Growing encampment in South Minneapolis prompts safety concerns

Welna Hardware is a family business with deep roots in South Minneapolis.  
  
“We’ve been on the block for seventy years,” owner Mark Welna says.

But he explains he has concerns about a new neighbor.

“We have another encampment in the old Super America parking lot,” Welna notes. “It’s just been very tough on the neighborhood.”

He says about three weeks ago, a couple of tents began appearing just across the street, at East 25th Street and Bloomington Avenue.

The encampment is now much bigger — and Welna says it’s having an impact.

“The shoplifting at the store, the panhandling, people afraid to come across Lake Street and shop at our store,” he declares. “On a daily basis, we’ve had people coming in and out that we’ve had to kick out that have been from the encampment.”

Welna, who has tenants living in a building next to the encampment, says some of them have moved out because of safety concerns.

“It’s really unsafe, and we really need something done,” says Angel Roa. “This is getting worse every time.”

Roa, a longtime employee at the store, has lived in the building since 1992.

He showed us hypodermic needles littering an alley behind his apartment — and part of a cardboard box used as an outdoor restroom.

Roa says the needles began appearing when the encampment went up.

He adds his 80-year-old mother, visiting from Puerto Rico, is afraid to leave the building. 

“Every time we have to open the door, there’s people blocking the door using heroin and all kinds of drugs,” Roa says. “You see young people doing the heroin and stuff right in your face. It is sad.”

Welna says he believes police are doing what they can — there is an MPD security camera right next to the encampment.

“I feel bad that people feel like that, I don’t like it that people are scared or in fear, but I doubt that’s happening,” declares Nicole Nalewaja.

A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew tried to speak with people in the encampment but were asked to leave.

But Nalewaja — who says she has friends and family there, agreed to be interviewed.

“We started in tents, teepees, and wigwams, whatever, right?” she says. “So, it’s like a community, we’re like a family, right, so why is that a bad thing?”

Nalewaja disputes that encampment residents have done any shoplifting at Welna’s store — and says there were drug issues in the area long before the encampment arrived.

She argues that people have a right to live there.

“We don’t want to live in houses, some people don’t want to live in houses, they want to live like we used to live,” Nalewaja declares. “So, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

City Council member Jason Chavez, who represents the area, released a statement Saturday, which says in part:

“People are going to live outside until we have enough public health infrastructure to meet their needs. If we don’t have adequate shelter space that’s effective for people and they have nowhere to go, they will be living outside in the community.”

Chavez says the city recently lost a total of one-hundred-thirty shelter beds, run by two different programs, despite a search for resources by Agate, a Minneapolis housing and services non-profit.

He says he’s also reached out to city staff to see how to address issues like more “proactively cleaning up the neighborhood and cleaning up the needles.”

On Monday, Ward 8 Council Member Andrea Jenkins is hosting a meeting to discuss the city’s unhoused community and encampment issues.

Chavez says the City Council will hold a public hearing on September 11th to discuss one of four ordinances designed to address homelessness in the city.

Still — Roa says he’s worried about the future.

“Ten years from now, what’s my neighborhood going to be?” he asks. “I work here, I go to church here, I go to the bars here, my grocery store is a few blocks away. This has been my life for over thirty years.”

Welna — who’s planning to sell the store to his children to keep the business in the family, hopes there will be a path to move forward.

“It’s very, very sad. I’m kind of at my wit’s end about this situation,” he says. “But I would hate to close down the store because of crime. That’s the part that really, it tugs at my heart.”