The article states that shelter beds remain available.....uh, this has been
stated as the default by officials since the encampments started. First, there
are no where near enough shelter beds. The conditions of the ones available are
not talked about by these officials.
Because the conditions are to be blunt....crappy.
The call by advocates and people experiencing homelessness to Build tiny homes
communities, use of the roof depot, turning over tax forfeited property and
land , using HUD unused federal property. .... the call goes unneeded and
ignored. The need for dignified harm reduction residential housing has been
woefully ignored for years.
See the article below:
Two years after a massive tent encampment in south Minneapolis brought
attention to the state’s growing homeless population, people have returned to
pitch tents at what was called the Wall of Forgotten Natives.
More than 40 tents flapped in the wind against the wall and next to speeding
traffic between Hiawatha and Franklin avenues Thursday. The group decided to
move there after their previous camp, on a city-owned lot at 2313 13th Av. S.,
was cleared by the city Wednesday.
Native leaders and outreach workers, including Clyde Bellecourt, a founder of
the American Indian Movement, held a news conference Thursday near the
encampment urging the city, Hennepin County and the state to find stable
housing for the homeless.
“I feel sorry for them. It’s pitiful what we have to do and the effect it has
on our community,” said Bellecourt, 84. “We can’t just sit around and think
about where we’re going to put up a camp next.”
The re-occupation of the site, which had been barricaded by the state, comes
during an increasingly confrontational atmosphere between officials and
homeless advocates.
In a statement, city officials said they cleared the previous encampment “due
to health and safety concerns” and with help of nonprofit organizations. They
were expected to meet with the state and county Thursday afternoon to talk
about how to help those who moved to the wall.
DAVID JOLES • STAR TRIBUNE
Autumn Dillie, an outreach worker with the American Indian Community
Development Corporation, spoke at a community gathering in front of the
Minneapolis American Indian Center about the return of the Wall of Forgotten
Natives.
More
Shelter beds remain available, Hennepin County officials said in a statement,
while arguing that the only solution to homelessness is “increasing access to
affordable housing.” The city and county have recently allocated $8 million to
create three new shelters in the city, including one specific to native
residents.
Still, Indigenous leaders have not been satisfied with their response, said
Robert Lilligren, the chair of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors.
“We need to do better for our Native and non-Native relatives who are sleeping
outside, sleeping in places unfit for human habitation,” he said. “We need to
remember: Winter is only a few months away.”
Some of them called on the city to open the Roof Depot, a municipal site
further south in the Phillips community, to house people during the winter. The
city is developing the site for a new public works maintenance facility and to
store work vehicles.
The Wall of Forgotten Natives became the largest and most visible homeless
settlement in Minnesota in the summer of 2018. The sprawling camp had several
hundreds residents, many of them Native American, and was troubled by drug
overdoses, disease, violence, fires and deaths.
After an aggressive push to connect campers with social services, the
encampment was closed at the end of the year. Some were temporarily relocated
to a nearby shelter space called the Navigation Center.
Terysa Dircks had lived at the wall and later at the Navigation Center, where
her fiancé choked to death from a drug overdose. Still homeless, she returned
to pitch a tent at the wall Wednesday.
Dircks, who has gone seven days without using drugs, said people like her who
live on the street feel as if though they are “shunned and pushed around and
forgotten about.”
“Being pushed from place to place, told that we could live here for a certain
amount of time ... and then to come take it away with bulldozers and police and
dogs ... how does a human react to something like that?” she said. “Until
you’ve been out here firsthand ... there’s no way you could ever understand the
impact that it has on our lives.”
The new encampment at the Wall of Forgotten Natives is one of many that have
grown across the city after the coronavirus pandemic and the aftermath of
George Floyd’s death. There are encampments at more than 20 parks across the
city, down from more than 40 in early August, according to Minneapolis Park and
Recreation Board Superintendent Al Bangoura.
During a Park Board meeting Wednesday, Bangoura said all park encampments would
likely be disbanded in October, saying cold overnight temperatures would pose a
risk and that it was illegal to light fires in park property.
One of the encampments is on the northeast corner of Peavey Park, just blocks
away from the Wall of Forgotten Natives and directly next to Hope Academy, a
private school that started classes this week. Bangoura said the Park Board
attempted to clear the encampment last month, but protesters prevented them
from doing so.
“We have de-escalated and backed away from conflict during a time in the city
of ongoing civil unrest,” he said Wednesday. “We continue to seek a peaceful
disbandment of the camp, with law enforcement used as a last resort; however,
the Minneapolis Sanctuary Movement and other advocates have created a
challenging situation for the school and families who attend the school.”
At the news conference Thursday, several people gathered wore blue shirts with
a seal that said “Native Americans were never homeless before 1492,” the year
Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas.
“We’re the landlords, we’re the caretakers,” Bellecourt said. “And as far as
I’m concerned, it’s the end of the month, and the rent is due.”