MINNEAPOLIS — It's been almost a year since Tyler Phillips opened the Totally Committed Resource Center along busy Hennepin Avenue in Uptown, and he can't help but notice what's happening outside his window.
"A lot of times it's distracting looking out — like last week for example, I saw a growing pile of garbage down there," Phillips said. "With the amount of property taxes that are paid in this area, it's like, it needs to be cleaned up."
Several people are living in tents and storing their belongings next to the Walker public library across the street from his business.
"Sometimes it's completely blocking the sidewalk," Phillips said.
But it's not just the mess causing concern. Phillips says it's also the well-being of the people.
"There's a lot of people that have been out here for a while and I've built a connection and relationship with a lot of these people," Phillips explained.
One such person is Chris Sayers, who has lived on the streets for five years now.
"When I got out of prison in 2018, all my family was pretty much gone because I did a 20-year sentence in the federal system and I've been homeless ever since," Sayers said.
Sayers says he'd once secured housing at the Avivo Village, a first-ever, indoor community of 100 secure, private dwellings or “tiny houses,” but that he was eventually told to leave because he'd been gone for too many days.
Meanwhile Tom Johnson says he chose to relocate to the Hennepin Ave. corridor because too much open drug use was happening at other encampments.
"I'm constantly told that there's people that are going to come out and help and talk to us and stuff like that but we don't never get nobody out here talking to us," Johnson told KARE 11. "You guys are the first people to talk to me other than other homeless people."
Phillips says he's contacted city council members, the mayor, 3-1-1 and 9-1-1 for help.
"No one yet has really declared that it's a huge issue they want to try and solve," he said.
KARE 11 reached out to the city Monday morning to ask if there are any plans to clear the specific area and help the people living there. A city spokesperson said no one was able to do an interview, but said Minneapolis and Hennepin County "are actively working together to address the activity in the right of way. Unhoused individuals are on the list to move into shelter in the coming days. Trash and rubbish removal has increased within the corridor as a broader containment effort."
The spokesperson later clarified that just one individual would be getting housing Tuesday this week, and that a Homeless Response Team was set to visit the area Monday afternoon.
Phillips says he's noticed some of the cleanup efforts, like when a crew cleared out the Mall, a green space next to the library, but says after that people just moved further down the block. He believes more government resources are needed to help people struggling with homelessness and substance use disorders.
"It seems like they're not getting to the bottom of the problem," he said. "They're just moving the problem from here to there."
At the very least, Phillips plans to do his part by inviting some of the men he meets outside to Men's Mental Health Matters, a new monthly program inside his resource center. Food will be provided.
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