After months in a camper, Montana prison guards first into new state workforce housing

Two Montana State Prison employees have settled into their new townhome in Deer Lodge, a sharp upgrade for a couple of correctional officers who had been living in a camper for the last seven months. 

The Pintler Meadows project is a new state-funded workforce housing unit that officials hope can mend a longtime recruitment issue that's long plagued the facility anchored in rural western Montana. 

Kenneth and Stephanie Erb officially got the keys to their townhome on Aug. 1, elevating from an "unhoused" situation to stable shelter. Montana Department of Corrections Director Brian Gootkin said in a press release earlier this month the funding for the state housing was a crucial investment. 

"The looks on these people's faces when they received their keys was priceless," he said.

The Erbs were drawn by a lottery system among state prison employees who applied to land the house. And their homeless status prior to Aug. 1 is not theirs alone; enough MSP employees are without a home that "currently unhoused" is among the criteria for applicants for the Pintler Meadows project. 

A Department of Corrections spokesperson said Monday there is no current estimate of how many state prison employees are currently homeless, and clarified that an applicant does not have to be unhoused in order to be drawn for a unit at Pintler Meadows.  

However, since August 2023, the corrections department has housed 131 staff members through other short-term housing options. The local hotel spares eight rooms for prison employees; the campground can set aside 11 sites as well. Staff housing made available by the department two years ago provided another six rooms. 

Housing has repeatedly been documented as one of Montana's most pressing issues. Urban areas haven't kept pace with the inflow of new residents, creating a supply issue. Rural communities see little development as their populations continue to migrate elsewhere. 

Inmates at Montana State Prison at least have their own roof to lie beneath. In March 2024, the state parole board's chief of staff told lawmakers that many inmates had concerns about rental prices and leaving prison only "go out and in the community and become homeless."

The Montana Department of Corrections has at times struggled mightily in recent years with staffing the state's largest prison in Deer Lodge, the population of which hangs around 3,000. The prison is in a much better place than 2022, when the facility's workforce had a 40% vacancy. But while better play plans approved by the Legislature led to large gains for the department's staffing, many correctional officers still travel from well outside Deer Lodge, where housing remains unavailable or unaffordable. 

"What is in good condition is expensive," said Rep. John Fitzpatrick, an Anaconda Republican whose district includes Deer Lodge, Phillipsburg and Drummond. "The situation in all these small towns is dire."

The Deer Lodge Valley houses not one, but two major state institutions that suffer this problem. Along with MSP, the Montana State Hospital, the only state-run psychiatric facility in Montana, is just a few miles down the road. The state hospital has continued to rely on contract nursing staff to function as needed, but that solution is not an option for the prison.

The Pintler Meadows project has committed 25 of the 28 eventual units to Department of Corrections employees, a DOC spokesperson said Monday. 

Built-in benefits

The Erbs were the first two in the door of the seven units that have been completed and are available for occupation. They moved from Florida in January and spent seven months in a camper. 

"The department has been so welcoming and made us feel like we belong here from the start," Stephanie Erb said in the department's press release this month about the Pintler Meadows grand opening. "Moving into a townhome still feels like a dream and I will forever be grateful to the state of Montana and the Montana Department of Corrections to have made this possible."

The employee housing comes with a bonus: If the Erbs stay on the job at MSP for the term of their five-year lease, the rent paid for their Pintler Meadows townhome will come back to them as down payment assistance toward the purchase of a new home. 

To qualify for Pintler Meadows, the household income must be less than $110,000, in theory reserving the units for rank-and-file staff instead of officers in senior management. 

The second part of eligibility has two options. State employees must either be currently homeless or spend no more than 30% of their monthly household income on housing. According to Department of Corrections spokesperson Alex Klapmeier, applicants can qualify by either one of those measures, but are not required to be unhoused to be eligible for the townhome units. 

The monthly rent is $770 plus any fees applied by the city of Deer Lodge. That rent climbs by 3% on July 1 each year. 

The funding to build the project was set aside by lawmakers in 2023, when they spent more than $200 million on facility upgrades to the prison, including a massive project to replace the low-security housing at Montana State Prison. 

"The availability of affordable housing for employees at MSP, our largest secure facility, has been a struggle for the DOC in terms of recruitment and retention," Gootkin said in this month's announcement about Pintler Meadows. "We appreciate this investment by Gov. (Greg) Gianforte and Montana legislators in the folks who perform these crucial jobs."

Fitzpatrick sponsored that legislation and has remained a key lawmaker in the changes in and around the state prison. He said Monday he understands the remaining units at Pintler Meadows are expected to incrementally become available for occupation by next summer. 

"I was delighted to see this come together and succeed beyond my wildest dreams," he said in a phone interview on Monday. 

On top of the Pintler Meadows, Deer Lodge is bucking the rural trend and building more housing — lots of it.

Beaumont Place has been billed as Deer Lodge's biggest subdivision development in 70 years, with 211 living units planned across 105 lots over 44 acres. Developers broke ground on the project one year ago. NBC Montana reported the addition is estimated to grow Deer Lodge's housing supply by 14%.