Monique Schulte, the director of the YWCA domestic violence shelter in Missoula, can recall only two instances in the last four years when every room in the shelter wasn’t taken. More people need its services, Schulte said, and the length of the average stay at the shelter has more than doubled i n the last five years. The shelter is one of many statewide that have seen more people staying longer as Montana’s housing market boomed following the COVID-19 pandemic, local and state nonprofit leaders told Montana Free Press.   Barriers like poor credit or a sketchy rental history can make it more difficult for domestic violence survivors to find an affordable home, Schulte said. The nonprofit has limited resources to assist with housing, and the organization’s rental assistance program is at risk of losing funding next year due to changes to federal policy, according to the YWCA. “People come to walk-ins thinking that we can get them housed and that we have deep pockets to pay for things that we just don’t have,” Schulte said.  But help is available, and the organization encourages people in need to reach out, Schulte said.  The only domestic violence shelter in Missoula County, the YWCA strives to help survivors find housing and connect to other resources in a short amount of time because of the constant need for beds, Schulte said. The shelter, which services all genders, limits survivors to a 60-day stay, although extensions are possible.  The YWCA has operated a domestic violence shelter in Missoula since 1977 and moved into its new Meadowlark building on Third Street in 2021. The Pathways domestic violence shelter’s wing of the building nearly doubled its capacity from seven to 13 rooms, with six animal-friendly rooms. The Meadowlark also includes the 115-bed Family Housing Center shelter for homeless families with children.  The Pathways shelter has 47 beds, with 12 additional beds in the overflow dorm. Single survivors often sleep two or three to a room, allowing mothers with children to have their own rooms. The shelter has seen an increase in the number of children served annually, from 34 in 2022 to 95 in 2025.   Over the last two years, the YWCA has hired more youth advocates and expanded the hours advocates are available to watch children staying in the shelter, said Mia McKinney, the organization’s youth services manager. The YWCA is not a child care center, so parents can’t drop off their children and leave the building. Advocates provide respite care and can watch kids during parents’ counseling or other appointments, McKinney said.  The youth advocates build relationships with parents and kids, offer parenting resources and hold regular activities for children at the shelter, McKinney said. Children come to the shelter in crisis, and the program aims to create consistency and a safe, healthy relationship with an adult outside the family, which helps build resilience to adverse childhood experiences, such as housing instability, she said.  People looking for help for themselves or a loved one can call the YWCA Missoula’s 24/7 crisis line at 406-542-1944 or 800-483-7858. More information about the YWCA’s services is available at ywcamissoula.org. “Of course, we want to go above and beyond and do everything that we can to connect families with resources and get them stable housing and help them heal in many different ways,” McKinney said. “And I think that we’re working towards that just by being there for the kids and being that safe adult and building that resiliency.”  The YWCA also operates a crisis line and a team of crisis response advocates and offers shelter residents case management and individual and group counseling.  Those resources were invaluable to Emma Quick, a 24-year-old Missoula resident who stayed in the shelter three years ago. Quick told MTFP that when she came to the shelter in 2022, she had bad credit and a minimum-wage job that barely paid enough to get by. The YWCA provided help beyond a safe place to sleep, she said.  “When I first came here, I was expecting just like a bed, and that was it,” Quick said. “But I had advocates that were always there to support me and people that I could talk to, and a therapist that was given to me for free therapy sessions. They gave us dinners and shampoo and conditioner and just truly a safe space. And I guess I didn’t know much of what to expect because I didn’t know that it existed, but I didn’t expect to feel at home.”  The YWCA Missoula’s Meadowlark shelter on Third Street houses the Family Housing Center and rooms for those fleeing domestic violence. Credit: Katie Fairbanks / MTFP Quick said advocates helped her find a cheap car and write letters to property management companies explaining her situation and detailing why she would be a good tenant. They connected Quick with Hope Rescue Mission, which paid for her apartment application fee, she said.  Quick received an extension to stay at the shelter beyond the 60-day limit after struggling to find an apartment, she said. The letters from the advocates helped her find a property management company that would accept her without a credit check, Quick said.  “I almost moved out of Missoula because I couldn’t find something in my price range,” she said. “I didn’t have good credit. Everything about it was a challenge.” The average length of stay at the Pathways shelter has increased from 21 days in 2020 to 48 days in 2025, according to the organization. A lack of access to housing, limited child care options, low-paying jobs, limited legal resources, mental health needs and addiction contribute to the longer stays, said Becky Margolis, the YWCA’s communications manager.  The YWCA works to connect survivors staying at the shelter with resources, but monetarily, it doesn’t have a lot to offer, Schulte said.  “We don’t have money to pay for apartments,” she said. “We don’t have cell phones and can’t pay phone bills and give grocery cards. … But we offer a lot of support, and we do have a lot of resources in the community.”  The YWCA tries to connect survivors with other organizations that can help cover those costs, but often that funding dries up, Schulte said.  The level of services varies at domestic violence shelters statewide, and rural programs are often limited, said Kelsen Young, executive director of Montana Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.  While programs have always seen consistent usage, many are feeling the impact of Montana’s increasing population, Young said. An increase in the average length of stay is a typical trend in most places because of the difficulty in finding available and affordable housing after the state’s housing market blew up in 2020, she said.  Not everyone who stays at a shelter needs economic support, but shelters have seen a growing number of people needing help with basics like housing and child care, Young said. Shelters do their best to provide services but have varying levels of programming, she said.  “People in most of our state have access to emergency shelter, which generally has a time limit because it’s intended for people fleeing a situation and needing a safe place,” she said. “It’s not intended to be ongoing housing.”  Some shelter programs operate transitional housing or rental assistance programs, while others just offer emergency shelter, Young said.  In Missoula, case managers help individuals and families staying at the Meadowlark find housing, sometimes through the YWCA’s two housing programs. The YWCA operates a transitional housing program that subleases two apartments to households, allowing them to stay in the program for up to two years. At the end of the program, participants get a housing voucher through the Missoula Housing Authority for another unit, said Margolis, the YWCA’s communications manager.  The organization also receives a federal grant for a rapid rehousing program that provides rental assistance and case management for up to two years. The participants receive vouchers for a rental within a certain range of fair market rent as set by the federal government. The voucher amount depends on each household’s income and monthly rent, and the household contribution increases throughout the program, Margolis said. About 75% of participants are successfully housed within six months, she said. Over the last 12 years of the program, it has become increasingly difficult for survivors in Missoula to find housing, Margolis said. Even with rental assistance, participants struggle to secure a rental due to their poor credit, rental history and the lack of available rentals that meet the program’s criteria, she said.  The program served 42 households from July 2024 through June 2025, and 28 households are currently in the program, Margolis said. The number of households served is largely determined by the amount of funding the organization receives from HUD to run the program, she said.  The YWCA received a $413,565 federal grant this year to run the program through the end of August, but it’s unclear whether the organization will receive that funding for next year.  “This funding is crucial to getting houseless families into homes,” Margolis said. “It provides rental assistance that helps get them back in the very competitive housing market, and gives them time to increase their income, connect with vital community supports and build a sustainable future for themselves and their children. Without it, most of those families would struggle to get back into housing.” Survivors often have additional barriers that make breaking into Missoula’s competitive housing market challenging, Schulte said.  “Sometimes survivors have no credit or really bad credit,” she said. “Oftentimes, abusive partners will destroy their credit, … so that when the survivor is ready to finally make their own way, they can’t even do that because that has been taken from them.”  The YWCA has relationships with a few property management companies, and advocates will write letters of support on behalf of survivors. Even then, it can be challenging to explain some rental history, Schulte said.  Quick said she worked with advocates to notify her property management company that her former partner may damage the property and to remove her from the lease if that happened. But her case is somewhat of an exception, Schulte said.  “You got a great opportunity that you had a landlord that was willing to take that information, because the truth is there are plenty of people who are not,” she said. “If you don’t understand the dynamics of a domestic violence relationship and the power that is exhibited by an abusive person, you can’t imagine the challenges that go with that.”  People often question why a survivor doesn’t leave an abusive situation, but there are many reasons, including children, pets and the difficulty of leaving their security and belongings, Schulte said.  Quick said she didn’t think she deserved a bed at the shelter because her abusive relationship didn’t include physical violence.  “A big barrier for leaving the situation that I was in was A: that I didn’t think I deserved to leave or to be safe,” she said. “And B: I think it was because there was such a power dynamic and control that I didn’t have anything. I didn’t have the car. I didn’t have money. I didn’t have a way to leave. … And coming here just was the sense of I could finally become independent again.”  YWCA advocates help people not ready to leave create safety plans and distribute “shoe cards” that people can keep under the sole of their shoe with the 24-hour support line number and a QR code for the organization’s website, Schulte said.  Schulte said there’s no “cookie-cutter” way to serve a survivor, and there aren’t enough resources in the community to meet all the needs. Schulte said she would like to see more landlords and others give survivors a chance.  Quick said that the shelter made a big impact on her life and that others in an abusive situation should know that a fresh start is difficult but possible.   “It’s important to know that abuse takes all forms, and that a lot of the times when you’re in it and it’s your everyday life, you think it’s not that bad, or I can get through this or everybody else out there has it worse, or I don’t deserve to take up resources or to get help,” she said. “Whatever you may be telling yourself, you do deserve help, and you do deserve safety and love and a fresh start, because nobody deserves to feel unsafe in their own home, no matter who you are.”  In-depth, independent reporting on the stories impacting your community from reporters who know your town. The post Missoula’s domestic violence shelter strapped for space as housing crunch persists  appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less