Hiawatha encampment: Lessons learned from last year’s homeless tent city

This is the second in a series looking back at the 2018 homeless encampment along Hiawatha and Franklin avenues. Part 1 explored the reasons the camp formed when it did: Hiawatha encampment: Lessons in unintended consequences.

Photo of the encampment. (Hennepin County)

In August of 2018, a large homeless encampment — reaching 150 tents and more than 190 people — sprung up along Hiawatha and Franklin avenues in south Minneapolis. Most of those in the camp were Native Americans — and it was key that Native American led-organizations played a lead role in responding.

Patina Park, President and CEO of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, recalled conversations about the camp in early August, 2018 with Mike Goze, CEO of the American Indian Community Development Corporation (AICDC), Mary LaGarde, executive director of the Minneapolis American Indian Center (MAIC),  Dr. Antony Stately, CEO of the Native American Community Clinic, and Robert Lilligren, President and CEO of the Native American Community Development Institute.

They had concerns about the looming health care crisis, Park said. Hepatitis A was going around, and they were concerned about MRSA, too, an antibiotic-resistant infection. People were crowded together in the encampment and disease could spread quickly. One of the first things the group did was get fresh water to the camp by getting the city to hook up a water station at a fire hydrant.

Their work grew quickly. “I really learned the power of all of us coming together and just doing it,” Park said.

Hiawatha encampment: Last year’s tent city is a lesson in unintended consequences

This is the first in a series looking back at the 2018 homeless encampment along Hiawatha and Franklin avenues.

In August of 2018, a homeless encampment exploded near the intersection of Hiawatha and East Franklin avenues in Minneapolis, reaching nearly 200 people at its maximum, mostly Native Americans.

Indigenous-led non-profits and the public sector sprang into crisis response. Minneapolis has long had a homeless people, some living in emergency shelters, others riding metro transit all night, and still others living outdoors. But Minneapolis had never had this kind of tent city before.

Perhaps the surprise is that it hadn’t happened before.

Hiawatha encampment: Lessons in unintended consequences

This is the first in a series looking back at the 2018 homeless encampment along Hiawatha and Franklin avenues.

David Hewitt, Director of the Office to End Homelessness in Hennepin County, recalls attending a meeting of the National Alliance to End Homelessness in July of 2018 where the topic of conversation turned to the challenges of large homeless encampments.

Hewitt recalls saying the county had issues with homeless people riding the transit system as a form of shelter, “but we don’t have large encampments in Minneapolis.”

That was about to change.