Most former residents of cleared St. Paul encampment still living outside

In the near-decade that Kat Donnelly has been a nurse practitioner for Healthcare for the Homeless in St. Paul, she’s moved from working primarily in clinics within shelters to providing care to people living outside.

“I talk to people about their blood sugar, their blood pressure, their mental health, their skin health and their general well-being,” she said. She also delivers medications to patients and works with partners focused on mental health care and case management.

By building relationships at encampments, she said she’s been able to treat and prevent infectious disease and get people consistent access to medication. The recent closure of the city’s largest encampment disrupted that consistency, she said.

Donnelly estimates about half of her 200 patients were staying at the site in Pig’s Eye Park near the Mississippi River, until the city cleared it last Wednesday. The encampment was also called Fish Hatchery, after a nearby road.

An estimated that 100-200 people were living at the site when the mayor’s office announced the closure last month, citing concerns over public health and safety, including reports of fires, overdoses and sexual assault.

For the last few days, Donnelly has been trying to find some of her patients and pick up their care, whether it’s for diabetes, high blood pressure or mental health conditions like schizophrenia.

“People, when they set up camp, their first order of business is usually to secure a structure, to reconnect with food, hygiene, bathrooms, weather safety — their chronic issues often take a backseat,” she said.

Some patients have moved a few miles upriver to another encampment near Randolph Ave and Shephard Rd.

“There was already a community at the camp near Shepherd, and so this huge influx of people has been incredibly destabilizing and make the residents that were there before feel a big disruption,” she said.

The St. Paul mayor’s office has said it also plans to clear that encampment, plus one other, in the coming months. A spokesperson said the city is doing an after-action review of the first clearing and considering its next steps. It has not set a timeline for future encampment closures, but Mayor Kaohly Her said in July that winter is a factor.

“It is unsafe for people to be out in the conditions that we have here,” Mayor Her said. “And when someone doesn't want to accept that help, how do we intervene? What are the tools we have? Because we do have to protect people.”

A Ramsey County spokesperson told MPR News the county is not aware of anyone who moved from the encampment at Pig’s Eye Park into shelters because of the closure.

Three men moved into Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities’ emergency shelter leading up to the closure of the encampment, and one other moved the day it was cleared, according to the organization’s marketing specialist Kelly Larson.

Donnelly said she has heard of one person who moved from Pig’s Eye into a shelter.

“The barriers to shelter are the same as they were before the camp sweep. It's not that people didn't know about shelter before,” she said. “Everybody knew that shelter was there, and how to access it. It's not a mystery in this community.”

Those barriers, she said, include reluctance to be separated from community, including friends, romantic partners and pets, as well as logistical hurdles, like long housing waitlists and identity documentation that’s required to move into housing.

Donnelly and other outreach and shelter staff will join a regular call Wednesday morning to discuss the situation and coordinate their work.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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