City crews clear North Loop homeless encampment in massive enforcement operation

City workers converged quietly on a homeless encampment in Minneapolis' North Loop neighborhood early Wednesday.

Before 7 a.m., police closed nearby streets with yellow tape and metal barricades, redirecting cars and preventing bystanders from nearing crews using skid steer loaders to pull down tents.

Camp resident Courtney Montour quickly threw everything she owned on a dolly and temporarily relocated half a block away beneath an Interstate 94 ramp, where she smoked a cigarette and wept.

"They came in, said, 'Is anybody in here?' Me and my significant other were sleeping. We were like, 'Yeah, we're in here!' They started to rip apart the area we were in. … They were bulldozing [nearby tents]. We're like, 'We're in here!' "

Montour said she did not have time to grab important documents and could not find her wallet. She said she had nowhere to go but rejected going to an emergency shelter, having had poor experiences with theft in the past.

She said the owner of the property where the camp had been, developer Hamoudi Sabri, told people to leave the day before.

"He said they would put everybody out," she said. "Nobody believed him."

The North Loop homeless encampment was at 875 N. 5th St., between the Salvation Army donation center and Great River Landing, an apartment building with supportive services for formerly incarcerated men.

Overdose, fire raised concerns

The encampment was established roughly seven months ago and has been a source of division for the North Loop Neighborhood Association, nearby businesses, public health outreach workers and volunteers with a wide array of opinions about how the property should be managed and residents helped.

Prior attempts by the city to close the camp have been overpowered by activists physically barring city workers from entering.

Minneapolis' Regulatory Services Department Director Saray Garnett-Hochuli, who was present at the eviction, said her concerns escalated after a woman fatally overdosed at the site near the start of the year, a propane cylinder fire engulfed two large tents on Jan. 21 and people began to illegally heap garbage onto the snow piles surrounding the property.

"Since September, we've had over 818 calls for help to MPD to assist for dangerous things that are going on. It is unsafe, and it is not a habitable place for anyone to be living," she said. "This is all very hard, but we are trying to be as human as possible and connect folks to housing that is not on muddy, dirty land that's full of garbage."

Residents face challenges

Last month, encampment resident Nichole Nalewaja told the Star Tribune that she had complained to the city and state about health hazards at the site, including irregular cleaning of the portable toilets. After she began to develop abscesses, she sent her children — who had lived with her at the encampment temporarily — to couch-surf with friends.

"I'm a healthy, clean person. I'm just tired of the system. Being homeless, it's just like a revolving door," she said at the time. "I'm putting my foot down. I don't like going into the shelter because we've had bad experiences, and my kids … it's traumatizing to them."

Nalewaja said housing coordinators once helped her find an apartment in Mound, but for lack of a car, it would take her hours to report for her job at Barrio in downtown St. Paul by bus. She would often miss the last bus back at 7 p.m., leaving her stranded in the streets with kids at home. It was not a sustainable situation for her.

"I hate having to be responsible for a job and then tell him I can't work because I can't make it there," she said. "To me, that's just horrible."

Shelter space available

In a statement, the city said that as of Dec. 13, the Homeless Response Team counted 31 tents with people and 13 tents for storage of property at the North Loop encampment.

Each week, the city's Health Department staff would offer hygiene supplies and clothing to residents while trying to connect them with resources for housing, HIV, COVID and mental health care.

According to Hennepin County spokeswoman Maria Baca, there were 72 emergency shelter openings for individuals Tuesday morning while 45 openings for individuals became available throughout the evening. There were four spaces for couples and 32 private rooms for families.

Some neighbors, like University of Minnesota graduate student Ansel Arnold, emerged from nearby apartments Wednesday to watch at the edge of the police perimeter. Arnold said he was frustrated with the street blockages, which rerouted school buses and were set at such a great distance from the encampment that ordinary bystanders could not witness how the residents were being treated.

"I prefer they don't [dismantle] it at all. It's not humane," he said.

City Council Member Michael Rainville, who represents the Third Ward, a block away from the encampment, was also present.

"This is a lot of city resources, but you can understand that to keep the Public Works people safe, you need a big presence," he said.

Rethinking approach

Months ago, council members said they want to create a new homeless encampment policy that would establish humane standards to be met prior to any eviction. Rainville said he would also like to see a set of guidelines defining exactly how the city should approach encampments.

"What the experts say is when a camp springs up, it kind of works for a while, but sooner or later an alpha male appears, and he's calling how the food is distributed and what drug dealers are allowed and controlling the sex trafficking, and it just gets to be horrific," he said. "So, the idea would be to help everybody right away, get what they need, not allow that to fester."

As the eviction continued, State Rep. Aisha Gomez, D-Minneapolis, held a legislative hearing on bills that would appropriate funds for shelter-linked mental health services and require local government encampment policies.

Gomez's own bill, HF 4225, proposes local governments post eviction notices, collaborate with social services and plan for dealing with displaced people's personal belongings.

Thankful property owner

By noon, the tents were cleared and city workers were left to sweep the North Loop site of garbage.

Sabri, the property owner, thanked police and city staff in an interview following the eviction.

"The way they handled it and the way they took care of it was very caring, and they were very careful," he said. "The employees of the city, those people are workers, they're getting paid, they're doing their job. The lawmakers, the decision makers … that's who is responsible for this. … This is a broken country and a broken society."