Some Minneapolis City Council members and homeless camp organizers are criticizing the city for dumping piles of concrete rubble across two former sites used by Camp Nenookaasi, which was evicted from city lots three times in four weeks this year.
Minneapolis officials authorized trucks to dump the rubble onto sites at E. 26th Street and 14th Avenue S . and near E. 22nd Street and S. 16th Avenue “to deter encampments forming at those lots in the future,” according to a city spokesperson. The concrete was added either the day Camp Nenookaasi was evicted from the sites or the day after, according to the city.
Camp Nenookaasi organizers Nicole Mason and Christin Crabtree say the city’s actions show how little it cares to treat Camp Nenookaasi residents, who are mostly Native, as human beings.
“I’m really hurt that these human beings, these wonderful human beings inside these fences, did not count enough–did not matter enough–that we were replaced with scrap concrete,” Mason said at a February news conference.