Montana
Missoula Homeless Shelters Receive Grants From Montana
Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) – The Montana Department of Commerce has issued grants totaling nearly $5 million for nonprofit organizations to support homeless shelters with new construction, capital improvements, and shelter space acquisition for Montanans who are experiencing homelessness.
KGVO News spoke with Cheryl Cohen, Montana Housing Division Administrator with the Montana Department of Commerce about the grant awards.
Missoula and other Montana Communities Received Grants to Help Shelters
“In Montana House Bill 5 that was passed in the last legislative session and signed by Governor Gianforte included nearly $5 million for emergency shelter facility grants to support nonprofits and providing emergency shelter or warming centers to our unhoused neighbors,” began Cohen. “This was really a unique opportunity with a one time source of funds, and our team worked really quickly to get good all the logistics in place for the bureaucracy so we could open up for applications.”
Cohen said these competitive grants were sought by several community organizations throughout the state.
There were 11 Applications and 3 of the grants went to Missoula
“We received 11 applications from seven communities that totaled just shy of $6 million and requests,” she said. “The announcement that came out this morning revealed the awardees for those funds and we were able to give out nearly all of that $5 million save for a tiny amount we had to use for legal administrative rules. We wanted to get these monies out into communities where they can be best used.”
Cohen was asked specifically about the awardees in Missoula.
The Poverello Center and Johnson Street Shelters Received Funding
“The Missoula area received three separate awards,” she said. Montana Mountain Home received almost $370,000 for rehabilitation and expansion of their mountain home site hillside property,” she said. The Poverello Center’s award was to include funds for both the Broadway Street (Poverello Center) and the Johnson Street Shelter to provide accessibility and safety improvements for both of those sites. In addition, the YWCA Missoula received about $91,000 for the rehabilitation of their Missoula family housing centers.”
Other communities receiving funding include Billings, Butte, Bozeman, Kalispell and Hamilton.
The funding is through the Commerce Department’s Emergency Shelter Facility Grant Program.
Inside Look at the New TSOS Shelters
The Temporary Safe Outdoor Space new hard-sided shelter facility officially opened on Thursday, January 5. The TSOS is just off West Broadway near the new Trinity affordable housing complex.
Gallery Credit: Nick Chrestenson
Everyone makes mistakes, even experienced professionals; a good reminder for the rest of us to learn from those mistakes. The motion in State v. Stroup starts off well in its initial pages (no case law hallucinations), but is then followed by several pages of two other motions, which I don’t think the lawyer was planning to file, and which appear to have been AI-generated: It begins with the “Below is concise motion language you can drop into …” language quoted above.
Griffen Smith (Missoulian) reported on the story, and included the prosecutor’s motion to strike that filing, on the grounds that it violates a local rule (3(G)) requiring disclosure of the use of generative AI:
The document does not include a generative artificial intelligence disclosure as required. However, page 7 begins as follows: “Below is concise motion language you can drop into a ‘Motion to Admit Mental-Disease Evidence and for Related Instructions’ keyed to 45-6-204, 45-6-201, and 4614-102. Adjust headings/captions to your local practice.” Page 10 states “Below is a full motion you can paste into your pleading, then adjust names, dates, and styles to fit local practice.” These pages also include several apparent hyperlinks to “ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws,” “ppl-ai-fileupload.s3.amazonaws+1,” and others. The document includes what appears to be an attempt at a second case caption on page 12. It is not plausible on its face that any source other than generative AI would have created such language for a filed version of a brief….
There’s more in that filing, but here’s one passage:
While generative AI can be a useful tool for some purposes and may have greater application in the future, when used improperly, and without meaningful review, it can ultimately damage both the perception and the reality of the profession. One assumes that Mr. Stroup has had, or will at some point have, an opportunity to review the filing made on his behalf. What impression could a review of pgs. 12-19 leave upon a defendant who struggles with paranoia and delusional thinking? While AI could theoretically one day become a replacement for portions of staff of experienced attorneys, it is readily apparent that this day has not yet arrived.
The Missoulan article includes this response:
In a Wednesday interview, Office of Public Defender Division Administrator Brian Smith told the Missoulian the AI-generated language was inadvertently included in an unrelated filing. And he criticized the county attorney’s office for filing a “four-page diatribe about the dangers of AI” instead of working with the defense to correct her mistake.
“That’s not helping the client or the case,” Smith said, “and all you are doing is trying to throw a professional colleague under the bus.”
As I mentioned, the lawyer involved seems quite experienced, and ran for the Montana Public Service Commission in 2020 (getting nearly 48% of the vote) and for the House of Representatives in Montana’s first district in 2022 (getting over 46% of the vote) and in 2024 (getting over 44%). “Его пример другим наука,” Pushkin wrote in Eugene Onegin—”May his example profit others,” in the Falen translation.
Thanks to Matthew Monforton for the pointer.
HELENA — You probably have goals and plans for 2026—the Montana Department of Agriculture does too.
“We’re really focusing on innovative agricultural practices,” Montana Department of Agriculture director Jillien Streit said.
It’s no secret that agriculture—farming and ranching—is not easy. There are long days, planning, monitoring crops and livestock, and other challenges beyond farmers’ and ranchers’ control.
(WATCH: Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026)
Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026
“We have very low commodity prices across the board,” Streit said. “We still have very high input prices across the board, and we have really high prices when it comes to our equipment, and so, it’s a really tough year.”
But innovation, including new practices, partnerships and technology use, can help navigate some of those challenges.
“We can’t make more time and we can’t make more land, so we need to start putting together innovative practices that help us maximize what our time and land can do,” Streit said.
Practices range from using technology like autonomous tractors and virtual fencing—allowing rangers to contain and move cattle right from their phones—to regenerative farming and ranching.
“It is bringing cattle back into farming operations to be able to work with cover cropping practices to invigorate the soil for new soil health benefits,” Streit said.
The Montana Department of Agriculture is working to help producers learn, share, and collaborate on new ideas to work in their operations.
The department will share stories of practices that work from farms and ranches across the state. Also, within the next year or so, Streit said the department is hoping to roll out technology to help producers collaborate.
“(It’s) providing a communication platform where people can get together and really help each other out by utilizing each other’s assets,” she said.
While not easy, agriculture is still one of Montana’s largest industries, and Streit said innovating and sharing ideas across the state can keep it going long into the future.
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