MINNEAPOLIS — The city of Minneapolis moved forward with its plans Thursday morning to clear Camp Nenookaasi, a south Minneapolis encampment currently occupied by dozens of unhoused community members.
People who live at and advocate for the preservation of Camp Nenookaasi a press conference at the site ahead of the clearing, which included camp founder Nicole Mason. She pleaded to city leaders not to displace the people living there, a majority of them Indigenous.
"It hurts me to see all of our people scattered, not having a solution, because I thought that us, as the people, could make these solutions happen," Mason said. "... A week-and-a-half ago, we met with the mayor's office, a lot of community members, a lot of policy, decision-makers, where we were told long-term solutions were on the table. And what happened? An eviction showed up. It's not right. A lot of things have been promised and then taken away."
In a statement Thursday evening, a city spokesperson said the process of evacuating the camp will resume Friday, stating "the city's intention was to maintain a peaceful closure even if that meant the closure took longer or additional days to complete."
"As seen today with some encampment residents moving to a new site, the City alone does not have the resources available to address multiple encampment sites at once," the statement read.
"The City and its residents are seeing first-hand the reason there needs to be a coordinated approach between the City, County, and State – the City cannot do this work on its own. All government entities must work together to address the movement of our unsheltered residents and the long-term provision of shelter, housing, and social services."
The spokesperson added an additional 19 people evicted from the camp were "connected and transported to shelter" amid the camp's closure. Before Thursday, the city claimed it had already helped connect 111 people with alternative housing or shelter options.
Thursday morning's press conference came after weeks of back and forth between the groups, including a decision on Wednesday, in which a federal judge ruled in favor of the city's plan to evict those living at the encampment on the corner of 13th Avenue South and East 23rd Street in Minneapolis' Phillips neighborhood. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by two members living at the camp, who accused Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey of "seeking to evict, displace, and scatter them into the harsh Minnesota winter."
"Given the long and brutal history of encampment sweeps in Minneapolis and the deadly frigid winter ahead, Defendant Frey’s planned eviction is dangerous," the lawsuit states. "Plaintiffs not only face irreparable harms, but reasonably fear for their lives."
The city argued the encampment does not provide those living there with adequate housing — "especially in winter" — and maintains the camp is considered a public safety concern.
"The increasingly dangerous conditions at the encampment mandate its closure. Within the past four months, the encampment has been the site of a fatal shooting, a drug overdose death, sexual assault, vandalism, open drug use, stray gunshots, complaints of human waste, and more than one hundred 9-1-1 calls," a city spokesperson said in a statement.
Mason said the camp, which is located next to the Indigenous Peoples' Task Force, gives the folks living there direct access to resources that help combat issues like homelessness and addiction. She went on to say the city "promised" to provide some shelter to those who faced eviction Thursday, but so far, that promise has not been met.
"We were promised 90 shelter beds and 40 permanent housing for our relatives," she said. "I don't see anything there and I don't see any storage. We brought the storage. Our people did. The people don't want to live like this — they want permanent housing."
Mason then made a plea directly to Frey, who she claimed was "the only person who gave us pushback."
"We just need a lot of support and we need for the mayor to hear us," she said. "He's the only person who gave us pushback and I don't see him here — ever. He's never once come to the camp or showed up to a meeting so we need to call him out."
Adding, "... This is an emergency and this is something that all of the people want, right? We want to stop encampments, we want to stop addiction... It's time to give us the resources and the housing to let us Indigenous people, heal our own people."
KARE 11's John Croman was at Camp Nenookaasi as police arrived around 11 a.m. He reported many of the unhoused folks started to move their tents, yurts, teepees and other shelters and possessions to a new camp, which is now being set up on 14th Avenue South and East 26th Street, just a flew blocks from Camp Nenookaasi's present site.
As officers stood by to monitor the unfolding situation, community members gathered in solidarity with camp inhabitants to fill a U-Haul and other vehicles with belongings to move to the new camp.
The land on which Camp Nenookaasi occupies is currently in the process of being sold to the Indigenous Peoples' Task Force, a nonprofit that provides a variety of health and educational services to Native American families, with the goal of building an arts and wellness center. The sale is scheduled to be finalized in February.
"It's time to stand united, come together and make this dream that was created by the people, make it reality," Mason said. "Because letting them have some control over their lives again — the government's been doing this to our people for a long time, deciding. Now, we have to pick up the pieces and heal our people over the generational trauma. Give us the resources, give us this land back so we can heal our own people as Anishinaabe."
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