Minneapolis clears several South Side homeless encampments

Minneapolis work crews cleared several homeless encampments on Thursday morning in the city’s East Phillips neighborhood.

Enrique Velázquez, director of regulatory services, said the city Homeless Response Team and a cross-departmental team began shutting down camps at 2839 14th Av. S, which is a city-owned lot, 2844 Bloomington Av. around 6:30 a.m.

Fewer than 30 people total lived at the two encampments, city spokeswoman Jess Olstad said.

Nicole Mason, an organizer for the encampments that are known collectively as Camp Nenookaasi, said authorities also cleared a third camp. She estimated a total of 60 to 70 people lived at the three sites.

Mason said the closures took the camps’ inhabitants and their advocates by surprise. She said she wished the city had notified the sites’ residents days earlier so that they could have made preparations to leave.

“We know to expect something randomly like this, and it isn’t right because homeless people are human beings as well,” Mason said.

City officials said people living at the 14th Avenue encampment were told repeatedly over the past few months that they were trespassing and that a closure would come.

Velázquez said the sites were deemed a public safety risk “due to activity in and around the encampments that threatened the surrounding neighbors and people within the encampments.”

Around 9 a.m., officers blocked off 14th, 15th and Bloomington avenues with metal fences and police tape as workers closed down the camps. Police were positioned on several streets and at times were seen stopping homeless people from returning to collect their belongings. Reporters and photographers were also not allowed to get close to observe the sweeps along 14th and 15th avenues.

The city said encampment residents were allowed back in to get their belongings. Olstad said that once police officers serving as “point people” outside the closure area interacted with someone staying at the encampment, they were allowed in.

Velázquez said the displaced encampment residents were being offered options for shelter, transportation, resources, medical care and free storage for their belongings.

“Encampments do not provide safe or dignified housing,” he said in a statement. “As a city, we strive to provide resources to people who need them, in the most compassionate way we can.”

Olstad released data that showed police have been called to the 14th Avenue encampment nearly 70 times since February and 30 times to the Bloomington Avenue site since May.

Residents of one of the camps said they were upset because they left their tents in the morning and then lost their belongings when they weren’t allowed to return.

“I lost all my clothes, hygiene products, some pictures,” said December Oakgrove, who was pulling a cart with blankets and other personal items.

Some of the camps’ supporters at the scene questioned if recent federal rulings influenced the city’s decision to clear them.

This week, a federal judge ruled that a group of formerly homeless people who had their belongings seized from encampments cleared in Minneapolis in 2020 could not sue for damages.

Olstad said the city’s response plan for unsheltered homelessness has not changed since the ruling.

City Council Member Jason Chavez watched the closures Thursday morning. On Wednesday night, he hosted a neighborhood meeting of housed and unhoused residents at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church to address concerns about drug use and community safety.

“I want to be clear that these inhumane evictions with no plans, unclear guidelines on timing and a lack of proper notices are wrong, and they had nothing to do with my community meeting last night and nothing to do with St. Paul’s Lutheran Church,” he said in a statement Thursday.