Reported homeless camps drop amid Rochester ban and work to find options (2024)

ROCHESTER — The number of reported encampments on city property has dropped with the camping ban passed by the Rochester City Council in March .

“We are still trying to make sure we have someplace to send somebody before we take any type of enforcement action,” Capt. Jeff Stilwell of Rochester Police Department’s Community Services Division told the city’s Police Policy Oversight Commission on Tuesday. “We have been pretty successful with that and gotten voluntary compliance to our request for people to move out of public spaces or not create large encampments.”

The camping ban came after the city staff reportedly spent more than 7,481 hours last year in connection to encampment enforcement.

Stilwell said fewer than a dozen warnings have been issued since March, and no citations or arrests have been made under the new restrictions.

The new ordinance means a violation after a warning could result in a misdemeanor charge, which could carry a sentence up to 90 days or a fine of up to $1,000, or both, if upheld in court.

Stilwell said the city’s written policy is intended to prevent such penalties, when possible.

“It’s a very complex problem, and we shouldn’t be trying to do things to a person that makes it hard for them to get housing,” he said.

The policy states: “Homelessness is not a crime, and members of this department will not use homelessness solely as a basis for detention or law enforcement action.”

It calls for police officers on the department’s Community Action Team to act as liaisons, providing connections to service programs and working to ensure current legal and social issues are being considered when engaged with someone who is experiencing homelessness.

“Our CAT members are also trying to maintain those relationships to make sure people are safe wherever they are sleeping in places where they are not victimized, they are not subject to the elements,” he said, pointing to the recent creation of an nightly overflow shelter at the Salvation Army’s social services center, 115 First Ave. NE, as providing needed space.

He said some people who were camping because they didn’t want to stay at the Rochester Community Warming Center, 200 Fourth St. SE, have discovered they are more comfortable at the less-crowded Salvation Army site.

The warming center can provide 45 beds nightly, and the overflow shelter has space for up to 25 people.

The Rochester City Council approved funding up to $50,000 from its contingency funds to keep the overflow site operating, with the expectation that other community efforts would support the estimated $314,000 needed for Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota operation of the site through the end of 2025.

In addition to the added shelter beds, Stilwell credited the expanded work of Olmsted County’s Diversity, Equity and Community Outreach team, which has provided social work connections during police calls for people with mental illness and drug addiction.

He said added efforts being funded through the opioid settlement funds received by the city and county are helping move people from homelessness into treatment and providing options that might not have been possible in the past.

The work is expected to expand through $200,000 state public-safety funds, which the City Council recently approved to fund a pilot project to integrate homelessness specialists into the existing outreach program.

Amanda Grayson, the police department’s crime prevention and communications coordinator, said the allocated state public-safety funds have not been spent, but the police department and county’s DECO team are evaluating the best path forward to accomplish the pilot program’s goals.

As the work continues, members of the Police Policy Oversight Commission and Stilwell acknowledged Tuesday that the department’s interaction with people experiencing homelessness is narrow.

“I’m assuming that when we have a family staying in somebody’s basem*nt apartment rent free that they actually qualify under (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ’s) definition, but not yours,” commission member Phil Wheeler said.

Stilwell said anyone facing housing insecurity could fall under the city policy calling for officers to provide connections to services, but law enforcement interactions are more common with people who are occupying public spaces while unsheltered.

“That’s a pretty small number, for sure, of the total population that doesn’t have a place to live right now,” he said.

Randy Petersen joined the Post Bulletin in 2014 and became the local government reporter in 2017. An Elkton native, he's worked for a variety of Midwest papers as reporter, photographer and editor since graduating from Winona State University in 1996. Readers can reach Randy at 507-285-7709 or rpetersen@postbulletin.com.