Minneapolis City Council gave $100,000 to the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center to support their emergency warming site and other homeless advocacy efforts.
According to the resolution passed on Jan. 30, the $100,000 will help the organization operate its emergency warming center, including staffing, security and meals.
The Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, a nonprofit supporting Indigenous women and children, helps people find housing, receive traditional healing services and give meals to homeless people.
The emergency warming center opened after the homeless encampment fires this winter in south Minneapolis on Jan. 6 and has remained open since, center President Ruth Buffalo said.
“We have the space available, and we can’t sit idly by,” Buffalo said. “So, if we have a community room or a community gym that is open and vacant, we thought it was a good idea to assist the unsheltered relatives the best we could.”
This legislation comes as Minneapolis saw homelessness increase by around 16% from 2023 to 2024, according to a federal 2024 homelessness report. However, Indigenous people make up a disproportionate amount locally. In 2023, the Wilder Research Foundation reported that Indigenous people represented around 77% of the homeless population in the Twin Cities metro area.
“We are thankful for the city’s support of funding efforts that are community-led to address the unsheltered crisis that the city faces, I think quite honestly the whole country faces,” Buffalo said. “It’s really heartbreaking to see that the original inhabitants of these lands, the American Indian population, are overrepresented in the unsheltered population.”
In the city council meeting on Jan. 28, city council members stressed the importance of the warming center during the winter.
City Council Member Jamal Osman (Ward 6) said the Minnesota Indian Women’s Center is something Minneapolis needs right now to help homeless people.
“This place is what we need in the city of Minneapolis when the temperature is this freezing,” Osman said. “This was a no-brainer to do this. I want the city to step up and work with the Minnesota Indian Women’s Center.”
City Council President Elliott Payne (Ward 1) said in a statement that the warming center needs to stay open to combat Minnesota’s cold winters and the overflow in other warming centers.
“This is even more crucial because it’s been widely reported that shelters are at capacity and many are facing funding cliffs and struggling to maintain current service levels,” Payne said in the statement.
Payne also forwarded another legislative directive to provide public information on warming centers and the city’s plans to assist homeless people during extreme weather conditions.
Buffalo said she expects the next three weeks to be cold, so the Minnesota Indian Women’s Emergency Warming Center will be open overnight.
While thankful for the money, Buffalo said she hopes the Minnesota government can find a long-term solution to homelessness in Minnesota.
“We do hope that every level of government continues to realize the sense of urgency by finding long-term solutions,” Buffalo said. “There’s a lot of good-hearted people who deserve to be treated like human beings with dignity and respect who are unsheltered.”
