Minneapolis Indigenous groups seek police help with homeless camps, drug traffickers

American Indian leaders on Minneapolis’ South Side say they’ve been overwhelmed this summer with large outdoor gatherings of transient people, drug users and dealers, and are demanding police escalate arrests.

Executive directors of several community organizations have resolved to draw 50-yard “exclusionary zones” around their properties, prohibiting homeless encampments and volunteers from helping the homeless with food, Narcan and other survival gear. If an encampment forms within the zone of one organization, others are now obligated to help clear it.

The Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors (MUID), a coalition of organizations trying to craft cohesive positions on issues in the Native community, adopted the resolution.

Many of its members also serve the South Side’s most vulnerable residents, taking in homeless people on winter nights and providing supplies while doing street outreach.

MUID Chair Robert Lilligren, who is also a Metropolitan Council member and CEO of the Native American Community Development Institute, acknowledged that not everyone in the coalition agrees with the resolution.

He said conversations have been filled with “passion and anger,” and ultimately organizations will have to interpret it for themselves.

“At the risk of sounding a little dramatic, this was a desperate cry for help,” Lilligren said. “Things are really untenable in our Native community.”

The school at 1845 Franklin Av. E. has lost staff and students — many of whom are in recovery and trying to find jobs after time in prison — because they must walk through stretches of public drug use. Staff members are constantly chasing vehicles away from areas known for prostitution.

“We didn’t want to villainize the people within these encampments. We understood what they were contending with — addiction,” Hobot said.

“We are out of balance,” he added. ”Too much of our time, resources, energies and spirit has been dedicated to these folks under the bridges, and we have lost sight of maintaining safe and secure campuses for our community members that are not in the throes of addiction.”

In June, occupants of a nearby encampment approached American Indian OIC property. An argument with staffers nearly came to blows, and at one point, rocks were thrown, shattering the school’s front doors and windows.

A 27-year-old man was later charged with felony property damage.

Mayor Jacob Frey’s office celebrated their decline last week in a report showing the city spent $63,000 on sweeping 13 small camps between December and March, compared with $333,000 spent on closing 17 larger ones in the second half of 2024.

“Encampments have never been the answer — safe, stable housing and a dignified place to sleep at night have been,” Frey said in a statement.

While tent cities have declined, unsheltered homelessness and large public gatherings with drug use persist.

Last month, female American Indian leaders said sex trafficking in the community has reached emergency levels.

Ruth Buffalo, CEO of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, said bad actors target her organization because it helps women leave dangerous and exploitative relationships, disrupting the traffickers.

“All of the Native orgs are doing what we can, but we can only do so much,” she said. “People are dying, and we’re going above and beyond of what we’re budgeted for because we love our relatives, we love our community members and we want everybody to live and thrive.”

The MUID resolution calls on Minneapolis police to increase patrols around member organizations and provide weekly reports to prove they are making arrests.

Third Precinct police Inspector Jose Gomez, who attends MUID meetings, said the department needs to figure out what data it can release, especially when juveniles are involved. A regular report can be done and is being developed.

“Part of their frustration is the community sees a lot of what they describe as an open-air drug market, and hand-to-hand drug deals, and they’re not getting arrested,” Gomez said.

“It’s challenging because I tell them they can call 911, and they can describe it, but we as law enforcement need to develop our own probable cause to stop, search and arrest somebody.”

Outreach workers are grappling with how to help those who are hurting others.

Vincent “Vinny” Dionne, who works with the community security group Many Shields Society, said at a recent MUID meeting that going to prison saved his life by forcing him to get sober. Yet harm-reduction practices, like having Narcan on hand, are sometimes all someone has to get to the next day.

“I want to be on both sides,” Dionne said. “All of us in the community need to figure something out. What are we going to do? Are we going to continue to let our people kill themselves?”

Community activist Mike Forcia, who works at the Homeward Bound shelter, agreed with MUID’s demand for more arrests of drug dealers. But he hopes people come to see that the figures they see under the bridges — some he’s known since they were kids — are self-medicating their deeper problems.