Why some cities are operating legal homeless tent camps even in the dead of winter

Affordable housing in Missoula, pop. 70,000, is scarce. There is less than a 1% rental vacancy. And the median home price crept above half a million dollars in late 2021. Clark lived in her car until it got impounded.

“I was at the end, I didn’t know what I was going to do,” she says.

Then she heard about Missoula’s Temporary Safe Outdoor Space, where she’s been living since September.