For two years or more, a sizable tent community has laid claim to the field south of the East Seventh Street entrance to the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary in St. Paul. Half or more of the residents of the sprawling encampment are Hmong men, but the individuals warming themselves by makeshift campfires on Tuesday morning came from all walks of life, each drawn together by homelessness.

Soon, they’ll share something else — eviction.

City officials tagged dozens of tents in the area below East Seventh Street and Payne Avenue on Tuesday morning with notices to vacate, giving residents of what’s believed to be the city’s largest or second-largest homeless encampment until Jan. 16 to find somewhere else to stay. The notices indicate the camp is “a danger to health and safety” and encourage residents to coordinate with outreach workers from People Inc. and Radias Health, or to seek services from the Union Gospel Mission, Catholic Charities-Higher Ground, Ramsey County Housing Assistance and the Outside-In homeless outreach collaborative.

“They’re already bulldozing some of the places over there,” said a woman who identified herself only as Kaylee H., 32, gesturing toward vacant tents at the edge of the encampment, where a small skid-steer loader rolled back and forth, hoisting refuse into a dumpster.

Kaylee, who has lived in the camp for a year, said most residents have no immediate sense of where they’ll land once they’re forced to move.

“We have no idea,” she said. “We don’t have a clue.”

Deputy St. Paul Fire Chief Jamie Smith, a fire marshal, said he conducted a site assessment in October and found numerous fire hazards, such as improper storage of heating fuel, as well as public health hazards like discarded hypodermic needles. A fire last fall, he said, consumed several tents and damaged a billboard located in the sanctuary, and it wasn’t the first time the fire department had been called to the camp.

“Just the proximity and make-up of the tents, when you mix all those things together, it makes for an extremely dangerous fire environment,” Smith said.

In fact, the encampment has been the subject of more than 400 calls to police and more than 50 calls for fire or emergency medical services in the past year, including several multi-tent fires, said Casey Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections.

The city’s Homeless Assistance Response Team, together with the city’s “Familiar Faces” initiative and other community partners, coordinated with local care providers “to allow for a collaborative effort in offering care and services to those who wish to receive them,” Rodriguez said. “Along with our community partners, HART will be on-site near-daily to help residents clean the area and move or store personal belongings as needed.”

Living in the encampment

Most camp residents on Tuesday morning declined to share their full names or only provided aliases. A Hmong man who identified himself as Tony said this was his second winter living in the camp, and he’s seen the city during that time relocate individuals who were living in small, scattered site encampments across St. Paul, effectively consolidating them in fewer locations.

“The city kind of started pushing everyone together,” he said. “If you were in one or two tents, they’d push you down here or over to the (Union Gospel) Mission. There’s not that many isolated campers any more. When you collect everybody together, it adds up.”

Tony, 36, said it was unclear what most people’s next steps would be.

“There’s a few options that we have,” he said, as a group of Hmong men behind him gathered to warm themselves by a small fire. “But we’re not all going to be able to stay together.”

In the past year, Tony said, he’s seen the “pros and cons” of life outdoors, including campfires that grew out of control, prompting visits from the fire department. Not everyone is knowledgeable about how to safely maintain a campfire. “Our main source of heat is propane, but that’s for those who can afford it,” he said.

National homeless numbers

Since the outset of the pandemic in 2020, the ranks of the homeless have grown alongside housing prices and the cost of living, exacerbated by the fentanyl crisis and other factors.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development counted a record 771,000 people homeless across the country on a single night last year, the highest number tallied since HUD’s “Point in Time” survey launched in 2007. Officials acknowledge that number likely represents a hefty undercount of the unsheltered homeless, and couch-hoppers moving from friend’s home to friend’s home were not included in the results.

On Tuesday, a man at the Bruce Vento encampment who identified himself only as Sins said emergency shelters provide only temporary respite, and they’re sometimes less safe than living in a tent. He didn’t trust his bunk mates or sleeping companions during a shelter stay. “I worry about (expletive) like being in the shelter and something weird happens,” said Sins, huddled under a large white blanket by a small campfire. “It’s happened to me before.”

Some have questioned whether the city is closing the right encampment. Another sizable tent community has emerged outside of downtown St. Paul off Fish Hatchery Road, within Pig’s Eye Regional Park. It may qualify as the largest in the city, and it’s surrounded by dry grasses which can easily catch fire.

As the homeless are pushed out of the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, Sins said, “it’s going to get a lot bigger next week.”

Molly Jalma, executive director of the Listening House drop-in day shelter on East Seventh Street, said encampments raise both ethical and practical considerations. Overall, she said, the city has taken pains to find emergency housing for residents in need while investing in other long-term strategies, such as building affordable housing, to address the low-income housing crisis.

“I know encampments pose challenges,” Jalma said. “No running water, fire risk, mess, crime, and the ‘eye sore’ of them. Their closure in freezing conditions without viable alternatives can exacerbate harm and increase risks to human life. And I appreciate both the approach and lift the city has balancing safety, dignity and systemic solutions.”