“We just want to be warm”: Activists call on Minneapolis to stop winter homeless encampment evictions

MINNEAPOLIS – There have been extra calls Sunday for the town of Minneapolis to place a cease to evictions at homeless encampments.

With temperatures plunging, the group grassroots group the Minneapolis Individuals’s Council held a cold-gear provide drive for folks with out housing. There was additionally a gathering for unhoused folks to talk on the realities of residing with out a dwelling.

“Simply because I appear like this doesn’t suggest I am like some tremendous dirty, out-here-on-dirt particular person,” mentioned Nate, an unhoused man. “I am not on the lookout for pity. I do not need like anyone to really feel unhealthy for me. As a result of it is my mattress, I made it. I will sleep in it.”

Nate and his accomplice lived in a broken-down automobile final winter, huddling for physique heat.

MORE: Metro homeless encampments develop as temperatures drop, shelters replenish

“We do not wish to steal or cheat,” she mentioned.

They’re in a tent now with a heater, however they are saying the chilly is their largest menace.

“You do not obtained to feed us nothing,” Nate mentioned. “We do not want garments, nothing, we’ll determine that out. We simply wish to be heat.”

Activists are involved if Minneapolis shuts down encampments this winter, prefer it has a number of occasions already this yr, folks’s lives might be in peril.  

“[Winter survival supplies] are the type of issues that get destroyed and seized by the police and by metropolis staff throughout evictions, and other people should typically begin from scratch,” mentioned Simeon Aitkin, an advocate for unhoused folks. 

Aitkin and others desire a full cease on winter encampment evictions. Mayor Jacob Frey has mentioned a moratorium will not be one thing he plans to do.

Unhoused folks say shelters typically really feel unsafe, if there are even any obtainable beds, they usually have little religion in authorities sources.

Activists are additionally pushing for longer-term measures, like a city-sanctioned encampment or lobbying for a number of the state’s $17 billion finances surplus.

Click on right here for extra on the town’s response to homeless encampments.