ON A MONDAY evening in late May, some of the homeless people in Billings gather as they do every night at this time, sitting on the benches that line the front of the Community Crisis Center. It’s 5:03 p.m. and, any minute, the Salvation Army van will pull up with the night’s street-side dinner. “It’s like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get,” says 28-year-old Bailey Desper, one of the nearly two dozen people here waiting for a meal. Tonight, it’s sweet and sour chicken and rice with a side of broccoli.
BAILEY’S STORY “I started out on the streets two years ago and at the time, I had a 6-year-old little boy,” Bailey says. “I tried to get into basic shelter through the Montana Rescue Mission. I was shut out of that resource for the simple fact that I am transgender.” Bailey says the only place she could go to was the Community Crisis Center. But she has a minor child, she says, and “you can’t bring a child here because of the violent and sexual offenders. The next morning, my son went to CPS (Child Protective Services). It’s been an ongoing battle ever since.” Then she adds, almost as an afterthought, “This is my third time being homeless.” In April and May, the Yellowstone County Continuum of Care, a coalition of community leaders and volunteers working to reimagine care for the homeless, hosted a tour of agencies that serve the homeless. Those experiencing homelessness served as guides and talked about what they face on a nightly basis. “I am staying at Off the Streets,” Bailey says, referring to a low-
barrier shelter on Second Avenue North. People don’t need to maintain sobriety to stay the night at Off the Streets; they simply have to prove they’re not a threat to themselves or others. “Without Off the Streets, it would be very difficult,” Bailey says. “You aren’t guaranteed a bed at the Crisis Center because they are meant for people in crisis and not the homeless.” In the past, Bailey spent nights sleeping on the benches outside the Crisis Center. It’s not good for the degenerative discs in her back, a condition that has kept her from holding down a steady job. She’s been waiting more than eight months to see if she qualifies for Social Security disability. “I am in this limbo stage which created a situation for me to be homeless,” she says. To stay at Off the Streets, every night Bailey walks through the metal detector at the Community Crisis Center. A security guard JULY/AUGUST 2021
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