Minneapolis shelter vandalized more than year ago asked for leniency for attacker as it mends

St. Anne’s Place, a family homeless shelter in north Minneapolis, was attacked by a group of its across-the-street neighbors in the middle of the night, forcing the shelter to relocate 16 mothers and their 30-plus children. More than a year later, shelter staff attended the sentencing of one of the assailants, asking a Hennepin County judge to have mercy by waiving her $21,000 restitution.

All they wanted in return was an apology.

For the past year and a half, the shelter has been gradually mending their block’s broken relationships and their own residents’ shattered sense of safety in a bid to continue serving homeless women and children in north Minneapolis. Advocating for the criminal court to take a softer tack in their case was one piece of it.

At the Dec. 17 sentencing of Eureka Riser, the woman charged with using a bat to shatter the doors and windows of St. Anne’s in the fall of 2024, People Serving People CEO Hoang Murphy requested that the court give her a second chance. He didn’t want to see Riser trapped in a cycle of debt.

“We cannot punish our way to justice,” Murphy said.

Riser previously had admitted to being intoxicated at the time of the attack, which started over a parking dispute. She declined to provide a comment to the Minnesota Star Tribune, saying she blamed media coverage of the incident at St. Anne’s Place for losing her job, but delivered a short apology in court.

“I do feel very remorseful,” Riser said. “I apologize for my actions. It was unnecessary.”

St. Anne’s Place Director Cheryl Paynes said she was left with mixed emotions. She wasn’t sure if Riser was sincere, or if she understood that while the damage to the shelter totaled $21,000, it cost People Serving People $250,000 to relocate all its residents in the aftermath. And staff still dealt with heightened levels of stress and fear a year later.

“In my heart, I know the work that we have done and the work that we’re doing, so that’s what makes me feel good about it,” Paynes said.

While Riser’s sentence requires she have no contact with St. Anne’s Place for three years, Murphy said they would like her to return and reconcile outside of the justice system.

St. Anne’s Place closed for 30 days. Staff moved families into hotels, other Hennepin County shelters and People Serving People’s downtown Minneapolis location, a behemoth shelter of 300-plus residents, which had a different feel than the tight-knit community that was St. Anne’s.

While all the women present at the time of the attack have since found permanent housing, the shelter remained on tense terms with its neighbors across the street.

Part of the challenge the organization faced with assuming a new facility in a new part of town was adjusting to the neighborhood and the churn of new renters on their high-density block — including the competition for parking.

In the 40-plus years that St. Anne’s Place has been in north Minneapolis, that night of violence was an anomaly, staff said. The attack sprung out of a personal dispute over parking, not because they were a homeless shelter.

“In the beginning, people would ask questions, when they entered, like is it safe over there?” recalled lead advocate Alie Brechlin. “That was the biggest fear for me, that people wouldn’t feel safe.”

No one at St. Anne’s Place wanted jail time or fines for Riser or any of the other neighbors involved, staff said.

“It’s literally counterintuitive to what we stand for to ask somebody to pay money,” guest services supervisor Amanda Hunter said.

Relationships with the other neighbors have been on the mend over the past year, staff said.

The shelter accommodated requests that they not use the street parking in front of certain neighbors’ houses whenever possible. They continued to give snacks and toys to their children and shovel each other out if someone got stuck in the snow. Apologies have been exchanged and accepted. They share space at block parties.

Melissa Wallingford, senior clinic manager of the Broadway Family Medicine Clinic across the street, had a close view of the painful neighborhood dispute that has, for the most part, settled down over the past year.

The clinic offered St. Anne’s Place a few overnight parking spaces in their lot, and asked their security contractors to keep an extra eye on the shelter.

Wallingford commended the shelter for not alienating the neighbors involved in the attack and not withdrawing from the neighborhood.