Plan to move a Duluth parking lot for people experiencing homelessness riles residents
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The city of Duluth is at the forefront of a nationwide trend in efforts to stem the country’s growing homelessness crisis. It’s one of a growing number of cities — but one of only a few in the Midwest — that has designated a secure area for people living in their cars to sleep.
The program is called Safe Bay. It’s operated by Chum, a nonprofit that also operates the city’s largest emergency shelter.
Last year, it allowed people with no place else to go to sleep in their cars in a parking lot next to the Damiano Center, which offers a range of services to people in need on the steep hillside above Duluth’s downtown.
On any given night, up to 20 cars would be parked there, as Safe Bay served more than 150 people sleeping in their vehicles all summer.
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But there won’t be room for those cars, or those people this summer, while the Damiano Center is undergoing construction to build a temporary shelter for people experiencing homelessness while Chum expands its facility.
So Chum put out a call to area churches, looking for a site to relocate Safe Bay. The first to respond was the Vineyard Church, which offered its rear parking lot, about two and a half miles away, on 13 quiet acres bordering a residential area.
"You know the church, rightly so, views itself as the hands and feet of Jesus, and so this kind of ties right into that mission of caring for your neighbors,” explained Barry Schull, the church’s compassion ministries director.
The parking lot is quiet, surrounded by trees, and it offers ready access to the church’s showers and bathrooms, crucial amenities for people living out of their vehicles.
Schull, who helps run a food shelf out of the back of the church that serves about 800 families a month, said he sees the need for a program like Safe Bay every time he helps people load food into their cars.
“And it's pretty obvious there's a lot of people that live out of their vehicles. And so what we're trying to do is just give people a safe place to park their vehicles at night."
But the proposal has riled some nearby residents, who say there has been little public discussion about the plan, and believe their concerns are being ignored.
“This is not an anti-homeless crusade,” stressed Ryan Thiel, who lives with his wife and young children on a dead-end street, on the other side of a wooded lot from the church parking lot.
But "if there's 50 people, 300-some yards from my house, I'm gonna have questions about that,” Thiel said. “I don't care who they are. We just have what we think are pretty reasonable concerns that are not being addressed."
A safe option
A coalition of service organizations working to end homelessness in Duluth, called Stepping on Up, launched Safe Bay in 2023. Nearly 250 people used it that first year, in part because shelters in Duluth are overflowing.
"The Chum shelter was built for 30 people, and we have 100 to 120 people there a night,” said Joel Kilgour, organizer for Stepping on Up.
Shelters can be crowded and overwhelming, especially for those who are homeless for the first time, he said.
“There can be people there that you don't want to interact with, because perhaps they're an abuser, perhaps you're trying to stay sober, and there's drug activity that you know is happening. There's a lot of reasons that people choose to live in their vehicles where it is the safest option for them and for their family,” Kilgour said.
Safe Bay offers a secure place for them to do that, without worrying about someone knocking on their window, or breaking into their car. It also provides access to a bathroom and shower.
Kilgour said while Safe Bay does serve some people who have endured homelessness for a long time, many are people who are homeless for the first time in their lives. Some are seniors, some students, many have jobs.
"They're much more likely to be working, and they're pretty quickly moving from homelessness into housing,” Kilgour said. Last year 23 households moved into permanent or transitional housing from Safe Bay, “which is really incredible for programs like ours,” Kilgour said.
People who use the program agree to follow certain rules. No drugs or alcohol are allowed. People must sleep in their vehicles– they can’t set up tents. Quiet time starts at 10 p.m. and people need to leave by 8 a.m. the following morning. Two Chum staff or volunteers monitor the site throughout the night.
But that hasn’t allayed the concerns of several neighbors who live nearby.
"The first concern we have is that currently the city has written in 50 people max for the site, and we feel that that is way too many people for this location,” said Ryan Thiel.
They also want a permanent fence installed around the parking lot, rather than the mesh privacy screen and signs indicating the edge of the property line that the Vineyard Church plans to put up.
"I would like to think of myself as someone that would help other people in need,” said Heather Jellum, who owns the wooded lot directly next to the parking lot. She said they already have people from the church wandering onto their property.
"A sign does not stop people from trespassing. There needs to be a physical barrier so people know where they can and cannot go,” she said.
Some residents also want people who sleep there to undergo background checks.
"There just needs to be basic safety measures,” said Jessica Thiel. “Anybody can show up, and there's no limit on the amount of people that can come at night. There’s a lot of children in the neighborhood."
The Thiels say they've gotten backlash for questioning the proposal; accused of being anti-homeless, and NIMBYs, the acronym for Not In My Back Yard.
“We can all agree that everyone deserves a safe place to sleep at night,” said Ryan Thiel. “All our neighborhood is asking is that our concerns, our questions, are listened to and that they are addressed.”
Advocates for Safe Bay acknowledge the proposal might make some neighbors uncomfortable. But they say it’s a misconception that people experiencing homelessness are more inclined to criminal activity.
Former Duluth Police Chief Mike Tusken says the data doesn't bear that out.
"It is not going to be more dangerous. You're not going to see a spike in calls for service, that just is inconsistent with what I've experienced with these organizations,” said Tusken.
Kilgour adds that it benefits the entire community to provide vulnerable people with a safe landing spot that's monitored and provides the support they need to move them into housing.
Chum hoped to open the new Safe Bay location on May 1, the day after the city's warming center closed for the season.
But after a delay, the Duluth Planning Commission isn't scheduled to vote on the interim use permit until May 13.
The city’s planning staff has recommended approving the permit, which lasts for one year. Jenn Moses, manager of Planning and Community Development for the city of Duluth, said staff determined the proposal meets the city’s requirements for interim outdoor living sites.
“They are standards such as, it has to be fully staffed every time it is open. They have to keep records. They have to have on site sanitation and waste receptacles. And so every requirement that we laid out, they have met.”
If the planning commission approves the permit, the Thiels say they plan to appeal it. They believe the proposal should be scrutinized by the entire city council.
For Barry Schull at Vineyard Church, he thinks about when he first moved to Duluth. He didn’t have a job, and slept out of his car for a time at a nearby Boy Scout camp.
"I just think that this is a way to offer dignity and a way to offer a blessing to some people that really could use a blessing, at this point in their lives."