Law enforcement clears homeless encampment along Highway 55 in Minneapolis
MINNEAPOLIS -- More than 100 unhoused people packed their belongings and cleared an encampment site along Highway 55 in Minneapolis Thursday morning, after the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which has jurisdiction, gave a 24-hour notice to leave.
An MnDOT spokesperson in an email that it worked with local partners, which made visits in the days leading up to the eviction notice to connect people with resources and shelter.
"Highway right-of-way is not a safe place for human beings to live. MnDOT offered secure storage options for people's personal belongings and provided contact information for local organizations that offer support services and safer alternatives for housing," the statement to WCCO said in part.
Earlier this week, advocates rallied near the site to call on Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other local leaders to halt encampment evictions. Nicole Mason who works with the American Indian Movement echoed that plea on Thursday.
She believes there aren't enough shelters and treatment facilities for individuals grappling with addiction.
"We need cultural-based detox and treatment for our Indigenous people. We have to tackle the reason why they're out here. We have to tackle mental health. We have to tackle their traumas," Mason said. "And we need to help our people heal so they can live a normal, healthy life. We need those resources."
This isn't the first encampment here or elsewhere in the city to come and go. The City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County are both working on the issue, which is complex and one officials characterize as a balance between the needs of people without shelter and others in the community.
They cite health and safety concerns at encampments, pointing to crime and drug use.
"The money they are putting into the fences, into the cleanup, into all of these police officers here—they could cut down on that by letting us stay in one place," Mason said.
The city and county noted that this encampment fell under MnDOT's purview, but in a statement to WCCO, a spokesperson for the mayor's office said he's made "historic" investments in addressing homelessness and is seeking additional funding to curb the crisis in his 2024 budget plan.
"Since the start of his public service career, one of Mayor Frey's top priorities has been affordable housing," the spokeswoman said by email. "Under his leadership, the City of Minneapolis has invested record amounts of money and staff resources into building and sustaining affordable housing programs and initiatives – in addition to partnering with Hennepin County on continuing to build out our response to homelessness."
A spokeswoman from Hennepin County in an email said it used pandemic recovery funding to support housing and spends $146 million in state, federal and local funding annually to advance its goal of making homelessness "rare, brief and nonrecurring."
She added that there was a 33% increase in people moving into permanent housing last year compared to 2021.
Council Member Jason Chavez, whose ward includes the Wall of Forgotten Natives where the encampment was located, said the city, county, state and federal government have "failed our residents" and promised a meeting to discuss "tangible solutions" to the crisis.
Joseph Coleman, who has lived at the encampment on and off since it first popped up five years ago, said he felt displaced "like a refugee" when state troopers cleared the premises Thursday.
He also called on leaders to bolster resources.
"It's sad that they don't look at us as humans. They look at us as a drug problem. Not all of us are on drugs or suffer from that, we just suffer from no place to go," Coleman told WCCO.
He added: "A lot of us, we depend on each other. And we value each other's comfort because at the end of the day all we got is each other."