Johnson: Disorder is a drag on neighborhoods and businesses. They need more help.

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Angie Vig sat in her cozy, sun-drenched guitar shop and looked wistfully out on the busy Snelling Avenue and neighborhood she clearly loves.

”It wasn’t like this even a few years ago,“ she said with a sigh. But now, with all the loitering, panhandling and open drug use around her shop in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood of St. Paul, she and her husband, Ted, are considering moving their business elsewhere.

The Vigs are among dozens of neighbors and business owners who have been frustrated by the increase in crime in their area. During recent community meetings, they’ve voiced those frustrations to law enforcement and elected officials, saying the global pandemic ushered in an era of fentanyl addiction, unsheltered homelessness, break-ins to property and loitering that gets so heavy that it prevents customers from patronizing their businesses.

Though law enforcement, social-service agencies, nonprofits and others are working on the issues, more needs to be done to get people off the streets and connect them with the resources they need — whether that’s housing, health care or help after being arrested for committing crimes.

A member of the Anishinaabe White Earth Band in Minnesota, Vig believes she is the only Native person in the state and perhaps nationally to own a specialty guitar repair and sales business, Vig Guitars. She grew up just blocks from her business and believed it was the perfect place to locate 10 years ago because of its centrality, easy access and strong sense of community. She said that lots of musicians — including college students at nearby Hamline University — live in and near the neighborhood.

Her stretch of the Snelling Avenue commercial corridor between University Avenue and Thomas Street is lined with small businesses, and kitty-cornered from her shop sits a small park. Vig said a small encampment was in the park during the summer, though it has since been cleared. She nodded her head toward a building across Snelling where one person was openly using drugs and another was sitting with a pile of belongings.

”This is what we’re dealing with — sometimes we find people have been sleeping in our entryway,” she said. They leave garbage. “We’ve had to clean up needles, syringes … . No one wants to walk through that to do business. It seems like we’re living in times of ‘anything goes.’ There need to be consequences for illegal acts.”

She added that she’s often torn between ”empathy and anger” because some of the problem is caused by the synthetic opioid fentanyl. “I want to see people get help for addiction … . There’s something different about this drug that can turn people into almost zombies … . At the same time, this [business] is our livelihood, and we can’t operate if customers are too intimidated to come in.”

When I left the shop, I drove the residential streets and alleys within a couple of blocks of her place. Sure enough, there were several small groups and some individuals doing drugs. They’d turn inward toward the garage doors or duck between buildings as I slowly passed by.

During a recent meeting, Ramsey County Commissioner Rena Moran asked that residents take a broader view of the opioid crisis and advocate for more state dollars for public health in the upcoming legislative session.

”We do not have enough beds to house people,“ she said. “We cannot arrest our way out of this issue. … What are we going to do with individuals who have been declared incompetent and we have nowhere to send them?”

To be sure, Hamline-Midway is not alone among Twin Cities neighborhoods. Pockets of downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul — often near encampments or places that offer services to the unhoused — are plagued with the same problems. Numerous residential areas in the cities have had issues with pop-up tent encampments and squatters in vacant lots or buildings.

And some of them are just steps away from places that have made major investments to attract and retain more residents and entrepreneurs. Businesses at the busy corner of Snelling and University are dealing with the same problems as they sit in the shadow of the recently unveiled, 38-foot-tall gleaming silver loon statue near the Allianz soccer stadium. It sits next to a new state-of-the-art playground that is attracting neighborhood kids and parents.

But if the problems with aggressive panhandling and loitering continue and grow, people will stop walking in those places to avoid the hassles — the opposite of what the investments and improvements were designed to do.

Vig said that the past couple of weeks have been a little better, with increased police presence following neighborhood complaints. Her fellow business owners along the avenue, she said, look forward to colder weather because that tamps down some of the disturbing activity.

Still, while Angie and I talked, a man introduced himself to her as a musician and customer who is also a commercial real estate agent. He politely handed her a card and said he’d be happy to help her relocate to rent or buy another place for her shop when she’s ready.

As he walked out the door, she said that she and her husband are “actively looking“ but would prefer staying put if the problems could be fixed. And that’s why the variety of agencies that work with these populations merit more support to get people off the streets and connected with the resources they need.