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U.S. cities struggle to deal with homeless encampments
Minneapolis is among major cities across the U.S. that have seen the encampments increase both in number and size, creating more health and safety issues.
MINNEAPOLIS — Editor’s note: The video above first aired on Oct. 16, 2023.
Tossing tent poles, blankets and a duffel bag into a shopping cart and three wagons, Will Taylor spent a summer morning helping friends tear down what had been their home and that of about a dozen others. It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last.
Contractors from the city of Portland had arrived to break down tents and tarps on a side street behind a busy intersection and people had an hour to vacate. Whatever they couldn’t take with them was placed in plastic bags, tagged with the date and location, and sent for storage in an 11,000-square-foot (1,020 square meter) warehouse.
“It can get hard,” said Taylor, 32, who has been moved at least three times in the four years he’s been homeless. “It is what it is. … I just let it go.”
Tent encampments have long been a fixture of West Coast cities, but are now spreading visibly across the U.S. The federal count of homeless people reached 580,000 last year, driven by lack of affordable housing and a pandemic that economically wrecked households. Encampments are also generating more controversy because of homeless people with severe mental illness and drug addictions who refuse treatment or don’t have access to programs.
Records obtained by The Associated Press show attempts to clear encampments increased in cities from Los Angeles to New York as public pressure grew to address what are dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. But despite tens of millions of dollars spent in recent years, there appears to be little reduction in the number of tents propped up on sidewalks, in parks and by freeway off-ramps.
Homeless people and their advocates say the sweeps are cruel and a waste of taxpayer money. They say the answer is more housing, not crackdowns.
The AP submitted data requests to 30 U.S. cities regarding encampment sweeps and received at least partial responses from about half.
Encampments were not a serious issue in Minneapolis until the pandemic, when they became more commonplace and much larger, drawing thousands of complaints. In response, the city closed down more than two dozen sites where 383 people were camped from March 2022 until February.
At the same time, Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, launched a program last year aimed at finding short- and long-term housing for homeless people, including some living in encampments.
“We are hyper-focused on housing,” said Danielle Werder, manager of the county’s Office to End Homelessness. “We’re not walking around with socks and water bottles. We’re walking around saying, ‘What do you need?’”
In Phoenix, the number of encampments swept soared to more than 3,000 last year from 1,200 in 2019. Las Vegas removed about 2,500 camps through September, up from 1,600 in 2021.
The city of Los Angeles said its sanitation department responded to more than 4,000 requests a month from the public to address homeless encampments at the end of 2022, double the amount the previous year.
But it would not explain whether that meant the encampments were dismantled or simply cleaned around or even how large the encampments were.
But even cities without data confirmed camping is consuming more time, and they are starting to track numbers, budget for removals, and beef up or launch programs to connect people to housing.
State and local laws criminalizing homelessness are on the rise, said Scout Katovich, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of sweeps and property seizures in a dozen cities, including Miami, Anchorage and Boulder, Colorado.
“These laws and these practices of enforcement do nothing to actually alleviate the crisis and instead they keep people in this vicious cycle of poverty,” she said.
But California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose state is home to nearly one-third of the country’s homeless population, says leaving hazardous makeshift camps to fester is neither compassionate nor an option.
He is among officials urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a 9th Circuit appellate court ruling that prohibits local governments from clearing encampments without first assuring everyone is offered a bed indoors. San Francisco is under a court order to enforce the ruling.
“I hope this goes to the Supreme Court,” said Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco, in a September interview with news outlet Politico. “And that’s a hell of a statement coming from a progressive Democrat.”
Earlier this month, crews in Denver erected metal fencing as police officers called to residents to leave a sprawling downtown encampment. A bonfire blazed against temperatures in the teens and snow covered the ground.
“The word ‘sweep’ that they use … that’s kind of how it feels, like being swept like trash,” said David Sjoberg, 35. “I mean we’re not trash, we’re people.”
Removing encampments is costly — an expense more cities, counties and states have to budget for. Several cities queried by the AP provided some costs, but others said comprehensive figures were difficult to get given the multiple departments involved, including police, sanitation and public health.
Still, Denver reported spending nearly $600,000 on labor and waste disposal in 2021 and 2022 to clean 230 large encampments, some more than once. Phoenix said it spent nearly $1 million last year to clear encampments.
Despite all that spending, said San Francisco real estate broker Masood Samereie, businesses keep losing customers because of people camped on sidewalks, some clearly in mental distress. “It’s throwing money at it without any tangible or any real results,” he said.
For homeless people, sweeps can be traumatizing. They often lose identification documents, as well as cellphones, laptops and personal items.
Roxanne Simonson, 60, said she had a panic attack during one sweep in Portland and started yelling for an ambulance. “And then I changed my mind, because if I go, then I would lose all my stuff,” she said.
But, cities can’t stand by and do nothing, said Sam Dodge, who oversees a San Francisco city department that coordinates multiple agencies to place people into housing so crews can clear tents.
“Saying, ‘This is not working, this is dangerous, you can do better than this, you have a brighter future than this,’ I think that’s caring for people,” Dodge said.
One August morning, his crew surveyed about a dozen structures and tents, some inches away from vehicles zipping by. Outreach workers fanned out, asking people if they had a case manager or wanted a room indoors.
City officials are particularly frustrated by people who have housing, but won’t stay in it.
Michael Johnson, 40, was assigned a coveted one-room pre-fabricated structure with a bed, desk and chair, a window and a locking door. But his friends aren’t there and to him, it feels like jail, so he’s sleeping in a tent.
Many cities say they link camp residents to housing, but track records are mixed. For example, a June New York City comptroller’s report said more than 2,300 people were forcibly removed from encampments from March to November 2022. Only 119 accepted temporary shelters, and just three eventually got permanent housing.
Advocates for homeless people say there are not enough temporary beds, permanent housing or social services and there are many reasons why someone might reject shelter. Some have been assaulted in one, or say there are too many rules to follow.
But sometimes, they don’t want to pare down their belongings, or follow rules that prohibit drugs and drinking, officials say.
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Little information is being made public as police investigate a homicide.
ST PAUL, Minn. — Police in St. Paul are investigating a fatal stabbing in the city Friday night.
Little information is made available at this time, but police are calling it a homicide.
It happened on the 200 block of E 7th Street, police said.
This story is developing and will be updated as more information becomes available.
Gov. Tim Walz took a break from the campaign trail to watch his old football team in action.
MANKATO, Minn. — People poured into Blakeslee Stadium on the Minnesota State Mankato campus Friday to see a clash between crosstown rivals Mankato West and Mankato East. Added to the mix was an appearance by Governor Tim Walz, who came to take a stroll down memory lane.
“I was lucky enough to have both Mr. Walz and Mrs. Walz as teachers,” Jimmy Baker, a Mankato West alum told KARE. “They started at West my freshman year, so they just as much a part of this place as I am.”
Baker played linebacker and running back on the Scarlets’ 1999 state championship team, with Tim Walz as his defensive coordinator. Walz was a social studies teacher at the time and his wife Gwen taught English and literature.
“He just really loved football, and he really felt passionate about the gameplay, and he gets really pumped up by good plays, and he was really good at redirecting and getting everyone on the same page,” Baker recalled.
Baker was one of the Mankato alums who took the stage wearing their Scarlet jerseys during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It was part of the DNC’s overall effort to reinforce the “Coach Walz” theme for their vice-presidential candidate.
“I don’t really follow politics as closely as some, but it was very surreal to be there on that stage,” Baker recalled.
“It was pretty amazing to do that and also be able to do it with some of my oldest friends was probably the best part.”
As soon as Walz joined the Kamala Harris ticket in early August many former students of Gov. Walz and First Lady Gwen Walz have come forward to share their stories with the media of what it was like to be in their classroom decades ago.
At a State Capitol press conference, former student and football player Nate Hood from the Class of 2002 said Walz made a point of ensuring second-stringers got some playing time.
“Coach Walz brings me over and he was like, ‘Hood, what’s’ the score?’ I said, ‘Zero to 34, we’re down.’ He goes, ‘Alright! You can get in there!”
Walz taught social studies at Mankato West for nine years and served as defensive coordinator and assistant coach for the Scarlets until retiring to run for Congress in 2006.
Not everyone was thrilled with Walz’s appearance at Friday night’s game. Former Rep. Jeremy Munson of Lake Crystal said the Secret Service security measures would be inconvenient for families looking to enjoy the game.
“It’s upsetting to a lot of the parents to have this turned into a political event, by bringing the Secret Service, and I understand that’s the position he’s in as a candidate he has to have that security.”
Munson and others have commissioned a plane to fly over the stadium before the game with a banner that read “Bench Coach Walz – Trump 2024.”
The plane never made it to its destination. Munson later explained that the plane with the banner took off but was instructed by the control tower to return to the airport a few minutes later.
Jimmy Baker, who now has children of his own at Mankato West, said he thinks it’s great to see Mankato’s big game in the spotlight. He said he believes Gov. Walz and the First Lady have every right to see the big game.
“They’re as much a part of the community as anyone else. Whatever they’re at, or whatever they’re doing, they absolutely belong here!”
Wendell Epps and Charles Hallman agree Thursday’s game was unlike anything they’ve ever seen… or covered.
MINNEAPOLIS — A security camera inside Minneapolis’ A Bar of Their Own looked as if it would fall from the ceiling on Thursday night, as Minnesota Lynx fans erupted in celebration during the team’s historic comeback in Game One of the WNBA Finals.
It was one of several fan reaction videos that spoke to the joy and pandemonium that unfolded in the final seconds of regulation and throughout overtime, as the Lynx clawed back from an improbable 15-point deficit with less than six minutes to play in regulation.
That joy wasn’t just coming from fans.
Wendell Epps, the 23-year-old, first-year play-by-play announcer for the Minnesota Lynx Radio Network, had some of the best seats in the house for all the unforgettable plays, and his selfie-style recording of his final calls captured the chaos that unfolded in New York.
“It was absolutely insane,” Epps said. “I mean, this is my first, big-boy play-by-play job and to have that opportunity was really cool and it was a surreal experience. I loved it.”
Just thinking about it made Charles Hallman, a Hall of Fame sportswriter for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, laugh.
“That young man… just think, this is his first year calling WNBA games and he’s in the Finals,” Hallman said, with a loud laugh.
Charles Hallman is on the other end of the spectrum… the basketball writer says it’s also one of the best games he’s ever seen… and he had to watch from his living room.
Charles Hallman: “I watched on an easy chair and I was on the edge of my seat.”
Kent Edahl: “I’m guessing you were NOT at the edge of your seat after that shot by Courtney Williams.”
Hallman: “Haha, no, I fell backwards! I fell backwards like she fell when she got fouled.”
Though he is no stranger to covering the Lynx in the WNBA Finals, Hallman said this run has stood out.
Hallman: “If they win this, this will be a very unique, unique championship.”
Erdahl: “What do you think makes this run special?”
Hallman: “This team, literally, just came together this year, that just shows you the great coaching job of Cheryl Reeve, who don’t get a lot of credit for what she does, and how these players grasp on to her. The chemistry of this team is just… for professional sports is very impressive. They just love to play together.”
“I just think we have a lot of players who have kind of flown under the radar,” Epps said. “Even Napheesa Collier, our best player, is probably the most underrated superstar in any professional sports league.”
And the fact that the Lynx were able to bite back in the Big Apple makes it even sweeter.
“Literally, every time out I would see a different celebrity pop up on the jumbotron,” Epps said.
“I’m glad that America got to see the Lynx play if they haven’t seen them play all year, that was a fantastic, an instant classic,” Hallman said. “I mean, to see the Lynx on the front page of the paper today. You don’t see that very often. For somebody that’s been covering the sport for as long as I have. That’s something that I love to see, and I’d love to see that more because women’s sports deserves to get that kind of praise.” added Epps.
