MINNEAPOLIS — Weeks of contention between community activists and the city of Minneapolis reached a peak Thursday after Camp Nenookaasi burned to the ground, once again displacing residents.
"The people on the streets, they're human beings, too," said camp coordinator Nicole Mason at a news conference with city and community leaders Friday.
The camp, its last location on the 1100 block of E. 28th Street, has been the subject of at least three evictions in recent months, one of which a city spokesperson said was due to "dangerous activities" at the site, including shootings and drug trafficking.
"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," the spokesperson said in a statement on Jan. 4.
But after Thursday's fire and the subsequent displacement of dozens of people, City Council Member Jason Chavez led a press conference on Friday. Surrounded by advocates for the unhoused, Chavez announced a plans for a new, coordinated response to address unsheltered homelessness being put forth by the Minneapolis City Council.
"I'm here today because people's lives are above politics," Chavez said. "I am committed to working with the mayor, the City Council, the county, our state and our federal government to protect people's lives," adding, "Today, I'm not here alone. We're here as a community that's demanding change."
The proposed mandates include establishing a safe, outdoor space run by nonprofits or community partners that go through a city permitting process and have safety, security and support on site to permanently house people. Chavez said the idea is borrowed from a similar ordinance imposed in Denver, which he said has successfully housed nearly 200 people. The council member said this is a data driven approach and emphasized that this would not legalize putting encampments on sidewalks.
Secondly, Chavez said the council wants to work toward a "humane encampment response policy," which he said would allow the city to move away from a regulatory services response toward a public health response that "houses people first."
"I am tired of our current approach, which is dehumanizing people and throwing them away like garbage," he said. "It is not helpful to continue with our current eviction policy, that does not communicate with our service providers on the ground. They are the experts, they are the people who keep people housed, and yet, the miscommunication in our current lack of policy is making the situation worse."
The third proposed ordinance involves a encampment eviction reporting requirement to keep track of taxpayer dollars and city resources spent on encampment evictions, as well as keeping track of eviction efficacy.
"I think we can all agree that millions of dollars can be well spent to permanently house our residents, protect residents in neighboring encampments and improve the lives of people," he said.
He said the council is also ready to move forward with those ordinances by providing funding for service providers, healing and treatment opportunities for the unhoused, as well as culturally specific support and housing.
Additionally, Chavez said the public health and safety committee has approved its committee work plan and expects the council to pass it next week. The document outlines the council's unsheltered response plan.
"Encampments is not the solution," Mason reiterated, "evictions is not the solution. We need housing for people that are out there — they deserve a good place to live."
She added, "It's time to listen to the people, bring us to the table, hear from the people so they can have some control over their lives."
One of those people, now a coordinator with Twin Cities Recovery Project, Jermale King, said it wasn't until he received adequate support from community groups like TCRP that he was able to overcome past criminality and substance abuse disorder, among other obstacles.
"A lot of people that are out there, and a lot of my family and friends that are out there, they have good goals, good dreams, they thrive to be a part of this society, but society is not allowing it; government is not allowing it; policy is not allowing it; the Constitution does not allow it, King said.
Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai also spoke about her experiences with housing security, saying she's faced the issue for most of her life. She called the current state of unsheltered homelessness a "crisis."
"I know, uniquely and personally, that the status quo response from the Frey administration to this crisis is not working," she said.
"We live in the wealthiest country in the world, our city is the economic engine of our state, and when we see people living outside in encampments in conditions described by our colleague, Council Member [Jamal] Osman, who himself lived in a refugee camp, as being worse than the conditions in refugee camps, we have to face the reality that we're seeing policy failure at every system level, at every level of government."
Chavez said the council already has the votes to impose the proposed ordinances, and after having met with the mayor's office, he's hopeful Mayor Jacob Frey will also support the initiative.
In response to Friday's earlier remarks, Frey sat down with reporters at his temporary office across the street from City Hall, saying alternative options are already being provided.
"We have options that are available. We have a shelter system that's in place that's run by the county," he said. "We at the city are providing record amounts of deeply affordable housing — we've got a plan that is being executed and we do need a full-on, statewide approach to getting this done."
The catch, Mayor Frey said, is getting "to a point where we're operating in a narrative of reality," saying the reality about Thursday's encampment fire is that "we got lucky."
"As mayor, as the one who's charged with executing policy, not just talking about it, I operate in the reality business, so let's work through it," he said. "With any policy, you need some detail that's attached to it. You can't just put the word 'safe' in front of 'homeless encampment' and make it so."
Frey blamed fentanyl addiction as a "big reason" for the establishment of large-scale encampments, and a primary factor in why his administration doesn't believe outdoor encampments can be deemed safe.
"We also have to recognize a big reason why these homeless encampments exist, is quick and readily available access to fentanyl... it's a market," he said, later adding, "I don't think it's compassionate to have people slowly dying of addiction in a homeless encampment. That's not what addiction looks like to me."
He went on to say his administration is working to find definitive solutions for folks at encampments and invited anyone who wants to partner with his office "in good faith" to come forward.
"Are there solutions out there? We are in search of them and we will work with any partners that want to work in good faith with us, but I've been saying for months, if not years, that these large-scale homeless encampments are not safe — and yesterday is a prime example of it."
Frey claimed "somewhere in the range of 98 percent" of the community of people experiencing homelessness are not unsheltered, but rather working through the shelter system. Frey described the effort toward the crisis as a "never-ending pipeline of work."
"We're housing more people than we ever have before, by a long shot, and still, there are more people experiencing homelessness. We're stepping up."
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