Camp Nenookaasi residents, city of Minneapolis clash in court over fate of homeless encampment

For the second time this year, a U.S. District Court judge is weighing a request from residents of Minneapolis' largest homeless encampment to block the city from shutting down the camp.

During a hearing Thursday that went for more than three hours, Judge Eric Tostrud questioned attorneys representing residents of Camp Nenookaasi as he sought to understand how he could tailor an injunction against the city, should he decide to issue one.

Among his questions: Whether camp residents were seeking eviction protections no matter where the camp moves, whether residents acknowledged they were trespassing, and how they would respond to neighboring homeowners who have described finding human waste on their properties and hearing gunshots near the camp.

Tostrud, who said he would take more time to consider the arguments before issuing a ruling, heard arguments on behalf of encampment residents who say repeated closures have disrupted their lives — and of neighbors who say the encampments are significantly affecting public health and safety.

Kira Kelley, a lawyer for the encampment residents, attempted to demonstrate that her clients faced actual harm by being put on the move four times in three months. The Nenookaasi encampment, now in its fifth location, has bounced around the Phillips and Ventura Village neighborhoods following multiple closures mandated by city order, as well as a recent fire.

Kelley disputed that all crime and sanitation problems in an area rife with homelessness can be blamed on Nenookaasi residents. She said camp organizers have purposely utilized out-of-the-way public property and argued that preventing camping anywhere in Minneapolis when there is not enough emergency shelter space is akin to "banishment."

Camp residents are seeking a temporary restraining order that would allow the approximately 50 people still living at Nenookaasi to relocate someplace where they will not be threatened with eviction, so they can work with housing case managers to find suitable homes.

But Assistant Minneapolis City Attorney Sharda Enslin argued the request was moot because the camp residents' latest injunction request was filed when Nenookaasi was at a previous site that no longer exists after burning to the ground. She argued that residents are attempting to get the court to create a way for them to trespass onto city property.

Tostrud previously denied a request for a temporary restraining order in January, when residents sued to halt the city's plan to close the encampment, arguing that such a move would violate their constitutional rights. In his earlier ruling, Tostrud said it's the job of local policymakers — not judges — to determine if and when encampments should be closed.

Closure considerations

In declarations to the court, current and former camp residents described living on the streets for years before finding a measure of stability at Nenookaasi, which allowed them to eventually find housing and drug treatment. Lyle Thunder Hawk, 59, said he lost his ID, Social Security card and phone in a city sweep of the encampment, but that moving with the camp to the next location gave him a chance to find an apartment.

Roberta Strong, a 31-year-old Bois Forte Band member with a traumatic brain injury from domestic abuse, said that with every eviction she loses track of relatives, clothes, medicine and IDs. Veronica Tiger, a 29-year-old Blackfoot Indian descendant who has been homeless on and off for nine years, credits Nenookaasi for encouraging her to enroll at a drug treatment program in St. Paul.

"Nenookaasi has structure, security and care, rather than just rules and attempts to control people," Tiger wrote. "If you break a rule in a shelter, you get kicked out. There are rules everywhere, true, but here unlike a shelter you are met with understanding and being allowed to make a mistake as long as you're growing. You get the time to improve and see why what you're doing is unacceptable."

But neighbors have also submitted testimonies in favor of the city, saying human waste keeps appearing in their driveways and yards, and that Nenookaasi's constant campfires have sent people with asthma to urgent care. In December, a man was killed in a shooting at the camp's first location, and the city has tied issues including vandalism, overdoses and drug use to the camp in making its case for closures.

Kristen McHenry, director of public affairs at Allina Health, emailed the city saying smoke from the encampment was interfering with staff performing testing at Allina's central lab, located on 10th Avenue between Abbott Northwestern Hospital and the Midtown Global Market. McHenry said Friday that the test results weren't affected.

And Ashely Jensen, who manages a small multifamily building next to the fourth iteration of Camp Nenookaasi, said the smoke has given one of the residents a "chronic cough and significant physical discomfort on a near constant, ongoing basis."

A large fire on Feb. 29 burned to the ground the fourth iteration of Camp Nenookaasi, at 28th Street and 12th Avenue. It also melted the side of her building, said Jensen.

The Minneapolis Fire Department has completed its investigation but deemed the cause to be "undetermined." In its report, the department noted that the fire began in a yurt at the center of the camp and spread quickly, propelled by "dozens of illegal open fires and propane cooking devices discovered in the fire debris."

Nenookaasi's future

The city's prior victory in court and repeated closures of Camp Nenookaasi have not stopped the camp from re-forming, to the frustration of people living in south-central Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, outreach workers have criticized current policies, saying the repeated closures and relocations prolong their efforts to match homeless people with appropriate housing, while increasing the chance of overdoses.

In January, City Council Members Jason Chavez, Aurin Chowdhury and Aisha Chughtai introduced ordinances to establish regulated outdoor spaces for homeless people, equip encampments with sanitation (such as portable toilets) and mandate regular reporting of encampment removals. Specifics for those proposals are not yet available.

Most of the people living at Camp Nenookaasi are Native Americans who grew up in the surrounding neighborhoods or hail from reservations, and organizers have attested that nearly all are suffering from fentanyl addiction. The ravages of the opioid epidemic on the Native American community has made it more difficult for those who are chronically homeless to make use of sober shelters and recover from life on the streets.

The situation has become more dire in recent years; fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin, which was the more commonly used drug in 2018 when the city's first major encampment, the Wall of Forgotten Natives, appeared along Hwy. 55.

The rate of opioid-related deaths among Native Americans is 30 to 1 when compared to white people, according to the Minneapolis Health Department.