A St. Paul homeless encampment has grown exponentially in recent weeks, and residents say they are in limbo as winter approaches and they await the city’s plan.
The encampment, located in a sprawling wooded area near the intersection of Randolph Avenue and Shepard Road, significantly increased in size after the city closed another encampment last month, which was located at Pig’s Eye Park. The city estimates that about 150 live in the Randolph encampment, many of whom migrated there from the Pig’s Eye camp. Mutual aid volunteers say the camp’s population is higher, at well over 200 residents.
Earlier this year, the city said it would close its three largest encampments by winter. Since the Pig’s Eye camp closure in August, a timeline for closing the Randolph encampment, and another encampment near L’Orient Street, have not been announced.
Community organizers have criticized the city’s decision to close the encampments when emergency shelters are experiencing high demand, and more than 1,400 people are on a waiting list for a housing referral in Ramsey County. Advocates also emphasize that many encampment residents are averse to emergency shelter due to their own personal experiences.
“Moving them again is not the solution because then we’re trapped in a worse system of trying to find people, of people being alone, of people navigating a new reality with absolutely no capacity in the care networks to support them,” Kat Hunter, co-founder of Rising Waters Mutual Aid, told Sahan Journal.
City officials have said the encampments are not safe for residents or neighbors. In July, the St. Paul police received 18 calls to the Randolph encampment. In August, when the camp began to grow following the Pig’s Eye Park closure, police received 288 calls.
“The Randolph encampment that people moved towards is unstable,” Assistant Mayor Cedrick Baker said at a City Council Public Safety Committee meeting on Aug. 26. “We’re going to do everything we can to support the individuals in leaving and getting out and getting into shelter.”
St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and Ramsey County officials declined repeated requests for interviews for this story.
Moving from camp to camp
The city cleared the Pig’s Eye Park encampment on Aug. 5. At one point, mutual aid volunteers estimated that between 100 to 200 people lived at the camp. Many camp residents came to Pig’s Eye after the city evicted a camp near Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary in January 2025.
Tensions were high the day of the Pig’s Eye closure. When city crews attempted to enter the camp with a skid steer, activists blocked its path.
Council Member HwaJeong Kim brokered a deal with city leadership to keep heavy machinery out of the camp, and to give residents and volunteers time to move belongings. Many moved to the Randolph camp, others placed items in storage or connected with family and friends.
Baker told council members in August that the city identified seven people from the Pig’s Eye Park camp who accepted emergency shelter.
“We would have wanted more individuals to be in shelter space,” Baker said at the Safety Committee meeting. “That did not happen, so we do not believe that that was a success.”
Sarah Peterka, community relations director of Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities, which operates an emergency shelter for men in St. Paul, said the low number wasn’t surprising.
“With the option to relocate to another encampment, it’s about what we expected,” she said.
At a forum earlier this month, Mayor Her said she thinks the city secured the resources needed ahead of the camp closure. The city allocated about $1 million to the county to fund an additional 49 emergency shelter beds at Catholic Charities’ Higher Ground shelter. Local shelters were already experiencing high occupancy rates.
“We offered them beds and they said, ‘No, somebody’s going to drive me to the other encampment.’ So the failure wasn’t our failure of securing the resources, we had the resources,” Her said at the Sept. 8 forum, which was hosted by Tane Danger to talk about issues facing St. Paul.
Hunter said that emergency shelter is not the answer for many people. Some shelters don’t allow pets, let couples stay together, or have strict rules around substance use.
“It’s not a place that’s emotionally safe for everybody. Rules are great for some people. Rules give structure. Rules give order … but that’s not what everybody needs,” Hunter said.
According to KSTP, the city spent nearly $440,000 clearing the Pig’s Eye encampment. Mutual aid workers say they would like to see that money invested into housing residents instead of evicting them.
At the Aug. 26 council meeting, Council Member Anika Bowie said she felt the city’s move to close the encampment was too rushed. The $1 million for more shelter beds was allocated about a week before the Pig’s Eye closure.
“I don’t think there was really a deep inventory of taking into consideration all the tools, the resources, the staff, the relationships that were built over years, and really a plan to really measure success,” Bowie said.
Camp residents uncertain about their future
On a late September morning, Randolph camp resident Kevin chopped wood for a fire to roast carp that he caught in the nearby Mississippi River to make a stew for himself and his friends.
Kevin, who declined to give his last name, said he moved to the Randolph camp from the Pig’s Eye camp. He walked all of his belongings from one camp to the other.
“It was terrible,” he said.
He said the situation at Randolph is “worse” than it was at Pig’s Eye, and he hasn’t seen as many outreach workers coming to the camp to help.
Kevin is waiting to be placed into permanent housing, and hopes that he can get an apartment soon. He said he’s spent time in emergency shelters before, but finds them crowded and doesn’t feel safe there.
He’s not sure where he will go next if the camp is closed.
“There’s always going to be another place to move to,” he said.
Jemma, another camp resident who declined to provide her last name, also moved from the Pig’s Eye camp to Randolph. She said many residents moved there together, and have formed a community.
She said the city needs to provide clear communication to residents on when they will close the camp, and also disagreed with the city’s plan to close its remaining encampments before winter. She said doing so could scatter people and cut them off from support networks in the cold weather.
“People will die,” she said.
Preparing for what’s next
The city gave a month’s notice before it closed Pig’s Eye, but has not yet said when it will close the Randolph or L’Orient encampments. Shelters and mutual aid groups say they are doing what they can to prepare.
Hunter’s group, Rising Waters Mutual Aid, makes weekly visits to the camps to distribute water, snacks and harm reduction supplies.
Keith Kozerski, chief program officer at Catholic Charities Twin Cities, said the organization will soon begin going out to the Randolph encampment to talk with residents about the services they offer. Since expanding their emergency shelter beds ahead of the Pig’s Eye closure, the Higher Ground shelter has had an occupancy rate ranging from about 77% to 88%.
Kozerski said Catholic Charities does not track whether people come from encampments, but noted that in the week following the Pig’s Eye closure, the organization saw a 40% increase in people seeking services.
Occupancy at other shelters in St. Paul, including Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities and Model Cities Safe Space, has also been high, which they anticipate to continue into the winter months.
“As the weather gets colder, we will be full nightly,” said Yer Xiong, shelter manager at Model Cities.
Casper Hill, a spokesman for Ramsey County said county workers have been making “regular” visits to the encampment to connect with residents. In an email to Sahan Journal, Hill said at least 10 of the added shelter beds have been used since the Aug. 5 closure of Pig’s Eye, and that “another 20 people have been secured a housing placement.”
Ahead of other encampment closures, Kim said adding emergency shelter beds alone can’t be the solution.
“If the thing that we’re offering them isn’t even good, we have to then consider what are the other options for housing that we can offer?” she said, pointing to more permanent supportive housing and wraparound services.
Hunter estimates that about 50 people live at the L’Orient encampment, located near a former Kmart. There isn’t enough space at that encampment to absorb the people living at Randolph, if residents choose to relocate there, they said.
Justin Lewandowski, executive director of Open Hands Midway, said his team is gathering winter supplies for camp residents like hats, gloves and coats. He said the lack of clarity over when future encampment closures will happen has left community members in a “place of ambiguity and fear.”
“It’s going to be worse when Kmart and Shepard are closed because that’s truly the endgame. I mean, there will be nowhere else to take people, and I don’t know what happens after that,” he said.
