Butte Rescue Mission is providing food, clothes and shelter to hundreds of people and families with support from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana.
Founded in 1976, the mission is open to anyone who needs a meal, clothes or emergency or long-term shelter and partners with other community organizations to provide essential services. It also offers education and counseling to unhoused people struggling with poor health, financial issues, domestic violence or substance misuse.
With an 18-member staff the mission provided emergency and long-term shelter to more than 500 people, including 25 families, and served nearly 91,000 meals to people in Butte and the surrounding eight-county area in 2023.
“We are meeting people’s basic needs and helping them heal,” says Brayton Erickson, who co-directs the mission with his wife. “We’re seeing people grow. That’s the funnest part. They give you fuel to move forward.”
A construction project — partly funded with a $50,000 Blue Impact℠ grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana — will allow the mission to create enough space to offer year-round accommodations to the region’s increasing homeless population.
Through the Blue Impact grant program, BCBSMT awarded more than $475,000 to 13 community organizations statewide in 2024. The program targets social and economic factors that affect health, including support for locally defined health solutions, access to nutritious food and economic opportunities.
“Now more than ever, communities are in need of organizations like the Butte Rescue Mission” says BCBSMT President Lisa Kelley. “We are grateful for their work, and we are proud to support their mission to meet an increasing demand for these essential services.”
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more Montanans have sought the mission’s services because of a confluence of social and economic issues, including rising housing costs from an influx of new residents from other states, a steep rise in homelessness, high rates of substance use disorder and rising food insecurity.
To keep up with the growing demand, the Ericksons are overseeing construction of a 10,000 square-foot building to expand services and establish a resource center, including a kitchen, dining hall, medical area and drop-in shelter.
Although the Ericksons had never operated a nonprofit before joining the mission in 2020, they overcame their fears and refused to allow inexperience and a global pandemic to stop them. Brayton Erickson credits common sense, problem-solving skills and relationship-building for his ability to uphold the mission’s work and help people thrive.
On the most challenging days, he often thinks of a woman who struggled with substance use disorder, became justice-involved and lost custody of her children after staying at the mission during the pandemic. Erickson and his wife fostered the women’s children until she focused on her recovery and turned her life around.
“She is just blossoming so much,” Erickson says. “She’s held a job for over a year. She has a car and an apartment. The kids are doing well in school. They are flourishing. They still come over and visit my kids. We really did save their lives.”
