Homeless camping bans surfacing in Minnesota cities in wake of Supreme Court ruling

About a dozen homeless people escaped the afternoon heat in an air-conditioned shelter in downtown Rochester last week as staff at the Landing MN worried where the group would be sleeping that night.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on homelessness has advocates like Dan Fifield, co-founder of the Rochester shelter, even more concerned about the people they serve. The high court ruled that cities are allowed to enforce bans on camping in public, even when there isn’t shelter space available.

“It’s not going to solve homelessness. It’s not going to do anything except make it harder for people to get the help that they need by not allowing folks to exist in a manner that works for them,” Fifield said.

On June 28, the Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 to side with the city of Grants Pass, Ore., which was sued by homeless people over a previous ban on sleeping in public. The court’s majority said that creating laws prohibiting sleeping in public does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment,” giving cities the go-ahead to create their own bans without fear of legal consequences.

At least two Minnesota cities — Brainerd and Duluth — have proposed camping ban proposals since the Supreme Court decision. In Rochester, a camping ban has been in place since March.

The Rochester City Council adopted its camping ban on a 4-3 vote, and since then public camping has greatly decreased in the city. The proposal came after Rochester police called for more legal consequences for campers as the city dealt with a growing number of tent encampments. Mayor Kim Norton said that the Grants Pass ruling “absolutely” gave her more confidence in the city’s decision to enact a camping ban.

“We’ve had a significant reduction in camping since we passed the ordinance,” Norton said in an email, adding that the city opened an overflow night shelter to help accommodate people. “Very pleased with the results.”

While some city leaders said they welcome the legal latitude for public camping bans, the Landing’s staff members, who work with homeless people, say they are left with the problem of finding enough shelter space for everyone. In June more than 360 people visited the Landing’s shelter, Fifield said, greater than the 80 or so shelter beds that are available each night in Olmsted County.

“Right now we’re averaging 112-ish people coming in every day for services, and the population greatly exceeds the number of shelter beds,” he said.

Rochester has not fined or arrested anyone through the ordinance so far, but police have issued warnings. Rochester Police Chief Jim Franklin said police will fine or arrest someone for camping only as a last resort. He said the first priority is to educate homeless people about what resources are available and then encourage them to seek out services.

At the Landing, its operations manager and several people experiencing homelessness said they were critical of the ordinance. Brandon Ball, who said he has recently been sleeping in the woods and under bridges, said he thinks it’s unfair to require people to move if they have disabilities and may not be able to relocate their tent.

“What are people supposed to do? I’ve got my home on wheels, but not everybody can do that,” said Ball, standing next to his bicycle, which he uses to tow a small storage container he sleeps in.

But some Minnesota city officials said the court’s ruling gives them an important tool to address public safety concerns and unsanitary conditions in encampments.

St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis said the city has had a public camping ban in place for decades. He emphasized that St. Cloud’s priority is to direct people to services to find housing, and not to issue fines.

The court’s ruling “may be a tool that makes it easier for us to keep people out of harm’s way in a situation that’s not safe for the people in the encampment or the community as a whole,” Kleis said.

St. Cloud has had public safety issues in the past at an encampment near a shelter for victims of abuse, Kleis said, and someone was recently found dead at a camp.

In Rochester, the ban also applies to people who sleep in cars on city streets. Emma Greening, 19, said she became homeless a couple of weeks ago after her mother vanished from their Rochester house and she wasn’t allowed to stay there. Since then she has been sleeping in a car with her boyfriend, Micah Newman. But police will often wake them up to make them move their vehicle, the couple said.

“They tell us that we need to move constantly, that we can’t park here, and we’ve resorted to using our gas to go clear to the North Side because nobody wants us on this side of town anymore,” Greening said.

Since Rochester’s ban became active, some who continue to camp have found more well-hidden places to avoid being seen by police. Shawna Bowman, the Landing’s operations manager, said that makes it difficult for outreach workers to make connections with people who need services. She added she thinks the ban was created to sweep unsheltered people to less-visible areas and not to address the deeper challenges of homelessness.

“It’s all about being ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ and ‘If you can’t see them, then there’s not a problem,’” Bowman said.

That trend of homeless people seeking hidden places to camp has also been happening in Grants Pass. Ruth Dailey, who volunteers for the Oregon outreach service provider Mobile Integrative Navigation Team (MINT), said some people have begun moving into the wooded hills that surround the city, in preparation for another ban.

In Minneapolis, city officials said there will be no changes because of the Supreme Court case. Enrique Velázquez, Minneapolis’ director of regulatory services, said that while the city does prohibit public camping, it does not ticket unsheltered people for violating the prohibition.

The city will continue to offer campers shelter and services through its homeless response team and partners with Hennepin County and other service providers, Velázquez said. As of May, the city had cleared 16 encampments in the Phillips neighborhood and the adjacent Franklin Avenue light-rail station over the previous two years.

Brainerd City Administrator Nick Broyles said in a statement city staff had been waiting for a ruling in the Supreme Court case before approaching its City Council with a proposed ordinance “to ensure the language would be constitutional.”

Brainerd Mayor Dave Badeaux said he wants the city’s eventual ordinance to take into account the safety of the public, police and the homeless population. But cities don’t have the ability at the local level to address the root causes of homelessness, Badeaux said, and he hopes the state and federal governments can invest more in that area.

“At the city level, we’re trying to put Band-Aids on larger issues we can’t fully control,” he said.

Outreach providers in Grants Pass said they have been reeling from the Supreme Court ruling. Bruce Murray, the medical director at MINT, said the concerns raised are visceral for the people affected — “like being kicked in the gut,” he said.