Homelessness in Minneapolis sees an increase this fall
Final Story for 3121
Homeless shelters in the Twin Cities are experiencing record numbers of homeless this fall.
Each night approximately 7,000 people receive shelter from a variety of service providers across the state of Minnesota. On average another 1,000 are turned away from shelters each night, according to surveys conducted by the Department of Human Services done over the past few years and posted on the Wilder Organizations web site.
St. Anne’s Place, People Serving People and the Catholic Men’s Charity said they haven’t had a vacant room in months. People Serving People is one of the largest shelters in Minneapolis with a capacity of 350 people. At noon on Tuesday the shelter was already up to 336 occupants, Jim Minor, President of People Serving People said. Last year at this time People Serving People had little more than half as many people at only 186 occupants, Minor said.
When Hennepin County shelters are filled to the brim, the county overflows homeless families into the Drake Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Until this August, this practice hadn’t been used for the last seven years, Betsy LaMarre, program director at St. Anne’s Place, a shelter in northeast Minneapolis serving women and children said.
But Hennepin County shelters have been so maxed out this season that they’ve had to return to some previous practices. “Normally the Drake has housed one or two homeless families this fall, but last week they were housing 21,� LaMarre said.
With this rise in homelessness and no immediate end in sight, food shelters are also noticing a strain on resources. Ted Evans from the Emergency Food Shelf Network said food has been flying off shelves much faster than usual. He said their food shelter network-which provides food to local shelters has seen a 15 percent increase in 2007 compared to 2006. Judy Jones the Director of the Urban Ventures and People’s Exchange food shelf said her food shelf has experienced a 50 percent increase this fall in usage compared to last year at this time.
There are a number of reasons for this spike in homelessness. A decline in economy, a rise in foreclosures and the ending of many 60 month welfare packages are all reasons for this increase. LaMarre from St. Anne’s Place was the only person who mentioned the impact of MFIP-or the welfare program as a cause of homelessness.
Both representatives from the food shelters and People Serving People mentioned the recent wave of foreclosures as a suspected cause of the onslaught of homelessness. The decline in the economy and a lack of affordable housing were also mentioned by several sources including Jones and June Heineman, a research assistant at the Wilder Organization.
Representatives from the Wilder Organization as well as Minor from People Serving People said data collection on the homeless is very difficult and is incomplete at best. “It’s hard to know what the real numbers are,� LaMarre from St. Anne’s Place said.
Minor, as well as LaMarre said Hennepin County is completely swamped with the rise in homelessness and is very unwilling to talk to anyone about the problem or any of the data they have collected. “I’ve heard that some Hennepin County shelter employees are working 14-15 hour days to keep up with the increase,� Minor said.
Numerous calls to the Hennepin County Shelter Team went unanswered.
**I did not post my sources for confidential reasons-I do have them if someone is interested**
Analysis:
I first started thinking about doing this story after I was working at my internship at WCCO and someone called in and said we should do a story on homelessness in Minneapolis because its a big problem and it's getting worse. So that evening-back in November I called a few local shelters and indeed all of them confirmed the callers statements. Homelessness did seem to be on the rise in Minneapolis.
One of my biggest questions was why? Why was there such an increase-and how was Minneapolis specifically dealing with the problem? The wave of foreclosures was given as one increase. Another interesting fact I heard several times was that returning veterans from Iraq were having a very hard time readjusting to civilian life and many in fact were homeless. I didn't have the time to address this problem in my paper, but I find it very interesting and perhaps something to look into in the future.
I interviewed at least 5 more people after initially writing my rough draft-and these additional interviews certainly helped me to better write the final story. I also think going to St. Anne's place really helped solidify the problems to me. In fact-going there moved me so much I'm thinking about returning in the spring to volunteer or tutor.
Seeing how many people are homeless, particularly women and children has made me so grateful for my family and friends and the resources I have that so many others are not blessed with.
One of the biggest struggles for me in writing this piece was the lack of current data that pertained to this fall. I was told at several shelters that the only people who had data for Hennepin County was the Hennepin County Shelter Team and these people were very tight lipped. They were incredibly busy-and the director of this team-Peg Douglas I called so many times I ended up putting her number into my cell phone. She did actually call back one time but I missed her call and could never get a hold of her again.
I also found it interesting that a lot of the directors/presidents of homeless shelters told me that data for the homeless is incomplete and rarely completely accurate. This is frustrating when you are trying to look for trends and increases and decreases.
The Wilder organization had a lot of good information on the homeless as well. However they only do comprehensive studies every three years-so I didn't get any hard data from them pertaining to this specific fall 2007 increase.
All in all this story was very interesting to research and I think I learned a lot from talking to so many sources.