Elliot Park neighbors forge new bonds to fight opioid crisis

Every morning Barb Lickness picks the refuse of the previous night’s drug use out of the landscaping of the Augustana senior assisted living apartments in Elliot Park, where she lives. She packs a plastic bag with scraps of aluminum foil, hypodermic needles and vials of sterile water — used in intravenous injections — into the storage compartment of her walker to take to the trash.

She and her neighbors are constantly cleaning up drug paraphernalia, she said. “My neighbor, she wants to go to the park with her grandkids, but she can’t because they get hit up by drug dealers.”

Elliot Park is a dense old neighborhood on the southeast edge of downtown Minneapolis with a distinct urban beat, a sprawling skate plaza crowning its heavily used namesake park. The area has seen ups and downs, but there’s no denying the last two years have been chaotic, as the Minneapolis Park Board named the park a “focus” area for crime.

Some residents blame a surge of new affordable housing. Others say it’s social disconnect. Despite those divisions, new coalitions made of individuals with disparate opinions are determined to model a way forward.

Like many Minneapolis neighborhood associations floundering as a result of funding cuts and low participation, Elliot Park Neighborhood, Inc. (EPNI) went defunct during the pandemic. More recently, as the opioid crisis ensnared the neighborhood, it roared back. More board positions had to be created for all the residents who wanted to participate.

Major neighborhood institutions organized as the Coalition for Elliot Park, convening regular meetings on safety, clean-up and activation of dead spaces. Housing providers Catholic Charities and Aeon, the hospital Hennepin Healthcare, North Central University, Bethlehem College, the Park Board and others take part.

Their goal is to re-forge social bonds broken by recent years’ interwoven crises, which overwhelmed Elliot Park and other pockets of Minneapolis with a high concentration of services for poor people, said EPNI director Abdulrahman Wako.

“The city has yet to fully acknowledge that this issue is really bad. It’s getting worse and it’s destroying our city, and it frustrates me,” Wako said. “But we can’t just try to kick folks out of the neighborhood in order for us to feel safe. The best way we can really help the situation is by directly helping the people.”

Last year only 18 Minneapolis parks had more than 200 police incidents. Elliot Park had 545. In December, Park Police busted 28-year-old Bernard Mack on the edge of the park with nearly 2,000 fentanyl pills, a gun and over $2,500 in cash. Mack, of St. Paul, was federally indicted this June.

Across the street from Lickness’ apartment is a crowded bus shelter where people loiter by day and camp by night. Next door is Catholic Charities Twin Cities’ Endeavors Residence, a permanent supportive housing complex that opened in 2022 to serve people exiting homelessness. Many in its 175 units came straight from the streets, and may be there still had the city not re-legalized the single-room occupancy model to tackle rising encampments. Still, the apartment has become the target of complaints about the concurrent tide of drugs.

“Anytime we have places where vulnerable people are concentrating, predatory behavior shows up, and in the Elliot Park neighborhood, we have seen an influx in pretty significant drug dealing,” said Park Police Chief Jason Ohotto.

Catholic Charities agrees. Endeavors employs security overnight and most summer afternoons to de-escalate conflicts, reverse overdoses and chase off scammers posing as outreach workers to steal tenants’ Social Security numbers. But they’re outgunned against major dealers, said Catholic Charities’ safety director Kevin Davy.

“We’re not going to arrest our way out of this problem, we’re also not going to security our way out of this problem and we’re not going to house people out of this problem,” Davy said.

Wako’s theory is that neighborhood cohesion, with regular communication and the pooling of every agency’s limited resources, would go to the root of Elliot Park’s problems better than the constant sweeping of homeless and addicted people from one property to another.

When the popular coffee haunt Segue closed, the Coalition for Elliot Park started serving coffee in the park. Monthly clean-ups bring neighbors together around the hope that cared-for places are treated more respectfully. The area’s security guards are now in constant communication, so if there’s a fight on one property, everyone else is alerted. If more dangerous characters are spotted lurking, police are called.

The Park Board started programming more activities for adults, with interim recreation center director Henry Huber getting to know the men who daily occupy the picnic benches. Many are just “down on their luck” and want to be left alone, he’s learned. When others try to ruin the peace, they self-police.

“We were struggling with violence the last couple years, but I think a lot of people have moved on and don’t come here as much,” Huber said. “Now we’re trying to get folks the help they need. We’re trying to bring back the kids, the youth and the adults who are here for positive park programming, so that’s our next step.”

This year police incidents in the park have moderated, with violent crimes (homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) down to one from 13 last year. Crime rates in the surrounding neighborhood paint a more complicated picture: homicides, sex offenses and theft are up; assaults, vandalism and robberies are down, according to Minneapolis Police data.

Elliot Park’s massive Neighborhood Night Out cookout in early August was the biggest in years, replete with a DJ, dancing and high spirits. But much of the conversation revolved around safety and Catholic Charities.

“There’s people who are scared to death to leave their building,” said Augustana tenant Ann Brandenburg, an Elliot Park resident of 30 years in drug recovery herself. “They’re scared to leave their apartments. They don’t want to come to the bus stop. Families are worried their parents can’t come to the park.”

Patty Smith, director of service partnerships at Aeon, said the timing of Endeavors’ opening was unfortunate. She hopes residents appreciate the difficulty that affordable housing providers face in helping people move out from encampments, into homes and toward true stability.

“Rather than pointing fingers and placing blame, I think it’s better to work together,” she said.

Last week, smoke filled the neighborhood as an apartment building at 1501 11th Ave. S. burned in a suspected arson. Two people died.

In 2023, the City Council amended the mayor’s recommended budget to allocate $200,000 for community safety initiatives in Elliot Park and $350,000 for community health.

Elliot Park hasn’t seen that money yet because the city’s administrative departments have not contracted with any providers, said City Council Member Jamal Osman “The challenges in Elliot Park require a community-driven response,” he said.