On a windy November day, Anvis Aryavong set out to offer housing and addiction treatment services to the unhoused.
Aryavong, program manager of street outreach at Agate Housing and Services, a Minneapolis nonprofit formed in 2021 from the merger of St. Stephen’s Human Services and House of Charity, gathered hygiene kits, bottled water, Narcan and pamphlets with information on housing services — standard items for an outreach day.
As someone with lived experience of homelessness, Aryavong has an informed sense of what the city’s transient unsheltered population needs.
“When I meet with the client, I try to put myself in their shoes and try to navigate the system the way I’m presenting to them,” Aryavong told Sahan Journal. “Like, ‘What would I want out of this? What would make sense to me? Why is it going to make sense? Why do I want to take this route?’”
The work, he said, is about building trust, offering support without judgment, and meeting people’s needs in the moment — the kind of help he wishes had been available to him.
Homelessness has been a persistent and one of the defining issues in the Twin Cities this year. Encampments have sprung up in neighborhoods across Minneapolis and St. Paul, only to be dismantled by city crews as shelters report they are already at capacity. Now, housing service providers warn that U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funding cuts to transitional housing, often a key bridge to permanent stability, risk erasing years of hard-won gains.
‘Nobody wants to help us no more’
Aryavong, 43, was born and raised in Minneapolis in an immigrant family from Laos. He became homeless in Las Vegas, where he moved as a 22-year-old, after falling into addiction. When he returned to Minnesota in 2015, addiction and homelessness followed. From sober homes, friends’ homes, to his own car and in encampments in Minneapolis, Aryavong navigated many living situations.
As winter sets in, tents are returning across the city, while also forcing many long-term unhoused residents into hiding to avoid yet another removal. That has made Aryavong’s social outreach team’s work harder. But like many at Agate, he uses his own experiences to track unsheltered individuals, establish contact, and offer support and services.
“You home?” he called out outside a tent in a hidden spot near train tracks in northeast Minneapolis.
He often doesn’t find as many people as he hoped to. “During the day, people might be moving around, looking for food, or at work,” he said, after leaving his card and pamphlets at the tent so those using it could contact him if they wanted services.
After driving around for half an hour, Aryavong met with a couple camping in a parking lot near Lake Street. They were living in one of the three tents pitched near each other. Many unhoused people prefer being together in one place for security and community, Aryavong said.
He handed the woman, who goes by the name of Stormy, hygiene kits, socks, bottled water and Narcan.
This past summer, Stormy, a Native American from Omaha, Neb., lived with her partner in the Lake Street encampment on Minneapolis landlord Hamoudi Sabri’s property. After a mass shooting, city officials cleared out that camp.
Since then, services have dwindled, Stormy told Sahan Journal. “Nobody wants to help us no more, because they’re scared,” she said.
In early 2025, the Minneapolis Police Department issued a special order to proactively prevent new encampments from forming on public property, including sidewalks, vacant lots, and other public rights-of-way, and even private property if they’re declared public-health or safety nuisances.
In Hennepin County, 3,078 individuals were homeless on the night of Jan. 22, 2025. On Dec. 10, Hennepin County, which covers most of the metro area, reported just 65 available beds that morning.
“The city is eradicating visible homelessness, but that’s scattering people all over, and outreach workers are having to reach people in hidden, isolated spots where they may or may not be the next day,” said Edward Weibye, a licensed alcohol and drug counselor at Hennepin County’s Healthcare for the Homeless Project.
“What it does is it pushes people further away from care, because they have to find more creative places to be safe,” he said. “And not a lot of people go out into the community and bring care to people; it’s a very small, unique set of individuals that do that kind of work.”
Weibye, who has also experienced homelessness, accompanied Aryavong on his recent outreach day.
“The government system, they’re just trying to smother us, kill us out,” Stormy said, crying. “It’s just one shuffle after one shuffle. I just want it to be over with.”
Stormy said she didn’t want housing services immediately. But for Aryavong, it’s important she stays in touch with service providers.
Weibye, too, keeps track of where he meets people and regularly checks up on them to offer assistance. “It’s about meeting people where they are that day,” he said.
When Aryavong was homeless, he benefited from the services social workers provide at encampments like the one in Minneapolis’ Near North neighborhood where he was living in 2021.
“I found it to be really freeing, because I didn’t have any responsibilities,” he said. “I didn’t have a phone. I didn’t have to answer anybody. I was being fed. I had clothing coming in. There were supplies to keep us warm. I had drugs. What more could I want?”
At the end of that year, after Aryavong sought addiction treatment at Cochran Recovery Services under Nuway Alliance, he came to better understand the role social workers play for those who are unhoused — and with it, his purpose.
While at Nuway as an outpatient, he walked past the Agate shelter and saw an outreach worker outside tell a client it was her last day, which visibly upset the client.
“I couldn’t understand why, really,” Aryavong said. “I was able to chat with this person, and I found out how instrumental and meaningful this outreach worker was in their life. And from that moment forward, I knew that this was the job for me. I was meant for it.”
Aryavong started working at Agate men’s shelter in August 2022 as a shelter worker before moving to the outreach team. He now manages that team as its program manager. “This is what I wanted all my life without really knowing it, a job meaningful and fulfilling,” he said.
Aryavong’s preconceptions about the homeless population were shattered when he started working at the shelter. He said he had expected “something more gritty, something more like what you see in the movies.”
“But people were, for the most part, pleasant,” he said. “They had lives, they had families, children that they cared for. They were just in a difficult time. They were treated with the utmost respect and we cared for each person as we would care for one another. And that was nice to see. I did not think it would be that kind of experience.”
An especially challenging time
The current federal narrative under President Donald Trump increasingly frames homelessness through the lens of public order and enforcement. New directives prioritize clearing encampments, with some policies treating homelessness and mental illness more as public safety or criminal justice issues rather than housing or social services challenges.
Kyle Hanson, executive director of Agate Housing and Services, said the agency has tried to work against these “concerning narratives.”
“Anvis is a perfect example of showing that people can get through this, but they need the help and support to do so,” Hanson said. “And it seems like all of those pieces are under attack right now.”
Hanson said Agate’s model is to work to maintain relationships and build trust in serving a population often mistrustful of government agencies. “It’s not someone who is stepping in to try to save you,” he said. “It’s someone who’s there to help and assist and have your back.”
In his role at Agate, Aryavong now often offers services to those he once was in community with. And to him, that is essential to the purpose that allows him to continue his recovery, both from addiction and homelessness. “I want to be their source of comfort and be a safe space for them and something that they can utilize,” he said.
Elusive by necessity
The chilly fall day was the beginning of a long, cold winter outside for Stormy and her partner. Like many of the unhoused population in the Twin Cities, they rely on services like those provided by Aryavong and Weibye for hot meals, blankets, socks, and more.
But when Stormy spoke to Sahan Journal, she said that those services will become even scarcer during winter if they have to pitch their tent somewhere away from the city’s sight.
A few weeks ago, the three tents, including Stormy and her partner’s, were cleared from that spot.
Aryavong is unsure of their current whereabouts.
