Tolkkinen: Brainerd City Council tells homeless to sleep outside this summer

BRAINERD, Minn. - George Burdette is a poet and father who served eight years in the Army Reserve.

He also struggles with anxiety, depression and other mental health issues that have cost him dearly, including a steady roof over his head. He is a veteran of nights on Brainerd’s streets, its parks, its wooded trails and riverside encampments.

One recent Sunday during a snowstorm, he holed up near a church, wrapped in blankets, waiting for the homeless shelter to open for the evening.

Now the City Council is poised to make life even more unbearable for Burdette and others without permanent housing. Last fall, the council criminalized public camping — essentially banning homeless encampments — which wasn’t a big deal as long as the Brainerd homeless shelter, the Bridge on 7th, remained open.

But the shelter was originally opened only as a place to stay in the winter, and the council has turned down its request to stay open year-round. That means starting May 1, people without shelter will either have to hide extra well from police, face fines and jail time, find housing or leave the city.

Jana Shogren, executive director of Bridges of Hope, which oversees the shelter, was taken aback by the council’s decision. She figured having the shelter open in the summer would mean fewer violations of the ordinance. So did Kelly Bevans, the only council member who supported its request to stay open year-round.

The 20-bed shelter has seen the number of overnight guests grow steadily. It often hits capacity now, and city leaders say Brainerd now serves as a dumping ground for homeless people from other communities.

“Brainerd is trying to lead the way in certain ways, on trying to help solve the homelessness issue,” said Council President Mike O’Day. “But we don’t have the resources to be the leader in the entire state of Minnesota or middle Minnesota and take on that entire burden.

“We would be inundated, and it’s a risk that we can’t take right now.”

It is true that the Brainerd-Baxter area is no laggard in trying to help homeless and low-income people. One couple, Alyssa Johnson and Nicholas Marzitelli, recently moved from the shelter into a brand-new studio apartment built with donations from many local organizations and individuals.

But there are still many people who live in Brainerd — and have told me that they have lived there for many years — but have no place to call home.

The privately funded shelter is across the street from the Good Samaritan senior care facility and near a health clinic and Lutheran Social Services. It’s clean and neat, albeit with little privacy.

Staff doesn’t ask about drug use or outstanding warrants, which bothers some on the City Council. It’s open to every adult who needs a place to stay.

It’s about a 30-minute walk to the YMCA, where they can shower for free, and to the soup kitchen.

Not being able to stay in the shelter or even within the city limits, or in neighboring Baxter, means even longer walks.

If they try to sleep outdoors in Brainerd or Baxter, which also criminalized encampments last year, they can face up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. The new ordinances were passed after a 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed cities to charge people sleeping outside even though they have nowhere else to go. Rochester also banned homeless camping, although Duluth opted against criminal penalties.

Sleeping outside for fun is, well, fun. Sleeping outside because you have no other choice is pretty horrid, even if, as City Council members and Police Chief John Davis pointed out, it’s not as dire an emergency in the summer as it is in the winter.

During a visit to The Bridge on 7th this week, people who are homeless or were recently homeless told me what it’s like. You get rained on, and you have no dry clothes to change into. It can get cold even in summer. You get eaten alive by mosquitoes, especially by the river.

One guy told me he is robbed almost daily. The same guy was sleeping in the woods off a trail when a black bear startled him. One man they knew had epileptic seizures, so EMS squads were often coming to his aid.

Although the City Council mentioned an uptick in police calls to the shelter since it opened, the 120-some calls over the three years of its existence is barely a drop in the city’s 18,000-or-so calls a year. And the largest number was for medical aid. Even Davis commended the shelter for working well with law enforcement.

Brainerd, touted as Minnesota’s Playground, is a huge summertime destination for people eager to fish, swim and boat on its lakes. So if you’re that kind of out-of-towner, you’re welcome. But apparently not if you’re an out-of-towner down on your luck — at least not during the summer.