‘Difficult to say goodbye’: Residents, volunteers worry what’s next as St. Paul clears encampment
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The city of St. Paul began clearing a longstanding homeless encampment at Pig’s Eye Park Wednesday morning, despite weeks of pushback from residents, volunteers and service providers at the camp who warn it will fracture community and ongoing care for people who are trying to survive.
The clearing remained relatively calm throughout most of the morning, as city staff largely hung back while dozens of volunteers helped residents move their belongings in wagons and cars. Volunteers also drove residents to alternative locations. For many that was other encampments in the city. The city will also clear other camps, however no dates have been set yet.
“We appreciate that level of support from our community, and we also know that we still have a few individuals that are still there,” Assistant Mayor Cedric Baker said during an update Wednesday afternoon. “And our process is to really go slow and steady in this.”
Baker estimated that 20-30 residents still remained at the camp around noon. When asked where encampment residents were relocating, Baker did not answer the question directly but said city and county workers are letting residents know that shelter space is still available. He acknowledged many had relocated to another encampment.
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MPR News was not able to immediately confirm how many shelter beds or what type of shelter beds were available. One encampment in the woods near Shepard Road has more than doubled in size, according to longtime residents and volunteers there.
An estimated 100-200 people were living at the camp, also known as Fish Hatchery, that closed Wednesday. The mayor’s office announced the closure last month, citing worsening health and safety concerns.
In the weeks leading up to the closure, outreach workers from the city and county were tasked with expanding efforts to connect people to shelter and eliminate barriers to housing, including replacing necessary documents — though there’s still a lengthy housing wait list and many residents feel unsafe at shelters or do not want to part with their pet or belongings.
But in the final day leading up to the closure, many residents remained uncertain about what they were going to do next, while others — like Ksenia Gabrielle Burgoyne — said they planned to move to another encampment. Burgoyne said she’s been on the housing wait list for nearly five years.
“I think it’s really cruel to kick a homeless person out,” Burgoyne said, while rushing to pack up her belongings. “I personally don’t have a family member that I can call to say I’m struggling. I have absolutely no one.”
Still, Burgoyne said she’s grateful for community members who regularly come to the encampment to help out. On Tuesday morning, many of those volunteers walked through the camp, delivering sandwiches and water, and connecting with residents while time at the camp ran out.
Jim Seemann, 79, is a volunteer who has been bringing resources to the camp for the past two years.
“After a period of time, you get to know these people, think of them as your friends — even begin to love them,” he said. “It’s very difficult for me to say goodbye.”
The mayor’s office said a major impetus for the closure was that the camp grew too big. Seemann said he only noticed significant growth after a different encampment closure last year.
“It seems to me that the city is unintentionally playing a game of whack-a-mole,” Seemann said.
But Seemann said he promised many residents he would follow them wherever they go next in the city.
One 53-year-old resident, Gregory Schulz Jr., said he already set up at a different camp.
Schulz said he was banned from shelters after fighting someone who provoked him and hasn’t been able to get into housing, despite multiple attempts, because of a criminal record.
But he has been trying to help other camp residents, coming back each day to make the move easier for others — especially the “old timers,” he said, like a man with a wheelchair who didn’t know where he would go.
Schulz said he doesn’t have much family left. Many family members have died or don’t want anything to do with him anymore, he said. But he has his own non-biological family in the encampment — his brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews — who he is trying to stick with.
“My street family is more my family than my own family,” he said.
With less than 24 hours to go before the closure, Kat Donnelly, a nurse with Healthcare for the Homeless, prepared for her job to change overnight. For the past couple years, Donnelly said she’s been able to make great progress with patients through the consistency of regularly checking in at the encampment.
“It takes a long time to build trust in this community,” she said. “I’d like to hold up my end of the bargain. I’ve promised that I will be there to care for people and I want to continue to be able to do that.”
Late Tuesday morning, Donnelly scrambled to keep that promise — refilling medications, letting patients know drop-in sites where they can find her and trying to make sure a number of people with upcoming surgeries would be able to get that care.
She said she has been asking all of her patients what their plans are.
Donnelly said with little time left, she was still hearing the same thing, over and over: “I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not sure where I’m going to go.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, the city announced that starting Thursday, county outreach workers will be available downtown from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at a “transitional hub.” They will be there for the next two weeks to connect residents to shelter, housing, health care and financial assistance.
The city has said it is providing limited storage for residents “prioritized for individuals who accept shelter” and the Familiar Faces program and HART teams will offer residents rides to available shelter.
