The St. Paul City Council passed a resolution Wednesday, Oct. 21, that calls for a coordinated plan to address unsheltered homelessness in the city, including pausing encampment sweeps and creating low-barrier shelters.
The council proposal comes on the heels of Mayor Kaohly Her’s announcement this summer that the city would close St. Paul’s three biggest encampments, which led to confrontations in August as city crews cleared out an area that was home to more than 140 people at Pig’s Eye Park.
Following the Pig’s Eye closure, residents moved to an encampment located in a sprawling area in the woods near Shepard Road and Randolph Avenue. Mutual aid volunteers estimate the camp now has over 200 residents.
“I don’t think that we solved anything with the closure,” St. Paul Council Member Molly Coleman told Sahan Journal. “It just made clear that the council needs to act, and this is us doing that.”
The resolution requests a three-part response that includes:
- A 60-day period with a “navigation tent” at encampment sites led by service providers before any encampment closures. Closures could still take place if the city identifies “an immediate threat to life or safety.”
- A temporary low-barrier shelter located in an indoor space like a gym to operate for six months during the winter.
- A collaborative effort to establish a permanent low-barrier shelter.
The resolution was sponsored by six of the seven council members: Anika Bowie, Molly Coleman, Cheniqua Johnson, Saura Jost, HwaJeong Kim and Rebecca Noecker. It passed on a 6-0 vote. Council member Nelsie Yang was absent from the meeting and has been on parental leave.
“Unsheltered homelessness is the downstream impact of failed policies, and the City of Saint Paul seeks to provide a new path and more suitable resources for our residents,” the resolution reads.
The Council Chambers were packed Wednesday with community members who held signs inscribed with phrases such as “displacement is violence” and “pause, provide, build.”
After council members took their vote, one audience member yelled, “60 days is not enough, stop the sweeps.”
Ahead of the Pig’s Eye closure, the city allocated more than $1 million to fund an additional 49 emergency shelter beds at Catholic Charities Higher Ground shelter in St. Paul. The city was only able to identify seven people who accepted shelter after the closure that came from Pig’s Eye.
“Those spaces that were made available were not used, and I think that’s because they did not respond to the actual needs of residents,” Council President Noecker told Sahan Journal.
The resolution calls for low-barrier shelter capacity to be expanded to help more people feel comfortable accepting shelter services.
“People experiencing unsheltered homelessness are members of our community entitled to dignity, safety, and meaningful access to shelter, housing, and supportive services,” the resolution reads. “Barriers to shelter may include identification requirements, accessibility needs, separation from partners or pets, restrictions on belongings, operating hours, and unmet health or behavioral health needs.”
The resolution originally pointed to a tiny-home or village model similar to shelters like Avivo Village, which has locations in Minneapolis and St. Cloud. Noecker said that specific example was removed to give “more leeway to the administration and to our service providers to determine exactly what type is best.”
The resolution also supports increasing family shelter space in Ramsey County. More than 100 children are on a waitlist for shelter, according to Jody Emmings, CEO of Interfaith Action of Greater St. Paul, which operates Project Home, Ramsey County’s emergency family shelter.
“Every child deserves a safe place to sleep, to learn, to play, to be celebrated,” she said at a news conference prior to the council meeting. “They cannot be an afterthought to our response to homelessness.”
Jason Lopez lives at the encampment near Shepard Road and Randolph Avenue. He said at the news conference that many camp residents want to be left alone and are trying to get back on their feet.
He agrees that shelter capacity should be increased, especially through Minnesota’s extreme seasons, and also supports efforts to prevent children from experiencing homelessness.
“We need to start these steps so children aren’t homeless, so they have the chance to not be a statistic,” he said.
Justin Lewandowski, executive director of Open Hands Midway, a nonprofit that distributes food and supplies to encampment residents, said he sees the resolution as a “new beginning” and is glad to see the council propose solutions.
“The resolution is not perfect, but it’s the first clear example that I’ve seen of people trying to lay out a clear and articulated vision of how we can address the solution,” he said.
But he said a 60-day pause on closing encampments isn’t long enough, and he is concerned about language in the resolution that allows the city to close an encampment if it identifies “an immediate threat to life or safety.”
“I think the biggest concern that I have personally is that the Mayor’s Office is going to use literally any incident at any time to justify closing the camps, and then we’re back at square one,” he said.
Several other advocates said Wednesday that they think a 60-day pause is too short, and worried about that timeframe landing in the middle of winter.
“We really think that a winter sweep would be one of the most inhumane things that could be done,” said John Slade, a senior organizer with the Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing.
There is currently no monetary figure in the resolution, but estimates from City Council staff suggest the plan could cost more than $10 million. It calls on the city, county, state and philanthropic groups to help fund the plan.
Ramsey County Commissioner Mai Chong Xiong said at the news conference that the county is ready to work with the city to address unsheltered homelessness and bring the resolution forward.
“I’m also proud that the City Council is setting a clear blueprint and signaling to partners such as the county and the state about where they want to make investments,” she said.
State Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, said that she is calling on her colleagues at the Capitol to commit to ongoing funding for housing solutions.
“The measure of our success cannot simply be how we respond to homelessness; it must be how many people we move out of homelessness into a safe, stable place they can call home,” she said.
As the council’s plan is a resolution and not an action like an ordinance, it will ultimately be up to the Mayor’s Office if the plan will be followed through.
In a statement, the mayor said she supports moving people from encampments into housing, and is analyzing the “viability and affordability of these proposals.”
“Every spending choice we make comes at the expense of other priorities and essential services our residents depend on,” she said.
Her said her office is still planning to close the Randolph encampment and another camp near L’Orient Street on the East Side.
“I remain committed to bringing all levels of government and partners to the table to address this systemic problem,” she said.
Coleman said she’s “cautiously optimistic” that Her’s office will act on the plan.
“This is an attempt at bringing together people who have very different perspectives on what the right path forward is, and to get to the best option that can have broad support,” she said.
Noecker told Sahan Journal that it’s essential that the city act immediately on the resolution, as winter quickly approaches and temperatures plummet.
“We have no time to waste,” she said.
