New homeless camp growing at planned Minneapolis affordable housing site

The owner of a corner lot in the Lyndale neighborhood of Minneapolis wants to redevelop it into affordable housing, but needs the city and county's help housing dozens of people who have established a new homeless encampment on site.

The sky-blue Casablanca Foods building, once a neighborhood grocery, has been empty and partially boarded up since the 2020 riots. New owner Traphie Slocum and developer Victoria Yepez want to transform the lot at 3246 S. Nicollet Av. into mixed-use affordable housing for seniors with a restaurant on the ground floor, but a growing homeless encampment stands in the way, creating friction with neighbors.

The camp formed about a week and a half ago with the sudden appearance of three tents, said Yepez, a member of the Local Initiatives Support Corp. Twin Cities' Developers of Color Initiative Cohort. The tents have since doubled, some containing groups of people living together for warmth. They have no bathroom facilities. Trash is beginning to accrue.

Yepez said neighbors are complaining, but the situation is beyond her expertise. She has reached out to the city for help moving the camp's occupants out of the cold.

"So far we're still in very preliminary stages of working with the city. You send an email, you finally get a call back two days later," she said. "Their first thing was, 'Just put up a no-trespassing sign.' I guess that's the process, but they didn't mention anything about bathrooms, and I'm just very unclear about what we should be doing.."

The city is still "exploring the level of assistance needed and next steps," city spokesperson Sarah McKenzie said.

Across the street is a shiny chrome apartment building that Alliance Housing built this winter for homeless families and others in need of deeply affordable housing. About half of its 64 units are leased; the remainder are filling up fast.

The units are designated through Hennepin County's Coordinated Entry system, which prioritizes veterans, people with disabilities and medical conditions experiencing long-term homelessness, said Jessie Hendel Alliance Housing executive director. "So, we would assist people living in that encampment if we received their name from Coordinated Entry."

Carolyn Marinan, Hennepin County spokesperson, said outreach workers intend to visit the camp next week, at which point they'll be able to tell if they've made contact with the people living there before or not.

Nick S., a man who lives in a tent pitched against the east wall of Casablanca Foods, said he has been outside all winter. The floor of his tent is soggy from the recent rain. A wood-burning stove made out of a portable grill keeps him warm. Nick requested anonymity out of concern for his children, who live in Bloomington with their mother.

"If we had a place to go home to, I think we'd all be there. I'm ready to be there. I don't really know what to do," he said. "So I just sit back and wait."

Nick estimates about 25 people come and go from the camp. Private groups of donors visit with hot food, clean needles and Narcan, he said. Occasionally friends living at Alliance Housing invite him over to clean up and charge his phone.

Slocum, the Liberian American owner of the African Market on 18th and Nicollet, bought the Casablanca Foods lot to fulfill a dream of building a new restaurant and affordable senior housing. Doing that with a growing homeless encampment on the property is unlike anything she's experienced before.

"It's very sorrowful. It's winter and I can't imagine being outside in the cold with the snow on the ground," she said. "... I think everybody in Minnesota should come together and find a solution to this because it's getting really excessive."