The Urban Indigenous Community of Minneapolis continues to be disproportionately represented among those experiencing homelessness and residing in the large encampments that continue to pop up throughout the city. Our people have also been the hardest hit by the fentanyl and opioid epidemic as well.The ongoing pain that these crises are inflicting on our community is clearly evident within the strained expressions of our people. We are in crisis. 

The American Indian OIC deplores the systemic breakdowns within the dominant culture whereby so many of our community relatives become unsheltered. Our sympathies are with those in need of culturally appropriate treatment and mental health services, and we will continue to make our contribution in concert with our community partners who are on the frontlines providing ongoing material support to our unsheltered relatives. We hope that meaningful and more effective strategies can continue to be adopted to permanently reverse these horrid circumstances.

In the meantime, the American Indian OIC also recognizes (through lived experience) that when large homeless encampments are left to grow unfettered, that many criminal activities manifest and begin to quickly permeate throughout the surrounding areas. These illicit activities include drug use and drug dealing, prostitution, public defecation and urination, overdoses, and ongoing gang violence that at times have included gunfire and murder. Once begun, these encampments quickly devolve into incredibly dangerous and violent enclaves for predators to coalesce around and apply their deadly trades during all times of the day, preying upon the most vulnerable among us.

In this environment, the American Indian OIC has an obligation and a responsibility to protect the safety and security of our students (many of whom are minors attending our onsite alternative high school), our clients (many of whom are vulnerable adults or returning citizens who must maintain their sobriety as a condition of their release from incarceration), and that of our very own staff who are dedicating their labor and talents to help our community members. While our organization never wants to see anyone suffer as our unsheltered relatives do, we recognize that

we must also actively protect those in our community who seek support and a better life for themselves through the assistance offered at the American Indian OIC. Therefore, we believe that the immediate and ongoing closures of large encampments whenever they spring up will ultimately serve to better maintain the safety of our campus and wider community, as well as to protect our relatives who receive services through our programming each day.

Finally, for those in the throes of addiction, or for anyone who has had to contend with addiction in their families, enabling behavior is the prime conduit that often allows addiction to flourish and continue. Living in an encampment is in no way a viable solution for our most vulnerable. Allowing these encampments to exist is just another expression of enabling behavior writ large, and therefore counterproductive to remedying this crisis.

This is why our organization, and our partner organizations that comprise the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group (aka MUID) continue to work in close partnership with the Mayor’s office, the Minneapolis Police Department, Metro Transit Police, and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s office to close these encampments immediately in order to stop any further exploitation of our unsheltered relatives, and to quickly restore safety for the rest of our community members who are just trying to live their lives. Our students should be able to get to school without being harassed or physically accosted. Our elders have earned the right to move freely in our community without fear of being attacked. Our unsheltered relatives should be protected from being abused by sadistic predators. Our community deserves the very same safe streets, overpasses, and public parks that people in more affluent communities possess.

The American Indian OIC remains committed to supporting our clients, students, and staff, by protecting the safety of those who are doing everything in their power to do right by their families, their community, and their tribal nations. We take this responsibility as a mark of our values and our honor as an Indigenous organization. Therefore, we will continue to proudly stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our people in this way during these challenging times.

Dr. Joe Hobot

Sunkmanitu Tanka Se Tokeya Hiyaye (He Leads Like A Wolf)

Descendant of the Hunkpapa Band of the Oceti Sakowin and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

President and CEO

American Indian OIC