According to Gomez, workers have had wages withheld under threats of possible deportations. Unauthorized workers are less likely to seek legal aid due to their legal status.

“What I want from this program is for other people not to suffer the same abuses that we’ve suffered in the past,” Gomez said. “This program is designed to prevent these abuses.”

CTUL said workers’ rights under the program will be shared in multiple languages.

Gomez specifically named Yellow Tree, United Properties, and Solhem Cos. as developers he’d like to see join the program. CTUL called for these companies, as well as Roers, Doran Properties Group, and MWF Properties, to adopt the standards.

Those working under developers in the program can report abuse to the standards council. After a complaint is made, the council will monitor contractors’ worksites to make sure they are complying with the standards.

If the council finds that a contractor is abusing workers, developers in CTUL’s program would be legally required to stop working with the contractor.

One man is dead and two others were fighting for their lives Saturday, as Minneapolis police searched for suspects following a triple shooting in the early morning hours.

According to police, officers responded to reports of automatic gunfire at a homeless encampment near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. shortly before 5 a.m. They arrived in the Ventura Village neighborhood south of downtown to find three victims with gunshot wounds.

The men were given aid and transported to HCMC, where one of them died. Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the other two remained in critical condition. The identities of the men, who were homeless, were not immediately released.

Investigators believe that an altercation occurred after three people approached the camp. One of the victims had a BB gun that resembled a real pistol, but it was unclear if that was a factor in the shooting.

“Once again, tragedy has occurred at a homeless encampment and all three of the injured are known to police,” O’Hara said at a news conference Saturday. “Residents in the area have been very frustrated. This is an ongoing issue with encampments and all of the activity that’s associated with it. As soon as one encampment is cleared, another one pops up somewhere else and crime in the area immediately rises.”

Citing department data, O’Hara said that around 13% of all Third Precinct crime, and 19% of the precinct’s gun violence, happens within 500 feet of encampments. He said he believed that the camp where the shooting occurred appeared after officials had closed a larger encampment by a Franklin Avenue overpass.

Paula Williams, who has lived in the area since the late 1970s, said she often greets youth from the encampment and that none have made her feel threatened. But Williams said drug use and sex trafficking have become an issue.

“It’s just been whack-a-mole,” she said. “The police come daily or every other day. Somebody calls and they get chased away and by the evening, they’re back.”

Many residents in the apartments next to the proposed nightclub are visiting workers such as travel nurses or farm laborers, he said. “It makes no sense to have a nightclub that has concerts next to a place where people need to rest to work in the community,” Zuleger said.

He has said that the company also partners with addiction centers and women’s shelters to house Willmar’s most vulnerable residents, and some of these tenants would be too close for comfort to the new nightclub.

Instead of a nightclub, the site should be used for a Somali community center where children from the nearby apartments can play, Zuleger said. Willmar, a city of about 21,000 people, is about 24% Hispanic and 11% Black, with 16% of the city born overseas, double the average rate in the rest of Minnesota. About 43% of the company’s tenants are Somali, and Zuleger called them his “best-paying renters.”

But Doug Fenstra, the real estate agent helping sell the property at 951 High Av., said he had never heard about the possibility of a Somali community center before Zuleger brought up the idea at an October planning commission meeting.

On Wednesday, the planning commission deliberated whether a nightclub would fit the character of the neighborhood. They noted that there was already a brewery in the area.

They passed a motion granting the conditional-use permit.