City officials cleared an encampment of unhoused people in downtown St. Louis today after posting eviction notices near the camp 10 days earlier.
The encampment near Laclede’s Landing held about 30 to 40 residents earlier this week. By Friday morning, no more than 10 people still resided in the camp, which last April narrowly escaped a previously ordered eviction.
Up to 27 of the camp's occupants had accepted housing options offered by the city by Friday, according to mayoral spokesperson Nick Dunne.
Residents who spoke to the RFT were hesitant to transition to shelters. They said they’d rather stay at the camp, which they described as a community.
For James, who asked us not to use his last name, the encampment offered a more liberating environment — free of shelter rules or curfews.
James says he moved into the encampment after he received a terminal cancer diagnosis several months ago. He plans to go live with his kids now — even if he’d rather stay at the encampment.
“They act like crime happens because we’re here,” James says. “That’s bullshit.”
In a “break from past practices,” according to Dunne, over the past several weeks a city outreach team and the city’s Department of Human Services brought social workers and community organizations to the camp to connect with residents.
“[Department of Human Services] was able to identify and offer housing and resources that would address their underlying needs and set them on a path to permanent housing,” Dunne said in a statement.
Residents who had remained in the camp Friday morning packed their belongings and took down tents. Those who accepted the city’s assistance were taken to different locations based on their needs, according to Dunne.
Two residents later returned to the camp, says Tent Mission STL and Winter Outreach volunteer Audra Youmans. One woman had been dropped off at a shelter that had no room for her, according to Youmans.
Tasha Thacker says she lived in the camp on and off for the past few years. She came back to her tent after city officials tried to take her to a hotel. Thacker had no form of identification, however, and could not be checked in (Dunne could not immediately confirm Friday afternoon whether encampment residents had been offered hotel rooms).
When asked if she knew where she’d go next, Thacker said she had “no idea.”
For “Mama D,” described by many as the “camp mom,” the eviction marked a day of heartbreak. She spent most of the day packing her belongings in trash bags for the city to take to a facility for storage.
Through tears, Mama D spoke in short sentences.
“It’s just sad,” she says.
For developers and business owners stationed near the encampment, Friday's eviction brought relief.
Gretchen Minges, a developer on Laclede’s Landing, says she’s paid $50,000 to repair vandalism damage from her unhoused neighbors. Costs for in-house security guards have “well exceeded” that.
Minges and her husband co-own St Louis-based Advantes Group and are trying to revitalize Laclede's Landing, where they own six buildings and manage two parking lots. But the encampment has made it difficult for Minges to attract tenants, she says.
Many of their windows have been broken, bricks get thrown through tenants’ car windows and thieves try to break into their buildings, she says.
“It’s a constant struggle,” Minges says. “My husband actually had a knife pulled on him by a gentleman from the camp about a month ago.”
Throughout the day, workers installed posts for a fence to surround the camp.
City staffers arrived early Friday morning and started to clear the area with a bulldozer after the last resident departed around 3 p.m. About 20 tents remained before the bulldozing began. Among the debris were coats, blankets, books, tarps and shoes.
Volunteers with Tent Mission STL and Winter Outreach stood in front of the bulldozer when a city staffer positioned it in front of the encampment. They moved after the final resident left.
Some of those who remained at the encampment hugged each other goodbye. Most who lived in the encampment had been there for several months and formed closed friendships with the people around them. They weren’t sure when or if they’d see their neighbors again.
“In a community with so much uncertainty, people are reluctant to leave their neighbors,” Grace Stansberry, a volunteer with Winter Outreach, says. “Everybody knows everybody. It’s a shame to see it torn down.”
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