The plan
Last week the Minneapolis City Council voted 9-4 in favor of an ordinance that will allow non-profits, government agencies, and churches to run car based homeless encampments in parking lots throughout the city, as soon as January 2027. The margin of approval is considered veto-proof.
Program requirements include city approval of all locations, staffing during hours of operation (5pm – 8 am), water, showers, restrooms, and sanitation, and prohibitions against alcohol, drugs, fires, “illegal firearms,” and amplified sound.
The plan runs counter to Mayor Frey’s efforts to eliminate homeless encampments in the city and instead focus resources on shelter and housing. Mayor Frey’s plan was supported though advocacy by Center of the American Experiment and the Minnesota Justice Research Center. It’s unclear at this time what the mayor’s response to the safe outdoor parking ordinance will be.
The council approved $100,000 to fund a pilot program. Future expansion is designed to be funded and staffed by non-profits and churches.
Similar programs in Denver, Colorado and Duluth have preceded Minneapolis. Denver’s program ran between 2020 and 2024 before the city cut its $600,000/year funding in favor of brick-and-mortar shelter options. Duluth’s program has been operational since 2023 and is running out of a church parking lot. Area neighbors had appealed to the council not to approval of the site, but the council rejected their appeal.
Bad policy
The existence of encampments, whether consisting of tents in unauthorized public spaces or cars parked in authorized parking lots, represent misplaced compassion and dysfunctional policy.
Encampment residents need help, not permissiveness. We know that most encampment residents deal with mental illness and chemical dependency issues, and that they are resistant to services. Enabling them to decompensate on the street is simply wrong. City, county, and state leaders need to coordinate efforts to increase bed space in our state hospital system and increase the use of civil commitment as a tool of compassion to compel stabilization and recovery – a policy that Center of the American Experiment is actively advocating for.
We also know that an inordinate amount of violent crime, drug and human trafficking, and property crimes occur within close proximity to encampments – oftentimes under the control of local street gangs. A city which enables this conduct, in the name of “compassion,” is derelict in its core duty to provide for the safety of its citizens.
Hennepin and St. Louis counties have ample resources to provide shelter to those needing it, as well as resources to help those in need of transition into permanent housing. The largest impediment to getting people into stable housing is the existence of encampments and the allure of permissiveness.
While it’s encouraging that the safe outdoor parking program plan “prohibits” a variety of behaviors routinely occurring in unauthorized encampments, it’s pure folly to believe that a “staff member” assigned to these parking lots will have any significant deterrent effect.
Minneapolis citizens and homeless encampment residents deserve better, and Minneapolis will benefit if the mayor is successful in redirecting this effort.