MINNEAPOLIS - The gist of the story for the Hiawatha encampment hasn't changed. People are still living out of tents on Hiawatha Avenue. Community doctors say they continue to revive people from overdosing using Narcan. Time is still running out for the Minneapolis City Council.
Thursday evening, the discussion at the council meeting was about determining where exactly to put the temporary navigation center. The council was presented research from city staffers regarding two locations. The former Roof Depot location on Longfellow avenue or the vacant lot at 2600 Minnehaha Avenue.
David Frank, the Minneapolis director of community planning and economic development says they were leaning towards the 2600 Minnehaha location as the Roof Depot lot belongs to the city's water facility. In order to use it to potentially build the navigation center, the city would have to pay the water fund back $6.8 million.
With the city's need for the expansion of a water facility in mind, 2/3 majority of the council members voted to focus on the 2600 Minnehaha Avenue location as a potential navigation center.
That decision brought dozens of opposition to the city council meeting on Friday. Many showed up to the meeting holding signs urging council members to re-vote for the Roof Depot site instead.
Majority of the opposition turned out to be employees and parents from the Aurora Charter School that's located directly next to the 2600 Minnehaha lot.
"I'm afraid for the kids-- my kid goes there!" shouted Alejandro Avina on Thursday evening.
Avina says he couldn't he couldn't help the outburst Thursday night, knowing he already picks up several syringes near the school daily. Avina says he works as the operations manager at Aurora and has a 10-year-old son enrolled in the school.
"[The children] came out of their neighborhood, into our building to get away from it," Avina said. "Now we're going to have to look across the street to see it, people are continuously feeding them to do something wrong."
Friday morning, the council couldn't make a firm decision on whether they wanted to give the green light to the 2600 Minnehaha location. Instead, they motioned for more time, so they could speak to their community partners and wait for more research on any other sites that could work better.
The council promised to meet again next Wednesday and to work towards a swift but fair decision for all.
"The most important thing is to choose a spot so that we can do the work of constructing this interim navigation center so people have somewhere to go before it gets cold," Frank said.