Two weeks after St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her announced a plan to close the city’s three largest homeless encampments, council members pressed top city and county officials to explain how they would house the 200-some residents who would be displaced.
The Public Safety Committee hearing on Wednesday, July 22, drew a crowd of residents and activists. It was the first public session since the mayor’s office announced a plan to shut down the sites, beginning with the Pig’s Eye encampment on Aug. 5.
Council President Rebecca Noecker asked Assistant Mayor Cedrick Baker and Ramsey County Manager Ling Becker for a clearer picture of the city and county plans to house all the displaced camp residents.
“If I am an individual in Pig’s Eye, and on Aug. 5 the shelter beds are full, and someone is reaching out to me, what are they reaching out to offer?”
Baker clarified that the city and county are now actively seeking arrangements to ensure they will be able to provide all of the encampment’s residents with immediate shelter.
“We are right now working on making sure that if anybody needs to be inside, can be inside. That’s the commitment,” he said.
Encampments have been a growing issue in St. Paul in recent years. The city closed encampments in 2024 and 2025, including one near Wakan Tipi, then known as the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, housing 40 people.
But Baker said the size of the encampments has grown. He said the city has responded to more than 850 calls at the three sites in the last year, including fires, medical emergencies, assaults and overdose deaths, forcing the city to act.
“There’s been a change,” he said. “A major increase in the number of individuals in our encampments. In particular, at Pig’s Eye Park, we have never seen, never had that many individuals in one encampment. And based on that, we made a decision.”
According to city data, the Pig’s Eye encampment has 124 residents, the L’Orient encampment near an old Kmart site on the East Side has 35, and an encampment off Shephard Road and Randolph Avenue has 44.
After the closure of Bruce Vento encampment, many of its former residents migrated to Pig Eye’s site, causing a rapid increase in its population, Council Member Cheniqua Johnson said. She raised the concern that during this previous closure, Ward 7 saw community members come to help their unhoused neighbors relocate to other encampments and asked how the city is going to prevent that from happening on Aug. 5.
Responding to Johnson, Baker asked all community members and volunteers that were planning on helping move Pig Eye’s residents on the day of the encampment’s closure to not come.
“When it comes to everyone kind of coming down on Aug. 5, that is not always actually helpful. Actually, sometimes it could be a little bit distressful for individuals that are out there,” Baker said. “…We don’t actually [need individuals to] come down. It’s not because we don’t want your help; we just want it placed in different ways.”
Council Member Molly Coleman asked Baker whether the city will allow other encampments to emerge in the future. Baker emphasized that the Mayor’s Office does “not want to have any more established encampments moving forward.”
Becker updated the committee on Ramsey County’s work to provide housing and other services to encampment residents. She said the city has promised shelter beds to residents as the encampments close.
On Tuesday, Ramsey County made an agreement with Catholic Charities to provide an additional 49 emergency shelter beds alongside shelter trauma-informed advocate assistance. Unhoused individuals also have access to the St. Paul Opportunity Center, where they can access meals, showers and storage rooms, she said.
On Wednesday, Ramsey County also released a request for “proposals to expand housing case management services for individuals transitioning from encampments into emergency shelter,” she said.
Coleman and Noecker pushed for more details on how the city and county would house those displaced on Aug. 5, considering there are currently 1,442 single adults awaiting housing in Ramsey County.
“As County Manager Becker highlighted, we’re bringing more beds online, so that’s No. 1. No. 2 is we are doing our best,” Baker said. “We are trying our best to coordinate individuals to where they need to be in getting the services that they need.”
Mayor Her did not attend the meeting. She was also not present at the special city council meeting later in the day, where many speakers criticized the mayor’s encampment closure plan and her decision not to attend.
Pig’s Eye residents figure out next steps
On Friday, at Pig’s Eye Park, the city’s largest encampment, advocates and county outreach workers handed out supplies and met with residents to discuss housing and talk them through financial and legal hurdles.
Ivan Nelson, head of the nonprofit African American Survivor Services said communication and collaboration with the residents was crucial in planning what will be next for them. He has been building relationships and trust with the unhoused population for years.
Nelson said the closures would fragment those who found community at the encampment, dispersing them to other places.
“Some will get housing … Some will get housing and then lose it and then return. What we try to do is get back to unimpeded issues that drive the homelessness,” he said.
AASS gathered several camp residents to speak to reporters, including Isaac, who did not share his last name due to safety concerns for him and his family. He has been unhoused in St. Paul for over 10 years. He and his partner currently live in the camp but have arranged housing starting at the beginning of August. His partner Samantha has secured housing from Ramsey County after being on the waitlist for nearly six years. Now, the couple is in the process of getting back custody of their two children who are staying in Wisconsin with Samantha’s sister.
While Isaac and Samantha will no longer be residing in the camp when the city officials will begin clearing the space, they are still planning to be there on Aug. 4 to help their neighbors move and offer support through the transition.
“How would you like it if they came to your house and demolished it?,” Samantha asked. “Nobody else really has anywhere else to go but here … We’re going to probably help our friends out to get them moved because it’s hard to move with just yourself.”
Another resident, Leigha Walker, who has been living in the camp for the past six months, learned of the encampment closure through a vacate notice.
As a dog owner, Walker has been struggling to find housing that would allow her to bring her pets with her. After being on the priority list for a year and a half, she finally got housing that will allow her to take her dog Nova and two puppies.
She noted that had it not been for the dogs, she would have most likely been able to get housing sooner. To her, it was more important to keep her dogs than to get housing quickly.
“I’ve been really direct and upfront with my advocate program, which somebody else would consider a flaw,” Walker said. “I had seven puppies at the time and so I was like, it has to be known that I’m coming with a pack of puppies that I will have at home.”
While the city has committed to connecting “individuals with shelter, housing resources, treatment and supportive services” in their press release, many organizers that work within the encampments question whether that will be enough.
According to AASS member Vanessa Rojas, the city has so far been looking for single solutions to solve the complex issue of homelessness. She also emphasized how big of a transition it would be for unhoused people to live in shelters.
“What we need is we need everybody to unify and work together. We’ve got everything from mental illness, substance abuse. We’ve got a housing crisis,” Rojas said. “And also there’s a culture here [at the encampments]. People have lived like this. They’ve self-governed. They’ve got their own way of living. They’re accustomed to each other. They’ve been living like this, and so you can’t just really transition out of the encampment into a building.”
Despite the challenges and uncertainties and unanswered questions, Rojas remains hopeful for the future.
“My hope is that instead of just tearing down the problem right now and thinking that that’s going to fix it, we can all collaborate,” Rojas said. “Minnesotans are great and I hope that if we put our heads and our hearts together, that we can work together to really help these people down here and fix the solution.”
