On World Homeless Day, Let's Remember, and Help, and Be Grateful

In Greg Brown's song, "Just a Bum," he reminds us that but for chance and fortune, any of us could end up down and out and possibly homeless:

"Some people live to work, work to live
Any little tremble and the earth might give
Ya can't hide it in a Volvo or a London Fog
Can't hide it in a mansion with an imported dog
No matter how we plan and rehearse, we're at pink slip's mercy in a paper universe ..."

Today, October 10, is World Homeless Day, according to the United Nations. Since its founding in 2010, the purpose of the day is to call attention to homelessness and urge people to work on solutions.

Here in Minneapolis, homelessness was made more visible this summer when the park board decided to allow encampments in our public parks, even in "nice" neighborhoods like mine, near Minnehaha Falls.

The Minneapolis Park Board has  adopted what I would call a policy of rational compassion, designating certain areas and parks for encampments, limiting the number of tents that are allowed in any given spot, and issuing permits to people and organizations who take responsibility for managing the encampments and helping the temporary residents find indoor shelter before winter. 

They don't pretend that this is any sort of solution to the problem of homelessness, acknowledging that it is a stopgap measure, as superintendent Al Bangoura recently stated:

"We know that sheltering homeless people in Minneapolis parks is not a safe, proper or dignified form of housing and is, at best, a temporary solution for encampment individuals before cold weather arrives."

One such encampment, at Logan Park in northeast Minneapolis, was recently profiled in the Star Tribune. There, a local church, Strong Tower Parish, is hoping to open a 24-hour shelter in November to serve homeless people such as those who have been staying in the park. This will be the second winter that the church has sheltered homeless people, but this time they are seeking funds from the CARES Act to make their building a more suitable shelter, with lockers and showers, along with a new ventilation system and other improvements to make it safer from COVID-19.

Such encampments on public land are not new in Minneapolis. A couple of years ago, a large encampment of homeless people, mostly Native Americans, formed in South Minneapolis alongside a walled area next to Highway 55, also known as Hiawatha Avenue. It came to be known as The Wall of Forgotten Natives, and, later, the Franklin Hiawatha Encampment. The people staying there were eventually moved to what was called a navigation center, and from there into shelters and, in some cases, longer term housing. You can read the story of that experience on the Franklin Hiawatha Encampment website.

The outreach team at St. Stephen's Human Services is also working in cooperation with city and park board officials to help people who are currently camping in the parks to find better shelter.

Another local organization that has been working since 1972 to get people into affordable, safe housing is Project for Pride in Living. They also offer job assistance, career training and coaching, and even clothing to help their clients dress for job interviews.

CloseKnit focuses on facilitating connections between youth experiencing homelessness and caring adults; their emphasis is on supporting those relationships, and connecting host homes with resources to meet their needs. They started out specifically helping LGBTQ+ youth who were estranged from their parents, but have since expanded their mission to help all youth. The reality, though, is that it is most often queer kids who get kicked out of their homes, as documented in a recent report from the Wilder Foundation.

We used to publish a small print journal we called Minneapolis Observer Quarterly (MOQ), and in one of our last issues, the spring 2010 edition, writer Mary Jane LaVigne wrote an essay about volunteer work she did for Project Homeless Connect, which provided services to homeless people in a biannual event at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Her role was with an oral history project, nudging people to tell their stories. She wrote about several of the people she interviewed and how the experience challenged assumptions one might be tempted to make about homeless individuals as "other."

She ended with a quotation from one of her subjects.

"When you get home tonight," he said to her, "run your hands along your walls; be grateful to your walls and the roof over your head. Then go outside and touch the sides of your house. Be grateful that you don't have to sleep outside. You never know. You never do."