Upon watching a fence erected following the closure of a homeless encampment, and the one tree nearby cut down, an elder with a home nearby remarked, “Don’t blame the tree.”
Having spent nearly 30 years working with homeless families, youth and single adults throughout Minnesota, I am often asked about the myths and realities of homelessness. As we await the U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether a person can sleep outside when there is no emergency shelter option available or face criminal consequences, allow me to share my experienced reality.
Myth: There is enough shelter for people to access.
Reality: Hennepin County recently reported that 4,000 women, youth age 18+ or men were turned away from shelter in 2023. Family shelter is overflowing. Duluth operated a parking lot this winter where people could park and sleep safely in their vehicle. Shortly, the annual spring ritual will occur where scores of Minnesota shelter beds will close because winter is over.
Myth: We should think about homeless people and winter.
Reality: We should think about homeless people and toilets. Question: How many months of the year do you need access to a toilet? And which hours of the day? When we focus on providing space for people to be inside November-April or 9 p.m. to 7 a.m., we are creating an expensive public health concern.
Myth: Homelessness in the Twin Cities doesn’t cost the rest of Minnesotans.
Reality: Do residents of Ham Lake care if their state tax contributions went to MnDOT paying $84,885, according to a Data Practices Act request, for the fence that was installed to close an encampment along I-94 near downtown Minneapolis? Do residents of Prior Lake care if they contributed to the $72,990 for the fence along Robert Street outside of downtown St. Paul?
Myth: Those homeless people won’t go inside.
Reality: This statement is common, including when Minnesota’s largest encampment, the Wall of Forgotten Natives, existed in 2018. Then a shelter was opened and 175 people went inside. It’s said, “People won’t come off the light rail trains” or the news may interview someone who says they won’t go to a shelter yet people come inside when we create shelter programs that meet their needs.
While the goal is housing, and we have data to show that the Housing First programs initiated in 2005 in the Twin Cities work for many, and treatment works for others, we are so many years behind in housing development that the best we can do is prevent homelessness where possible and make sure people can get inside somewhere in the meantime.
If I could wave a wand to address an immediate need, it would be immediate access to a place to be inside for people, whether we call it a safe site, respite, village, healing center, navigation center or a shelter.
Myth: Homelessness is too expensive to fix.
Reality: Funding for housing makes up less than 1% of the state’s annual general fund budget. What is a waste of money? Minneapolis spent at least $500,000 to close four homeless camps last year. Anti-homeless architecture like rebar under bridges, piles of stones under overhangs, eradicating bushes and using city streets as storage for public works concrete is the new sanctioned litter we must drive past. Is this the type of community we want to build?
While children and youth make up half of Minnesota’s homeless population, they are the most invisible among us. People living with untreated trauma and addiction are the most visible.
Maren Hardy, White Earth band and co-founder of Spirit Care Services, has been a street outreach advocate since 2011. Hardy notes, “We have to teach people who are living with untreated trauma and addiction how to live again. All we addicts know how to do is survive, not live. People need life coaches who they see multiple times per week, not a couple of times per month by phone. We also have to let the police department be allowed to do their job when it comes to issues of people breaking the law.” The tremendous impact that encampments have had on children and adults living nearby should have the same level of being unacceptable as having people sleeping outside.
Whether the situation is going to get better or worse is the reality we face. I am heartened to observe public and private sector efforts to have people sleep safely inside and hope they meet the need. Until then, people will seek shelter under the trees that still stand.
Monica Nilsson is board chair at Peace House Community and collaborated with Maren Hardy, co-founder of Spirit Care Services, on this piece.
