At marathon meeting, Duluth City Council rejects push to criminalize homeless encampments

DULUTH — Homeless encampments here won’t be subject to misdemeanor criminal charges, putting an end to weeks of heated debate.

During a marathon seven-hour meeting, city councilors on Monday chose to tone down Mayor Roger Reinert’s proposal to criminalize camping on city property, but approved nearly a dozen other ordinances that city officials say will address some of the area’s biggest problems.

“This amendment takes the criminal penalty out while also maintaining the ability to have someone moved to a safer place,” Council President Roz Randorf said.

Several councilors proposed changing Reinert’s plan. The revised ordinance limits fines to $200 for camping on city property and removes the misdemeanor language. It passed 5-4.

Other approved controversial ordinances involve criminalizing graffiti, noise disturbances and blocking sidewalks and streets without a permit. Reinert has said Duluth is the only regional center in the state without the ability to charge misdemeanors.

In his bid to persuade others to oppose the camping ordinance, Councilor Mike Mayou shared a letter from a founder of a Rochester homeless shelter. It called Duluth “a shining example to the rest of the state” for its teamwork with homeless advocates, asking that it not turn adversarial.

Around the state, “others are looking to us,” Mayou said, to see which path the city will take.

Tuesday morning, occupants of what began as a pro-Palestinian protest camp outside City Hall were notified they had a week to vacate, per existing code. More than a dozen tents have occupied the center square of the city’s Civic Center for three months, and the encampment has grown to include people experiencing homelessness.

In a news release, the police department cited “a public health and safety hazard” that put occupants and others at risk. Nearly 140 calls were made to police this month, including calls for an explosion and an overdose.

Since early July, when Reinert and the city’s police and fire chiefs announced potential ordinance changes, hundreds of residents have weighed in on the complex problem of encampments. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled late last month that fining or jailing people for breaking anti-camping ordinances when there is no shelter available does not violate the Constitution.

While Duluth officials said they’d educate and warn before turning to enforcement, a misdemeanor could have meant a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail under Reinert’s proposal. An estimated 600 people in Duluth are homeless.

Fines and arrests make things harder for those unhoused, the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness’ executive director, Cathy ten Broeke, said in a statement Tuesday.

“It is necessary that communities across the state focus their investments and energy on data-driven, person-centered solutions to the crisis of homelessness,” she said.

Rochester approved a ban on homeless camps in February. The number of encampments has shrunk, but outreach workers say it’s harder to find and connect with those experiencing homelessness now, as many seek places to hide.

Reinert said he didn’t see his proposal as criminalizing and argued that misdemeanors offer alternatives to a fine, such as diversionary and restitution-type programs in lieu of jail time and a record. The Sixth Judicial District Court in Duluth recently began a voluntary specialty court that hears misdemeanor charges in an effort to stabilize those committing lower-level crimes, although participants must pay.

The new ordinances have significant support from downtown employers, from large organizations like Essentia Health to small business owners like Duluth Coffee Co.

Fear, quality of life and visitor perception were central to many arguments Monday, some describing what they’ve seen and experienced, including drug use, defecation, violence and property destruction — with one bar owner likening downtown activity to “anarchy.” An Essentia executive said at Monday’s meeting that the health care system recorded 1,156 encounters on its Duluth campus in the past year with people who had no business there, a 46% increase from the prior year.

But the majority of public outcry has been in opposition to many of the new ordinances.

Dozens spoke against the camping ordinance, saying it was a reaction to discomfort, will do nothing to solve root causes of homelessness and will further punish those struggling to survive. One encampment resident said it would further dehumanize people who are already seen as “garbage.”

“When I look through all these ordinances, I see legal issues all over the place,” said Veronica Surges, a local attorney. “And I see something that has not been well thought out.”

Along with content, the rollout of the proposals has frustrated many that work with the homeless. Leaders of the city’s human rights and disability commissions last week said they not only weren’t consulted before the announcement, but weren’t granted a meeting with Reinert after the fact.

And these are the groups that will ultimately field complaints, said Nomi Ostrander, leader of the human rights commission.

Reinert’s approach “doesn’t build trust and doesn’t build community cohesion,” she said.

Reinert said Monday night that he did inform some before the rollout, but consultation also happened last fall “in the form of an election — an election that saw 54% of voter turnout.”

Public safety was a top issue during the campaign, he said, and the ordinances shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Stepping On Up, a coalition of organizations that work with the homeless population, is raising money to build a triage shelter as part of a long-range plan, and the county and the city of Duluth together designated more than $1 million for it months ago. On Monday, councilors asked the organization for speed and frequent progress reports as it approved an additional $500,000.

That money comes from what remains of the city’s $58 million pandemic allocation, which now sits at $3.4 million. The council last spring controversially voted to use that unspent aid on a combination of economic development, child care and housing efforts. It was originally part of a previous council’s allocation for housing alone.

In an interview, St. Louis County Commissioner Ashley Grimm said city approval of land has been a sticking point in moving the project forward. Homelessness needs to be treated urgently, like disaster relief, she said.

“I think the thought is that the private sector will come in and fix this problem,” Grimm said, “and that’s very likely not going to happen.”