BOISE, Idaho – The high desert sunrise bathes downtown Boise’s skyline daily with UV rays that cut through the cold fall air.
It’s a town that hums to a rhythm set by bike pedals, city busses, and car radios turned into the morning commute. It’s a town that’s seemingly stuck in 1980’s to visitors who visit from larger metropolitan areas across the west coast.
The 2024 point in time count (PIT) gathered data on 789 Boiseans experiencing homeless. Spokane’s PIT – as required by the federal government – checked in with 2,021 on the streets.
It paints a vague picture of discrepancy confirming what Spokanite’s continue to shout; problems in The Lillac City are exaggerated with a potential template of success to follow just across the Snake River.
“It’s clean,” Austen Furymiller said. “The Boise Police Department cracks down on any issues that arise. If an instance happens. They are there. They are on point. And they always have been.”
Furymiller left the region to attend college in Colorado. He returned to Boise for a simple standout trait – it’s clean and safe.
“I consider myself blessed to be here at the Boise Police Department. I truly do,” Boise Police Deputy Chief Tammany Brooks said. “If we can address some of the smaller issues, we could catch them and we could prevent bigger issues from happening in the future.”
Brooks came to Boise from Antioch, California. He was the chief at his former department. From personal experience, Brooks knows Boise – and the State of Idaho – to be unique in the region.
“If it’s illegal, we take action, we hold them accountable, and our criminal justice system here works,” Brooks said. “We respond to all calls.”
It’s a claim backed up by Furymiller who has worked in the service industry downtown Boise between restaurants and breweries. If he ever had an issue or disruption, he knows calling Boise Police will get him answers and a solution.
“People understand if they step out of line, [police are] gonna show up. There will be consequences for actions,” Furymiller said.
The system creates the outcome of a clean and safe city partly due to state law, according to Ada County Sherriff Matt Clifford. In collaboration with Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennets, the duo plays a stragith up hand – enforce the law the way it is written.
“Sometimes prosecutors are making decisions about, hey, you know, I’m not going to prosecute this type of crime, right?” Bennets said. “It can lead to not enforcing things, which then is not a deterrent for people to commit crimes.”
In Idaho, even Marijuana is still illegal. And that law is enforced despite other neighboring states embracing recreation use. That means use of hard drugs, including heroin or fentanyl, have a zero tolerance policy.
“You’re not gonna see people shooting up or smoking fentanyl on the street here because people know. You are going to jail for that,” Clifford said. “Sometimes people say you are just harassing these poor addicts. Well, is it fair to just let them stand there and abuse themselves? That’s not very humane.”
Its partially for this reason Boise stands out for a higher quality of life for the general citizen, according to Clifford. Boise routinely tops lists in the United States of the best places to live and visit.
National Geographic named it in thier top-25 list places to live and visit across the whole world earlier in 2024. It’s no surprise for locals.
“Boise is obviously a thriving metropolis,” Furymiller said. “I love it.”
Part of Gov. Brad Little’s (R-Idaho) agenda has revolved around this sentiment to resonate statewide. In his latest State of the State address, Little stated Idaho must be a place where the born and raised return back home to have families of their own.”
Part of Boise’s secret is just that – a secret. The town isn’t exempt from crime or homeless; however, those problems are relegated to a corner of town visitors would never see.
Just south of the west Boise, Cooper Court is home to a vast majority of people on the street. It’s a few blocks of rehousing services, low-barrier shelters, and the Boise Rescue Mission – a religious-based shelter service that is most easily understood with a comparison to Spokane’s Union Gospel Mission.
Thurmond Albert has been living on Boise’s streets for years. He uses these services and is waiting for his turn to leave Cooper Court. It’s unclear if that day will ever come – he’s was in news coverage concerning Boise’s homeless population years ago.
Albert is a musician penning his latest song ‘American Refugee.” It draws sharp criticism toward the federal government for prioritizing dollars to aid in conflicts overseas before solving the problems here at home.
“You ain’t living, you surviving like a rat,” he sings in tune to a beaten down guitar on the street corner.
“Half of the people on the street are real decent people. Don’t lie and don’t steal,” Albert said. “The other half are mentally disturbed.”
That reality is seen firsthand after just a few minutes in Cooper Court.
Boise Police Behavior Health Unit responded to a call for a mentally unstable woman the moment NonStop Local’s team arrived at Cooper Court for this report.
The woman was not under arrest, and she was not physically hurt either. But she was screaming at the top of her lungs, disrupting the whole block, while police took her into custody.
Due to the confidential nature of these calls and the police response, BPD Public Information Officer Haley Kramer would not confirm exactly what are doing to help this woman.
On scene, NonStop Local’s team overheard police say they were taking her tot he hospital. This is what the City of Tree’s considers compassion when confronting people suffering on the street.
“We’re making sure that [we’ve] got the services to wrap around those folks that are struggling, to help them become self-sufficient in the long run,” Boise Mayor Lauren McLean said.
Idaho’s municipal elections nonpartisan, but Mclean could be considered one of the most powerful democrats in a deeply conservative state. Her administration embraces a housing-first philosophy.
The belief is once a struggling person is housed, other problems in life fall into place because that individual is now able to focus their time and effort on cleaning themselves up rather than simply surviving.
Mclean hangs her hat on success she attributes to housing-first. A non-profit partner, CATCH, is seen a leader in Boise for getting people out of homelessness.
CATCH’s 2023 report shows they rehoused 350 people last year with subsidized housing. After slowly weaning people off assistance through a seven-month average, 84 percent remained housed a year later.
“What you see is the secret of Boise,” Mclean said.
