St. Paul’s Freedom House drop-in day shelter to close May 8

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
·6 min read

Sitting against a side wall of a former West Seventh Street fire station now known as “a livingroom for the homeless,” tow truck driver Robert Pinto shook his head at the news that Freedom House would be closing its doors in less than a month, victim in part to a legal challenge brought by neighborhood bars, businesses and building owners.

“You think the business owners now complain?” said Pinto, 49, moments before helping to break up a heated verbal altercation between two guests. “All you’re doing is pouring gasoline on a fire that doesn’t need to be fanned.”

Since early January 2021, the drop-in day shelter at 296 West Seventh St. has offered guests free showers, television, games, crafts and access to computers and visiting social service partners, as well as three hot meals a day between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., seven days per week.

That ends May 8, “and not by choice,” quipped Sara Fleetham, development director for Listening House. The nonprofit opened Freedom House as its larger satellite location at the request of city and county officials who approached them in November 2020.

At the time, a homeless crisis had spilled over into sizable clusters of tents parked on public property across from St. Paul City Hall and situated on other empty lots, woods and parkland throughout the city. In response, city and county officials used federal American Rescue Plan funding to relocate everyone they could into rented hotel rooms or new or existing shelters set up seemingly overnight.

PANDEMIC-ERA SHELTERS ARE CLOSING

As federal relief funding runs out, many of the temporary shelters set up in the early days of the pandemic are now closing. On May 31, Ramsey County will wrap up its lease at Bethesda Hospital, which the county rented from Farview Health Services for 100 traditional shelter beds and 32 beds dedicated to respite care for homeless residents with COVID.

That means dozens of residents will need to be relocated from that site alone.

“We are winding down operations at Bethesda and plan to have relocated our guests to other shelter spaces earlier in May,” said John Siqveland, a spokesman for Ramsey County. Fairview is eyeing the former hospital for a possible mental health specialty center.

In June, county beds that opened during the pandemic at downtown Mary Hall and Stub Hall at St. Paul’s Luther Seminary will also lose their county funding. Last November, Ramsey County ended its lease at hotel rooms leased at Best Western and other sites.

The closures have brought a literal chill to St. Paul’s homeless community.

“You leave a dog outside in the winter, you can go to jail for that,” said Dewayne Parker, 58, sitting alongside Assumption Parish outreach volunteer Joe Scanlan. “These are human beings. They’ve lost fingers, toes to frostbite.”

TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER

In late March, a Ramsey County District Court judge granted a temporary restraining order against Freedom House following legal action by the owners of Tom Reid’s Hockey Pub, Patrick McGovern’s Pub, Irvine Park Towers, Art Farm Advertising and a handful of other plaintiffs who said they had lost business due to nuisance activity.

In a legal affidavit, Patrick Boemer, owner of McGovern’s, said car break-ins at his parking lot had become a weekly occurrence since the arrival of Freedom House, and panhandlers had begged and harassed customers and used his bar bathroom for “legal and illegal activities.”

Tom Reid’s affidavit spelled out 121 incidents of open drug use, prostitution, loitering and other challenges. Given that various types of crime increased during the pandemic, skeptics have questioned whether all of those problems could be attributed to the drop-in shelter.

While acknowledging the “cumulative impact” of various public safety concerns, Judge Patrick Diamond noted the testimonies are mostly silent on “time, location and how the incident relates to Freedom House,” and some situations appeared to be hearsay reported secondhand by customers and neighboring business owners, or overlapping accounts of the same crime.

Diamond delayed his March 23 restraining order from taking effect for 45 days, granting the city until early May to host a public hearing on the use of the fire station as a homeless facility, which falls outside the zoning code that was in effect at the time it opened.

Among the various issues in the 43-page order, Diamond cited a lack of proper public notification in the St. Paul Legal Ledger, which is published by Minnesota Lawyer and carries the city’s official legal notices.

The next court date in the case is May 9, but instead of amending zoning to allow Freedom House to stay, city officials have shown little interest in fighting to keep the site open. Freedom House plans to shutter the day before.

The St. Paul City Council is scheduled to discuss the temporary restraining order during a private closed-door session on Wednesday, but council members privately acknowledged that by then, the discussion may be moot.

“I think that the council always was looking for a higher and better use of that public facility,” said Council President Amy Brendmoen on Monday. “Obviously, the (homeless) services are needed and appreciated, but perhaps there’s a better location.”

LISTENING HOUSE ISN’T ENOUGH

Listening House has for years maintained a weekday drop-in space in the basement of First Luthern Church on Maria Avenue in Dayton’s Bluff, but patrons on Monday called the church basement smaller and less well-equipped to handle their many needs.

Listening House, which currently opens at 9 a.m. and closes at 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, will extend service until 5 p.m. Pinto said he’ll soon start a job as a tow truck driver, working from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., so he’ll be heading to work well before the doors open and coming back after they close.

“I’m going to lose a lot,” said Pinto, who suffers from bouts of depression. “I won’t be able to wash clothes. I’m going to have to spend my food stamps. It’s nice to have a quality hot meal instead of cold crap. I can get mail here, get all my hygiene stuff. This is going to be a big impact on me.”

Dawone Boclair, 46, was equally skeptical that closing a facility for the homeless would boost foot traffic for business owners.

“Was it really having a financial effect, or was it because of COVID?” said Boclair, while eating a chicken sandwich from the Freedom House lunch line. “They could have helped out. They could have come down here and hired people.”

Based on recommendations from the city’s Planning Commission, the St. Paul City Council last year loosened zoning rules to allow drop-in day shelters for the homeless citywide, with certain conditions. Among those conditions, sites larger than 7,000 square feet would need to apply for a conditional use permit. Freedom House spans 17,000 square feet.

It’s unclear what the city will do with the former fire station, which once housed the city’s EMS Academy, a training program geared toward introducing young people to a potential career as an EMT-paramedic or firefighter.

Council Member Rebecca Noecker, who represents the area, said the St. Paul Fire Department has expressed interest in reclaiming the site for general emergency use, as well as its new CARES mental health and social service response. Looking out longer term, it could go on the market for sale, she said.

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