With homeless shelter beds fully booked, Hennepin County has stopped tracking how many people it turns away

Hennepin County’s emergency homeless beds continue to fill up at key times, despite a refrain from public officials that shelter is available for all who seek it, according to unsheltered people, their advocates and the county’s own hotline.

At the same time, the county has stopped tracking data that sheds light on the extent of the problem — people searching for a bed during the daytime but being told everything is booked.

As temperatures started to dip this fall, homeless adults seeking refuge in one of Hennepin County’s emergency shelters had to call the intake hotline as soon as it opened each day at 10 a.m. to have a chance at claiming a spot.

Beds for men got snatched up fast. If a homeless man called any later, he would likely get the automated recording: “Hello, you have reached the Adult Shelter Connect. All shelter beds for men are now full.”

Some days, all beds for women were also booked before noon.

“[Shelters], they’re full, you know, and it’s the time of year that you would expect it to be that way,” said Angel Beaumaster, a volunteer who connects homeless people to county resources.

She acknowledged some people would rather live on the street than in congregate shelters with various rules and reputations. But many still try to move indoors when temperatures run dangerously low.

“Another reason why everybody gets frustrated is because they say there’s shelters and stuff, but there ain’t.”

Hennepin’s shelter hotline allows the county to collect an assortment of data, including how many people call throughout the day but fail to reserve a spot for lack of space at their time of need. The Minnesota Star Tribune reported on the number of turn-aways in 2022 and 2023.

That analysis isn’t possible for 2024 because the county has stopped tracking the number of people who call during the hotline’s daytime hours of 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Last spring, a change was made so that once beds were full, those who called would reach an automated voicemail instead of a staff person. The voicemail instructed them to try again after 7:30 p.m., when more beds might open up as a result of no-shows.

According to Hennepin County, the voicemail was created in response to feedback from service providers frustrated with being put on hold for more than 30 minutes only to learn there were no beds. But the change also meant daytime turn-aways would no longer be tallied.

Despite not having that data, the county maintained throughout the past year that, with rare exceptions, it met the demands of everyone who sought a bed.

For instance, after three American Indian encampments were swept by the city of Minneapolis on July 25, the Star Tribune inquired whether anyone had been turned away from shelter that day.

County spokesperson Maria Baca said, “Everyone who sought shelter on July 25 received it,” but that “some people experiencing homelessness do not seek shelter.”

But people had called the hotline that day and heard all beds were full.

Asked to clarify, Baca acknowledged not everyone may have been able to secure a bed if they called during the day — when the sweeps occurred — but about a dozen people who called that night were able to find a placement.

The Star Tribune started seeking annual shelter availability data in 2023 after receiving an email from Simpson Housing Services executive director Steve Horsfield about having to turn away seven women before 5 p.m. on a single January day.

The county’s communications office provided a spreadsheet showing zero turn-aways the same day Horsfield said the women could not make reservations when they called.

The Star Tribune later asked for the same information though an official data request, which eventually revealed more than 7,000 instances of people turned away from the shelter system in 2022, whether they called during the day or night.

To the media, David Hewitt, the county’s director of Housing Stability, characterizes people who could not reserve a bed in the daytime as “call-backs,” because they could try again in the evening.

“So our focus is on, did people have that opportunity, and of those who tried to take it up, were there folks who tried to take it up and ultimately were still unable to get into shelter?” Hewitt said.

Although Adult Shelter Connect stopped counting daytime turn-aways in 2024, Simpson Housing says it still tracks the time of day beds become fully booked.

The Star Tribune’s data request for those times has been pending for four months. The county said it cannot provide the data until software upgrades to the state’s Homeless Management Information System are completed, possibly in mid-2025.

Meanwhile, Hennepin County publishes shelter availability numbers on a public dashboard. It often presents many beds as available every day between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.

In reality, those figures reflect beds available when Adult Shelter Connect opens at 10 a.m., county officials acknowledged in recent interviews.

Some days, such as this last snowy Halloween, only seven beds were available at the start of the day. There are 809 permanent beds for single adults in the county’s system, but most are first claimed day after day by the sheltered homeless population, leaving few available for new users, including unsheltered homeless people trying to move off the streets.

The Star Tribune called Adult Shelter Connect at noon nearly every weekday in October and November. Most days, there were zero beds available for men and one to 10 for women.

Asked why the county’s dashboard presents beds as being open throughout the day when the numbers actually depict those available at the start, Hewitt said the intention of the dashboard was to “offer transparency.”

“There are always ways to cover more on a dashboard, and you also only have so much real estate on the screen,” he said. “There’s other information this doesn’t include, such as how many are already in shelter, how many are renewing, other pieces of data like that.”

At the end of November, 40 overflow beds were added to Salvation Army Harbor Light Center, and the seasonal shelter Rescue Now Services opened with 50 mattresses in a church basement.

In an interview last week, Salvation Army spokesman Dan Furry said if overflow beds show up as vacant, it’s typically a woman’s bed. Staff speculate women may find it easier than men to stay with a friend. Broken beds are also counted, he said, because Adult Shelter Connect doesn’t allow Salvation Army to pull them from inventory.

“Quite frankly, the last month or so, we have been at capacity,” said Rescue Now executive director Bunmi Adekunle on Monday.

“We call on a daily basis and there are very rarely any shelter openings,” said Sindy Mau, a health advocate who works at the Peace House Community, a day center serving free meals in Ventura Village.

When Mau asks people where they slept the night before, common answers include “a stairwell, a parking garage, their car or outside.”

She said most would gladly accept a quality shelter bed, but questioned how easily someone who is homeless could access one that becomes available after dark at short notice.

Service providers have asked the county why it doesn’t post real-time information on bed availability.

Hewitt said he doesn’t want to discourage people from calling the county for help because staff can offer other resources in lieu of shelter.

“We want people to call the Hennepin Shelter Hotline and get the assistance available,” he said. “We want clarity of messaging, and we want people to seek out the help they need.”

Anyone facing homelessness is encouraged to first call the Hennepin Shelter Hotline at (612) 204-8200, operated by Catholic Charities. Families with kids are guaranteed shelter under the policy of “no child sleeps outside.”

After adult shelters reach capacity, hotline staff can help people scour their social networks for a friend to crash with. They offer cash for food, rent up to $1,500 and one-way bus tickets.

Single adults trying to get shelter in Hennepin County can still call Adult Shelter Connect, run by Simpson Housing, at (612) 248-2350.

But ultimately, using the hotlines requires people to have a phone, said Naomi Wilson, a volunteer who supplies unsheltered people with outdoor survival gear.

“A lot of the times when they’re calling during the day, it’s because they’re with an advocate who has a phone,” she said.

“If they call earlier in the day and they find out there’s a bed, it gives them more of a chance to get there, but by 7:30 [p.m.], you might just put up your tent.”

Hewitt said it’s not unusual for county outreach workers to work late to help an unsheltered client call Adult Shelter Connect at night.

The American Indian Community Development Center‘s KOLA project is Hennepin’s only overnight warming center, hosting 50 people on a first-come, first-served basis.