Counterpoint | A response on encampments from the Minneapolis Native American community

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Our Native American community in Minneapolis is overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness and residing in encampments. We have also been the hardest hit by the fentanyl and opioid epidemic in Minneapolis. The ongoing pain that these crises are inflicting on our community is clearly evident within the strained expressions of our people. We are in crisis.

That is why I felt compelled to respond to “An open letter to Mayor Jacob Frey on the state of Minneapolis” by two residents of the city (Strib Voices, Sept. 15).

Our people, our challenges and the suffering of those in addiction are not to be used as props in an election year. This represents yet another attempt at exploiting those who are struggling the most within our community, and it must stop. To drag our community issues into “political gamesmanship” is just as disgusting as the drug traffickers, pimps, johns and gangbangers who are also continuously trying to exploit our relatives for their own gain.

Nowhere in the Sept. 15 commentary is any acknowledgment of well-known externalities that are causing the creation of these encampments and, more important, how these encampments are breeding grounds for illegal and violent behaviors perpetrated by those who seek to prey on the vulnerable.

Additionally, to suggest the solution is to make encampments permanent is devoid of any connection to reality and, quite frankly, a profoundly ignorant suggestion. The fact remains that these encampments simply are not safe for those living in them and present a very real danger for the surrounding community living near them. The truth is they are open-air drug and prostitution markets saturated in violence. The multiple encampment shootings that occurred just this past week illustrate how they have become beacons for perpetrators eager to further victimize an extremely vulnerable population for their own gain. This reality has only brought continued violence and suffering to our community.

The demands in the open letter simply do not reflect what the Native American community needs. We do not want permanent encampments. We do not want portable toilets and water hookups that further entrench them. We do not want open-air drug use, addiction, prostitution and gun violence to become normalized in our community. We certainly do not want to see the further exploitation of our community or our most vulnerable people as a means to score points in a political game we did not ask them to pursue on our behalf. For us, we do not differentiate the nature of exploitation between the johns, gangbangers, pimps or politicians who see our people merely as props to advance their own gain. Shame unto them all.

This is why our organization, and our partner organizations that comprise the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group (MUID), have been working in close partnership with the mayor’s office and the Minneapolis Police Department to close these encampments immediately to stop any further exploitation of our unsheltered relatives, and to restore safety for the rest of our community members who are just trying to live their lives. The recent shooting at the private property encampment reinforces why that needs to be our approach.

Our students should be able to get to school without being harassed or physically accosted. Our elders have earned the right to move freely without fear of being attacked. Our unsheltered relatives should be protected from being abused by sadistic predators. Our community is equally deserving of the very same safe streets, overpasses and public parks that people in more affluent communities possess.

Finally, for those in the throes of addiction, or for anyone who has had to contend with addiction in their families, enabling behavior is the prime conduit to allow addiction to prosper. Living in an encampment is in no way a viable solution for our most vulnerable. Allowing these encampments to exist is just another expression of enabling behavior writ large.

If you want to help, do not speak over us in open letters. Instead, try collaborating with us, through MUID and our community partners, to help enact the real, proven solutions.