The Experience of Unhoused People in Other Parts of Minneapolis

What makes Near North camp so special? In part, simply our survival.

Here is how Minneapolis has been treating people without housing throughout the city.

5th & Lake encampment destroyed in massive pre-dawn attack

At about 5am on Tuesday, 2022 April 19th, 100 police officers and 100 more city employees began an operation which by 11 a.m. had destroyed most of the property of about 25 residents of Minneapolis. The people of this encampment were displaced from the stable place to live they had made out of two city-owned lots, which had been empty for more than 20 years before this, on 5th Avenue South, right off of Lake Street.

“North Loop” destroyed with no warning

After massive community presence preventing the destruction of the North Loop camp a month before, on March 16, 2022, in a surprise morning raid dozens of police vehicles and numerous officers enforced the razing of the camp with heavy construction equipment operated by Public Works— even arresting a woman documenting their cruelty. No outreach workers were present at all, although officials lied and said (willing collaborator) Michael Goze was there.

RIGHT NOW: A large number of Minneapolis police officers are aiding a private landowner in displacing an encampment of unhoused people from a large empty lot at 875 North 5th Street.

— Twin Cities Solidarity Network (@tc_solnet) March 16, 2022

25th & 14th, South Lot

2022 March 22

25th & 14th, North Lot

2022 January 19

Last Thursday, Minneapolis Public Works destroyed an encampment at 25th & Bloomington while police watched and Hennepin County Healthcare for the Homeless allegedly tried to help people. On Tuesday, Hennepin County put this sign up on a lot many of the displaced people moved to. pic.twitter.com/RwSGepNuLg

— Twin Cities Solidarity Network (@tc_solnet) January 20, 2022

26th & Bloomington

Mpls PW and MPD dismantled the encampment of folks living at 26th & Bloomington. Propane was taken, people were once again displaced and their belongings trashed. This can’t be reformed. Everyone should be and CAN be housed. End of story. pic.twitter.com/H2NNmBnUKd

— Twin Cities Workers Defense Alliance (@TC_WDA) January 13, 2022

“1913” violently destroyed despite call for defense

Lakota resident speaks in front of their tent about the futility of evictions and the disappointment and disheartening nature of how Minneapolis treats the unhoused people that live here. This is from the 1913 eviction in December 2021. pic.twitter.com/2PWr9EPrfn

— Lunch Bloc (@LunchBloc) January 10, 2022

Marshall community

Powerful video from 2021, describing being forced to move, callously, no matter where or if only two people in a place or living in a community:

In the parks

The most exhaustive accounting so far of Minneapolis’ violence against unhoused people, from summer and fall of 2020, by Yusra Murad:

antidotezine.com/2021/06/21/looking-back-on-sanctuary-summer-in-minneapolis/