Why is Hennepin County Better at Helping the Unsheltered Addicted Than the City?

One lesson I have learned in my fight to help move the addicted off the streets and into housing, treatment and services is that Hennepin County does a much better job than the City of Minneapolis. Hennepin County is the governmental organization tasked with addressing homelessness, as part of its large portfolio of social services. The core services of cities are things like policing, fire protection, roads, water, sewer, and parks, but I believe that Minneapolis can do both, if managed right. They are considered one of the most successful cities in the nation for housing the homeless, but not for the unsheltered addicted.

The City Finally Learns the Success of Immediate Intervention

When a few tents appear on County property, the county immediately goes into action before the encampments grow into a big festering crime camp. They swoop down and offer the unsheltered users housing, treatment and services. The campers may not take the county up on their offer, but the campers still must leave.

Contrast this with how the city functions. Up until the winter of 2025, the city waited until there were 30 tents on a city property before making a move. By that time, the users inhabiting that patch of land were so entrenched, there was no moving them without a big expensive production.

Since 2022, neighborhoods have been pointing out to city lawmakers that if the police had not been forbidden to go onto the city’s own property and ticket for trespassing, the young idealistic folks setting up yurts for unsheltered users, it would have stopped and the destruction of neighborhoods, and of so many people’s lives would have been spared. These camps bring violent crime into the neighborhoods and provide no direction for those addicted other than to stay addicted. In early 2025 the police were given permission to use this strategy, and it was discovered that they didn’t even have to go as far as to ticket the young idealistic enablers. When the police showed up, they picked up their yurt-building materials and moved off the land voluntarily at the threat of being ticketed.

It only took the city four years to learn this trick of early intervention, a strategy the county had been using since 2020. There is much more to be done, but this strategy has met with some success, as a third of the unsheltered users left the streets and moved into shelter, treatment, or low-bar housing with services. Minneapolis has had no encampments on city properties since early 2025.

There still is a problem with those who gather in groups to meet their dealers. These gatherings hold the appearance and destructive force of an encampment, for the users and the neighborhoods. The city may want to look at these same early intervention approaches for these kinds of “camps.”

City Needs to Follow County’s Lead for the Mobile Health Unit and Medication-Assisted Treatment

For people who are not deeply involved in these issues, “medicines for opioid use disorder,” (MOUD) are transforming addiction recovery. These medications help the addicted stave off cravings and keep them from getting dope sick while withdrawing. They have shown to substantially increase the success of people leaving drug addiction. The success rates of people leaving addiction are much higher with MOUD than 12 step programs that just rely on internal fortitude to withstand drug cravings.

These drugs have not been widely available to people using on the street in the past. Now, Hennepin County’s team of medical personnel, called the “Health to the Homeless Team,” offer MOUD to people with addiction. MOUD has shown great success in getting the unsheltered addicted into housing, services and treatment and has been key in the county’s success in reducing both homelessness and addiction.

Minneapolis rolled out its “Mobile Health Unit,” in August. It offers most of the services of a health clinic to the addicted and others living on the street. It even has a dental clinic. It offers Narcan, but so far, no MOUD. We have been told that they are having problems with federal government regulations. Just wondering if Hennepin County could help them get the ball rolling on that, given the county has been using it for several years with proven success.

The City Chooses to Not Coordinate with the County

The City Council says they want to work with the county on homelessness and drug use issues. A combined work group should be happening. It makes a lot of sense for the city, given the county has a lot more funding, specializes in social service programs, and should do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to housing and treatment. During the Q &A session of a well-organized summit on homelessness sponsored by the City of Minneapolis last summer, I asked two county staff members and one city staff member if this was happening, and none of them gave me a straight answer. Therefore, I assume they are not at the table together.

But this means that there are two groups, each doing their own thing, who should just coordinate with each other. It is time for the city to step back and let the county lead, not only because the county has a lot more money, but more importantly, they have shown that they are better at it.

Is the City Even Serious About Addressing Addiction?

Why does the city not learn from the proven successes of the county? Part of what has made the county more successful than the city is that the county elected officials don’t play performative politics over homelessness the way city elected officials do, including the mayor and especially the DSA members of the City Council.

I get the feeling that the whole voting bloc of the Democratic Socialists Council Members, and those who vote with them, are not serious about moving the unsheltered addicted off the street and toward health and wellbeing. They are so steeped in their harm reduction ideology that they want to prove it works, without admitting we see their failure on our streets every day. They simply will not consider introducing any other solutions, and we witness their work to keep the encampments in place, “Street Corps Working Group.”

Every time a destructive crime-and-violence-attracting encampment was moved off our streets in Ward 9, Council Member Chavez got his mug in front of a camera. That evening we would see him on the local news endlessly virtue signaling and decrying the camp’s move, but not a word said about the months of urban terrorism the neighborhood had just suffered.

The virtue signaling political theater of Minneapolis office holders have given its citizens lots of P.R. but not actual results. For instance, Narcan is a wonderful medication. It saves lives and every time Council Member Chavez talks about “harm reduction,” he takes pride in how he has pushed the distribution of Narcan as part of harm reduction. Thanks to him, there are two free Narcan vending machines. Narcan definitely has its place, but here is the deal with the Narcan/harm reduction approach. It saves the lives of the addicted, but it doesn’t set them free from addiction. I have never heard my DSA Council Member Chavez, talk about or advocate for medication (MOUD) to help people leave addiction, though I have been emailing him about it since 2022. Why is it that my Council Member doesn’t want to use the most effective tools we have to help people leave addiction? Does he want to keep people in addiction so he can continue to get his face in front of the cameras and look good to the DSA?

For the city to succeed in moving the unsheltered, addicted off the streets and into housing, treatment and services, they first must admit that the county is just more successful at it. The city then needs to not only take the county’s funding but invite them to be a part of their homeless response team, to pool resources, ideas, best practices and avoid duplication of services. But most of all the city must let the county lead, stop the political theater and, in the way the county does, focus on the practical solutions.