classes, financial skill building classes and one-on-one counseling.

“Along with providing housing, [the contractor] wanted to include in-house property management to teach these kids how to be tenants, because when we’re 18, we all make good decisions, right?” Wittman said.

Looking for targeted populations where a little investment could go a long way, Missoula County identified young adults, a group that is hard to find and coordinate. The gap between juvenile and adult services was considered very hard to navigate, but the county is trying to offer a housing option for teens who are about to age out of the foster care system. 

Most of the available housing in the county is concentrated in the city of Missoula, and outside of those boundaries, the county remains very rural, Wittmann said. 

“We took this approach because we know that there’s a really high likelihood that if we’ve got a kid who’s involved with one system, they’re going to end up involved in other systems,” she said. “So we may as well identify them and meet them where we’re at and serve them.” 

Youth-oriented programming is a relatively new effort for Missoula County. That includes a restorative justice program, inspired by nearby Flathead County, Mont., a justice system alternative that manages interactions between teens who have committed offenses and the victims of those offenses.

“My argument is that the restorative justice program is the much tougher route to take” than incarceration, Wittmann said. “And it’s also the route that’s actually going to encourage growth and change. And that’s what we’re after, especially with this population.”

Prior to introducing restorative justice in the 1990s, Flathead County had the highest teen recidivism rate in the state and now has the lowest.

Missoula County has used a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Youth System of Care grant to evaluate, expand and sustain its new crisis care system for residents up to age 21 by funding behavioral health and shelter care resources, including a youth diversion program to engage and follow up with families and an emergency bed and care coordinator.