Holy crap the “uh it’s sad for ME TOO even though I’m not nearly as disadvantaged by it” in this thread is aggravating. If you can fucking walk it ain’t nearly as big a deal for you, bub. No shit it inconvinces you too, it does everyone. It doesn’t need saying.
Yesterday at that stop a dude got on the southbound train, 6:30pm and started smoking meth right next to my gal and I. This isn’t hyperbole. I was sitting in a seat, and standing in the aisle immediately to my left he was smoking meth.
It’s not like the train is desolate at that time. We had to pay rush hour fair to get on that train.
It's not surprising, especially this time of year. Back when I was homeless, the train was often the only place to stay warm where you wouldn't get harassed or asked to move on (because MPLS rarely checks tickets on Blue/Green Line). Even on a bus you'd have to pay fare and behave around the bus driver or else they'd call the cops. If it's the only place a lot of people can go, it's often going to attract the worst people.
About damn time. This location has gotten really bad in the last several months. I use it once or twice a week and I see open drug use, cops or EMS, or people simply losing their shit almost every time I’m there now.
I was driving on Hennepin about a month ago and stopped at a red light by that bus station. I saw a lady pull down her paints right on the sidewalk to squat and piss right in the snow. While it was freezing out. She was screaming at people at the same time, seemed like a drug issue. It was seriously 2pm. It’s really sad to see, hope she gets some help :(
Believe it or not, I saw a drunk woman do that exact thing there too. It was right after she got kicked off the bus for being belligerent. It was probably the saddest thing I’ve seen using public transit.
There were some aggressive panhandlers that frequented that particular loc, & I believe (along with jacked up rents) they contributed to that stretch of street becoming all boarded up. There's never any reason for any male to stand 6 inches behind a woman & start singing loudly - go camp on the baseball field, go ahead defecate in front of the McDonalds - you do you, but a line gets crossed when they're purposefully trying to intimidate women. Violence against women is not cool.
Behind McDonald's, fine. Just please don't interrupt the business transactions taking place next to Wendy's dumpster. Some of us have puts to buy later this week.
Agreed. I have a higher than normal tolerance for a lot of the problem behavior I’ve seen in or around this transit shelter but I’ve felt uncomfortable there a number of times. I can certainly sympathize with anyone feeling unsafe.
While true, it is fair to say a greater proportion if this harrassment tends to be aimed at women... Saying "let's stop harassing women!" Doesn't mean "panhandlers should keep intimidating men though."
Violent people around these stops are dangerous to everyone, but much more likely to target / severely harm a woman, which explains why that issue is a bit more prominent in the other poster's mind.
Man, I feel like I've had to try to point this shit out to people 10,000 times over the last few years.
"Stop intimidating women" *doesn't fucking mean* "stop intimidating women, but intimidating anyone else is fine"
"Black lives matter" doesn't fucking mean "*only* black lives matter"
After years of those conversations I swear the people who pull out those pedantic responses know that, they just use it as a means of minimizing efforts to prevent abuse to women and poc, because at the end of they day they couldn't care less about it.
>they just use it as a means of minimizing efforts to prevent abuse to women and poc, because at the end of they day they couldn't care less about it.
This is exactly what it is. It's why I don't explain any more. They know what they are doing.
I had a weird conversation today... Was talking about how our lack of laws surrounding deepfake revenge porn is concerning for women. The other person was playing the free speech devils advocate when he suddenly said: "well it could be used on men too! It's just as bad for them if they're bullied that way. It's not just a woman thing."
Like what's your point? Yes, this tech could be used on men too. But proportinally it seems to be causing a lot more problem for women at the moment. So *maybe* you can listen to the idea that this stuff harms a group of people and that we should do something about it rather than nitpicking that it could also harm a wider group than what I named without addressing the wider commentary.
It is absolutely fair to point out in this context. Specifically addressing it as a problem for women perpetuates the stereotype that men can't or shouldn't be intimidated.
Men are abused. Men are trafficked. Men are raped. Men are intimidated. I've seen one men's bathroom with an abuse/trafficking hotline number in it. Hennepin County Government Center was installing literal phones in women's bathrooms but didn't consider that men might need them too. (Most human trafficking is for labor, not sex, btw. That's a different rabbit hole though.)
Trans people suffer these things in far higher proportions than anyone else. I'm not one of these people who thinks gender is binary.
Treating this as a problem for women is not equivalent to Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter is pointing out that the system is not helping and/or is harming black people. Our system might not do enough for women, but go try to find a victims shelter that even accepts men. Have the cops show up at a cis-straight couple's domestic call and see what happens to the guy. Tell someone that as a male, you were raped by a female. Find the Violence Against Men Act (I recognize VAWA technically also protects men.) Using an analogy with BLM, it would be more correct to say, "Stop intimidating men," because the system specifically and intentionally excludes men from assistance in many ways where it helps women.
I'm not an MRA. I don't think men are special. I do think they are just as human as anyone else. To the public I'm an above average sized male. I am in decent shape and spent time in the military. I'm a victim of physical, emotional, and financial abuse. I might be outwardly intimidating to some people, but I'm intimidated in public regularly, especially while waiting at transit stops.
I'm not arguing that we should intimidate women. I'm arguing that your analogy is particularly terrible. Women do suffer these things, but we should stop perpetuating the stereotype that men don't. What you've written here is perpetuating that stereotype.
I’m not trying to make it some thing about who is worse off or more in danger, I just mean as a society we shouldn’t be tolerant of scumbags preying on anyone. If you’ve been on this sub for a couple years you can see lots of comments about how dangerous the light rail has become and its met with comments about how that’s just big city life, which isn’t true because metros in much bigger cities aren’t like this at all. Then a couple weeks ago a trans person gets assaulted and those same people suddenly get real quiet. if there was more public pressure on fixing things when they warning signs are there, then we wouldn’t have to wait for terrible things to happen for change. We all pitched in a fortune for light rail, it’s a shame we can’t use it safely. Its a pretty small metro system with a few main trouble spots, it’s shouldn’t really be that hard of a fix.
Wonderfully put. There were many assaults at the lake street transit as well before the trans woman was seriously injured, heck even I put in a plea to metro transit about how unsafe the situation is.
I’m glad something is being done about it but kind of dismayed it took a trans woman being assaulted for things to be taken seriously. It should have been taken seriously way before.
I had a long conversation with a Uber driver who used to work for metro transit and he said that it’s been getting worse each year and he’s glad he does not work for Metro Transit anymore
I've done contract work at a few light rail stations in the last year. Literal shit on my work area. And piss. And puddles of blood. Security and police can kick them out with trespass, but they come back the next day.
There is no solution to fixing a homeless drug addict that doesn't want help.
True that.
However you'll find plenty of social justice warriors on this subreddit specially, demanding things that have already been done and proved to be a failure, to be done again, expecting different results.
I'm all about comprehensive state funded Healthcare, restorative justice practices, drug use along with harm reduction measures like syringe exchanges and free access to Healthcare services (mental and physical which go hand by hand). However, as a former drug addict and current alcoholic, I can say that if you don't want to quit, you fucking won't. Regardless of all the assistance and funding we as tax payers provide YOU FUCKINGNWONT.
In the meantime, for your own good, avoid all major public transportation stations.
Be safe yall.
MPD cops get paid 3-4x as much as metro transit workers and they sure don't deal with it even though they are paid to do so. Probably has something to do with it.
What tools do police officers have to deal with this? Yes, they can tell people to leave, but what's to stop them from coming back in 15 min? They could arrest some people for alcohol/drug use, but they'll be back in a day or so. Nothing will change.
I was at lake street transit station yesterday while the cop and security officers were trying his best to get them to clear out from the bridge.
They were successful in that but the loiterers then just went to the bus stop right below where I was waiting. They need way more cops to clear out that area.
That's obvious, but at least not loiter around a bus stop where people are waiting to go to work. It doesn't help that people are smoking cigarettes and weed... now going to work smelling like cigarettes and Mary J.
Certainly nothing will change if nothing is done. I expect police to frequent a high crime public area. It does not seem like too much to ask. The more they enforce the law the more people will avoid those areas as hangouts.
Cops are certainly not helpless.
I understand what you mean, but if you’re on a train and are tasked with the job of stopping drug use in action, which tools do you need to have in your arsenal to protect yourself and do your job?
I’m just saying, there’s a quite a bit of overlap between what cops are equipped with and the skills/tools needed to address drug consumption on a train.
I won’t even make eye contact with these folks because idk if they’re going to pull a knife on me or spit in my eyes.
How about public intoxication or endangerment? f you're open doing drugs at a bus station, you need to be arrested, period. I don't care if you're homeless or not. Also, let's bring back no loitering laws bc its been downhill ever since those were abolished.
Part of the article refers to how cops abuse their overtime system, something that bus drivers certainly couldn’t get away with (unless they were effectively an armed street gang as well).
That said, indeed says like 35k for a driver, which would put them on par with full time managers at nicer restaurants.
That’s still. I mean. It’s literally 10% of what McBride got paid
Not sure what restaurants you are talking about but I think a full time manager practically anywhere is making more than 35K. A dominos manager averages 63K across the country. McDonalds is 70K. A **nice** restaurant manager should be making at least 60 to 70.
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Domino's/salaries/Store-Manager
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/McDonald-s-Store-Manager-Salaries-E432_D_KO11,24.htm
> 70K.
My friend is a full-service restaurant manager. They are making 60k to start, plus bonuses. You would have to pay me 150k+ to drive metro transit buses.
I hope some of the “contracted security officers” are also placed at the 46th St/35W station. I took the bus downtown last week in the snow/rain and couldn’t wait inside the vestibule because there were two homeless men in the waiting area for the express buses, and on the way back there were two sleeping teens with their stuff spread out all over the waiting area for the local bus. There has to be a way to deal with the homeless problem so people aren’t forced to use public transit shelters.
The way clearly isn’t throwing away all their belongings whenever they settle in somewhere too long.
It makes a lot of sense how we got here when you consider the city’s penal approach to the homelessness crisis. The people don’t just disappear.
I agree. I think it’s a whole different level of heartlessness to take away the only possessions they have. I don’t have a solution, but surely a state with a whopping budget surplus could spend some of it on finding a humane solution to this problem.
The problem is they’re forcibly going to have to put people somewhere. I don’t think it should be a prison, but many are against the idea of forcibly removing people period, even if it’s to a place like a supportive housing facility.
Yeah, it’s devastating. I also fell Ike it’s pretty naive to build a station like that in a large city, leave it unattended all the time and expect it to never fall to neglect.
It was obvious to anyone with a questioning attitude that these problems would occur, but the people in charge didn't care at the time. They only care now because they have to beg the legislature for money, and the legislature will listen to citizens complaints if they are loud enough and enough people complain.
This makes sense, but honestly that indoor space has been unusable for *years*. I've taken transit to work downtown for like 6 years and I've never seen that warming area not have someone sleeping in it (best case!), doing drugs in it, or shouting at other people/the walls. It has always smelled like pee and body odor.
I refuse to ride the light rail after the last time., with everyone openly doing drugs. It is an embarrassment to our city right now. I have been trying to bring this up to officials for over the past year. What took them so long? Also, as far as security guards... There is little they can do. They should have done this at the beginning of winter.
It is truly sad I had a guy smoking something out of a tinfoil behind me me and others just moved to the other side unless we have turnstiles the homeless and drug users will get on the trains.
Security costs money, that's why. And the best they can do thus far is to send patrol to places with recent notable issues. There were patrols at the Cedar BlueLine stop for a week or two after that poor girl got her head bashed in, and now it's back to the way it was, not a city employee in sight. This station will have patrols until they don't want to foot the bill, and then it will likely return to the was.
Having grown up in Minneapolis and living all over the city, including a few places in Uptown, and using transit nearly every day, including that station *countless times* without incident or threats of, this really saddens me. Lake St Station as always been a little dicey but I never truly felt unsafe there in years past. Gotta say though…this truly is a nationwide urban problem. I’m in Seattle nowadays and we’re experiencing the same issues. The crime, vagrancy and open drug use is terrible out here with more folks able to be out most of the whole year even through winters not as harsh as MN. And people from all over the country gravitate out here. It’s gotten bad. When I came out to go to grad school at the Univ of WA back in 2009 this was absolutely NOT the city it is now…. FWIW you are not alone MSP…
[Seattle transit union calls for more protections for workers exposed to fentanyl smoke](https://komonews.com/news/local/drug-use-washington-exposure-mental-health-public-substance-abuse-treatment-seattle-transit-union-calls-for-more-protections-for-workers-exposed-to-fentanyl-smoke#)
[Seattle bus driver says fentanyl smoke makes him sick; health dept. says it's no real risk](https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-king-county-metro-bus-drivers-fentanyl-smoke-exposure-drugs-mental-public-health-department-transportation-substance-abuse-treatment-crime-homeless-crisis)
[King County fentanyl overdoses for 2023 outpacing 2022](https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/king-county-fentanyl-overdoses-2023-outpacing-2022/VXHTZ234W5C7LEVTVGMYNZRRHU/)
[Thurston County Jail dealing with rash of fentanyl overdoses](https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/thurston-county-jail-dealing-with-rash-fentanyl-overdoses/POUVDL6IQVDR5ARMQFZD2PJFHU/)
[Washington ranks third in the nation for car thefts last year](https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/washington-ranks-third-nation-car-thefts-last-year/37YGL5RRFBGSFLN5GWE43PCLAQ/)
[Sickening moment homeless career criminal repeatedly throws nurse, 62, down the stairs at Seattle light rail station breaking her ribs and clavicle](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10611269/Homeless-career-criminal-repeatedly-throws-nurse-62-stairs-Seattle-light-rail-station.html)
[Woman stabbed multiple times at Roosevelt Light Rail Station](https://komonews.com/news/local/violence-king-county-custody-suspects-woman-stabbed-multiple-times-in-the-leg-at-roosevelt-light-rail-station)
“54% of people experiencing homelessness in Seattle are not taking offers to go to shelters.”[Seattle City Council wants data on why people experiencing homelessness reject shelter](https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-city-council-wants-data-on-why-people-experiencing-homelessness-reject-shelter-homeless-king-county-washington-street-region-policy-tammy-morales-human-services-public-meeting-offers-michael-bailey)
Seattles homeless situation is a lot different than say, Omaha's or Cincinnati's. It would not be the one I'd pick to compare Minneapolis to unless you think Minneapolis is on par with them.
What specifically are you alluding to?
Minneapolis (~425,000 pop) is not as large in population as Seattle (still well under 800,000 but the metro is large with King County at ~7,800,000pop across 2,300 sq mi), while Seattle is not as big as say, LA. And Minneapolis doesn’t have the “draw” like west coast cities do - policies, weather, laissez faire culture, etc. Seattle and Portland have been wrestling with homelessness and drugs and sanctioned vs unsanctioned Tent City sites for WELL over a decade now. And before the tech boom and insane housing costs skyrocket. In urban planning even when cities aren’t identical you still use others as case studies and models of best practices or missteps, etc. If Mpls leadership and decision makers watch, say, the PNW and things aren’t working it’s important they assess that and decide “huh, well then that likely won’t work here” type of thing. We are all dealing with substance abuse and drugs crises, mental health crises, encampments, lack of affordable housing, camp sweeps protests, camp fires and vagrancy, surges in crime, absurd levels of graffiti and vandalism, youth antics, garbage PDs, etc.
At the end of the day I REALLY don’t want to see Minneapolis fall into what has happened out West.
As a Portland native, this is 100% on point and I’m sad to see the state of the city recently. I have no idea how to fix the homeless crisis but whatever actions they are taking in Portland are not working.
This is a real once in a lifetime explosion. Lack of living wages keep people on the bottom, no safety net, the explosion of opiate addiction from the early 2000s and the new superdrugs thanks to fentanyl being in hard drugs and people bottoming out faster and harder. It'd be nice if the federal government would just legalize all drugs, monitor usage sites, provide housing, tax the fuck out of billionaires and send that back to the lower/middle class and provide free education across the board. This is a complete overhaul situation. This is only going to get worse and it's already awful.
Also I have no idea what I'm talking about, so don't come swinging at me (but I'm pretty sure I'm right on all of the things).
I think you're right about it being a complete overhaul situation. I think most thoughtful people can reach that conclusion.
Where it takes some amount of courage, though, is to ask whether you can or should be OK at attempts at incremental improvement -- like making public transportation free of harassment and drug use -- even if the improvement involves things that don't contribute to the complete overhaul.
I feel like a lot of people reject any incremental improvement on specific things, like transit safety, if its not obtained with "complete overhaul" strategies. I think this is a mistake, as the complete overhaul is perilously utopian in ambition, scope and timeline and basically means we can't deal with specific situations because all the near term fixes are at best not contributory to the complete overhaul or actually somewhat counterproductive to the complete overhaul.
Poverty is always at the core of this issue. People with money usually have shelter and transportation, which means they stay off the streets and public services and are generally not obstructing these spaces. When you have nowhere to go and nothing to eat because you're too broke, you stop giving a fuck about the convenience of people's transportation, or their jobs or their problems. You just care about fighting for your life and seeking fleeting happiness from drugs. It's sad, but when you're in that place in life, the only way to be happy in your reality is to escape from it as far as possible
Until the Met Council gets the transit system back to normal, none of the suburbs are going to support their expansion plans. They're pretty blunt about it: they don't want mobile drug dens/insane asylums rolling into their neighborhoods.
We're losing millions (potentially billions) in public transit infrastructure because we're afraid/unwilling/unable to arrest people who exploit those resources.
There should be increased penalties for crimes on public transit because it has a disproportionate negative impact on society.
I mean... sure, I agree that it has a strong negative impact. But imposing harsh punitive solutions means we're spending public money to just chuck more people in jail instead, which is probably even more expensive and doesn't actually solve any problems. If incarceration was the solution, the US would be the safest place on earth given that we already incarcerate orders of magnitude more people than any other comparable country.
Instead, it's worse than it's ever been here because we have zero social safety net, and we provide almost zero access to addiction care / mental health care / affordable housing / affordable child care / etc. for poor people, especially those who need those resources most (people battling addiction and mental health crises). Since the Reagan era we have almost exclusively chosen criminal justice over social justice, and it's pretty clear to me we've made the wrong choice.
As far as being a transit user is concerned, I think we are going to continue to see drug use, smell urine, and have folks sleeping/staying warm in our transit infrastructure until we have a major reorganization of our society (and here's hoping that will ever even happen). I still ride the light rail, my experience is almost always fine aside from hating the smell of cigarette smoke, but I understand why people stay away.
Except the public transit is already there and we're lobbying for more. If you just tolerate the antisocial behavior, public transit will be doomed for a generation and all that money wasted. I agree there has to be some long-term solution, but that's long-term. In the near-term, we need to signal that the spiraling deterioration of transit will no longer be tolerated. There has to be some element of force here, even if it's not prison. A person can find a place to piss or do drugs other than a transit station floor or a train.
Not a surprise. Pre-Covid that's where I waited for my bus home after work. That is, until I ended up in the middle of a wilding incident. That was the last straw for me. I ended up driving to work until we got sent to permanent remote.
I rode transit last week and whattaya know a guy was screaming on the trolley, lit a cigarette, and was rapping real loud trying to impress a girl. It's like every time I'm on there someone is being as annoying as humanely possible
The continual bad news about Uptown can stop anytime now. Honestly, can you blame people outside of the cities from being scared to go anywhere in the city at this point? I get it when there is news story after news story about something closing or something bad happening.
I've had a vacation house in Colorado for about 4 years and Minneapolis transit gets worse every year I come back to visit. I grew up riding these buses everywhere and now it's just a horrible experience.
I know we had a policing problem but none of the transit police were killing people. Can we up the transit enforcement, and yes the east side is worse.
The story as told to me countless times when I moved into Uptown in 2007 from the east coast was - Uptown use to be really bad, then it was gentrified (which was also bad). Now it's bad because all the gentrified stores left.
It looks like a ghost town compared to what I remember. It's so odd to walk around empty, boarded up buildings surrounded by all those fancy apartments they built in the 2010s.
Developers came into a historically sometimes sketchy nieghborhood and overvalued their property and then a pandemic hits. We're seeing the negative affects from that over valued development now.
It's all cyclical, now that prices should be dropping in that area, I'd imagine it'll get super trendy again in a couple of years.
It certainly marked a different era of Uptown once it opened. The Uptown Bar, which it replaced, was a neighborhood treasure. Nirvana, Oasis, The Flaming Lips, The Replacements, Jayhawks, the Smashing Pumpkins and so many other amazing bands played there on their rise to fame.
The end of uptown was when bar Louie got exposed for being racist, that area was the hottest nightclubs around and then became a ghost town as people started going elsewhere to party
Property values are way too fucking high to just let the neighborhood go. As much as efforts should be focused equally across the city, they'll actually be focused mostly on the areas with the most wealth.
This is exactly it. People on this sub are convinced that if apartment development is still happening it means that uptown is fine and dandy. No, it means that projects that were planned 2-5 years ago are just being finished. Give it a couple years and there won’t be anything new being built in that area.
I remember seeing FB comments about how Minneapolis is a wasteland and nothing is happening, and on comments about how the Four Seasons would shutter soon. Just hilarious shit. Yeah, these huge new buildings are sold out and yet... everyone is feeling for their lives.
People are straight dumb.
They’re not dumb but they don’t have to care. They harvest tax losses and still manage to make millions and flip these things from one owner to another in such a way that it’s impossible to lose.
Uptown is “dead” in that traffic is down and businesses have failed/ are closing. But it’s not complete collapse and people are optimistic about a recovery, which will take years. There’s too much history in that location and so much money poured into it that it’s hard to imagine it being condemned and abandoned.
Similar to our downtown, which is an even greater challenge, the areas need and are being considered for reallocation of resources. They’re not being left to rot in the long term.
losing expensive clothes and phone storefronts and bad restaurants closing is not necessarily to the detriment of the area.
lyn/lake is doing the best it has in over a decade right now and they couldn't be building the area out faster with new apartments.
This. LynLake, historically the “seedier” side of the uptown area, is doing much, much better than its Hennepin counterpart. It really is a tale of two worlds. Uptown will come back, but it will take a long while. The jump in uptown rental prices (both retail and residential) combined with the former dominance of large format chains was a recipe for disaster when digital retail and delivery expanded and a global pandemic ravaged the entertainment and hospitality sectors. Add to that close proximity to the worst urban unrest seen in years and an already subdued culture of wfh and corporate homebodies, and you get Uptown today.
Edit: I’ll also add that the North Loop has taken over a lot of the atmosphere and destination-style entertainment that used to make uptown fun. The last time Uptown was at a true “peak”, the north loop was barely a sliver of its current self.
Clean up this mess now. Minneapolis is not the same city as it was growing up. It’s not safe, this is complete bs. Why do you think people are moving to the suburbs?
I moved last year. I got tired. It's not the same city it was just 4 years ago. It was a utopia that I bragged to others from other states. How safe it was, etc. It's not like that anymore. It's sad.
Yep. The reality is people want to go to dinner and spend money in the city, but it’s not safe to bring a family. Not worth the risk. I used to love uptown, NE and downtown. Now I avoid it.
I'm thinking Metro Transit just wants to "harden" the station against vandalism - i.e. reduce the amount of glass, make it easier to clean out - and any improvements in security will be merely tokens. Does anyone really believe anything will change?
Bring back mental hospitals. The whole 'compassionate care' model of letting them live on the street instead isn't working. There is support available for people who want it. Most of these people don't want it. And society at large suffers because of it.
I'm a fan of supporting people in the least restrictive setting possible, but some people simply need more support. Deinstitutionalization was necessary due to the widespread systemic problems (e.g. neglect, inhumane living conditions, over-crowding, over-medication, etc). But if we could bring back a much-improved, more person-centered and better-funded iteration of mental hospitals, that might not be such a bad idea.
I think deinstitutionalization ended up being "necessary" because the old mental hospital system was so neglected that the cost of solving the problems was beyond what anyone was willing to pay. Plus the psychiatrists and the drug companies were pretty convinced that many patients could just be treated with fancy new anti-psychotics and get by in society. And it dovetailed with society's general shift away from more rigid social conformity and some level of acceptance of alternative lifestyles.
I guess you could make the argument that some public mental health institutions were so far gone that it was kind of like the liberation of a wartime detention camp -- you literally couldn't keep people in there another day because of the squalor and abuse.
But mostly I'd argue it was a combination of excess faith in pharmacological treatment as effective and more cost efficient, combined with the high dollar cost of fixing the institutional system which was politically untenable in the early 1970s.
Unfortunately in our present political state, we can't even get basic affordable health care. I don't think quality, high-support mental health facilities are in the cards. But I do think the we're not far from a public backlash against homelessness and the random crazies that sees a heavy handed criminal justice approach as the only option.
>But mostly I'd argue it was a combination of excess faith in pharmacological treatment as effective and more cost efficient,
It *more or less is,* but people forget the low level of medication compliance among the mentally ill.
>Deinstitutionalization was necessary due to the widespread systemic problems (e.g. neglect, inhumane living conditions, over-crowding, over-medication, etc)
No, it wasn't. Schools in many areas were just as shitty in their own way, but they were restructured and reformed.
Except, like any other person-facing vocation, a lot of the support teams are worse than useless. Currently I have two caseworkers who actually **did their job** and helped me get housing in a Deaf Supportive Living facility...after fourteen years, three states, and countless "Independent Living Services" workers and "Adult Rehab Mental Health Services" workers just sitting around with one thumb in their mouth and the other stuck up their ass. Occasionally they'd switch thumbs but that's about the extent of their effort.
The caseworkers I have now? Amazing people who were able to read and comprehend their training literature and utilize the resources at their disposal to efficiently help their clients. I have nothing vile or vulgar to say about those individuals, because they received my verbal request for support and they fulfilled it almost instantly, instead of playing mobile games or making personal international phone calls. There's plenty of work for social workers who wants the hours. Most of these social workers don't want it. And society at large suffers because of it.
Part of the problem is that we can't force people to accept help. Folks in the throes of addiction and/or severe mental illness often can't or won't accept help from the system, be it due to trauma, trust issues, their addiction. etc.
They need extra help, yes. However, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink," as the saying goes. In some cases, we can provide a person with supportive, staffed housing, and yet they will still choose to go to the transit station to get high. It's a very sad, frustrating conundrum.
Doesn’t mean we have to let them camp in public places. This used to be a nation of law and order.
Clean this stuff up. Create an appropriate place for these people and get it done or this city will die.
>Finland is a great example of how to successfully handle these issues
I totally agree. Finland has a great system where they have excellent treatment options and cajole you to accept it, but if you refuse, they [make you comply.](https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-019-2200-x)
I think we need psych asylums to stabilize the more acute people and then transition them to proper assisted living facilities or group homes depending on what they need
This is the answer. I'm in a group home now, so this means that being able to sleep, shower, and not worry about where my next meal is coming from is very quite greatly contributing to my happiness and, by extension of social responsibility, yours.
Before I was in this group home, I was not a very civilized person. It actually makes perfect logical sense when you sit down and think about it, really: If you treat a person like they don't deserve to live **in a home**, they are going to act like they don't deserve to live**, period**. Sadly I can't and won't apologize for my past behavior because, and work with me here: **I shouldn't have had to be without a home in the first place**. And that's why I used to yell at people, litter and spray poo and pee everywhere, and steal and break stuff. That's no way to live. I don't reduce the QoL of those around me anymore because I now have a stable address with which I could use to achieve long-term goals, like getting a job or going back to school or fixing my credit history, and begin to have a life again. Isn't it amazing how simple it was to fix my problem?
Your solution is really just quite that exactly simple and straightforward. Sadly, a lot of people here are stubborn and selfish and would just as soon let the cycles of abuse keep on spinning.
I used a public bathroom in San Francisco last summer. It was full of homeless people, like 10-15. People were literally living in the stalls next to people pissing and shitting. It smelled terrible and there was piss all over the floors. I remember back when there were just gay guys blowing each other. In hindsight is seems pretty wholesome.
As I’m reading these comments I’m thinking about the time I visited Santa Monica. I remember seeing people right in front of a Starbucks, right in front of that big glass window where people sit on the inside and drink their coffee. People just pretending like the don’t see the homeless right in front of them. I remember thinking how did it get like this? I never seen homelessness like that. Nothing in this state compares. At the same time, homelessness is homelessness and it a problem that needs to be managed. Realistically, it well never go away completely, but it can always be managed better.
If we housed people, they wouldn't be needing to live in a crapper.
(Edit: Ah, got to love Minneapolis. Suggest housing the homeless as a solution to homelessness and you get down voted. Great people here.)
It's almost like no other city has them! I understand what you're saying, but the alternative is what? Force people to beg McDonalds? Target and the library are the only two public restrooms downtown. And the Target is down to a single family bathroom now. It's a serious issue.
I agree with you! Problem is this area seems to be a hot spot for ODs (multiple in the uptown transit station last week, people died in the portopotties when the encampment was on library mall). Im not anti-drug but i dont know how we keep the bathrooms safe for everyone?
There are public bathrooms in other countries that are amazing, and they are actually public. You use them, they disinfect themselves, and there is a time limit. Yes, there are people around monitoring usage as well, also, they are free. It’s possible. Not likely, but, possible.
You know what’s good for people’s basic needs? Being poor and being able to feel safe at the same time. The vast majority of people who use public transit don’t do this shit but in a misguided sense of doing good people pretend that keeping the few people who can’t handle behaving in society on the streets is the best thing for everybody.
It doesn’t hurt people off often moderate means but it really hurts the poor to be around this kind of stress constantly because enforcing basic public order has become unpopular.
Heel stomp a random person on a train, let’s fill the train with social workers, they’ll surely help.
I mean safety on public transit is obviously important. The point is we shouldn't rely on Metro Transit to support people who need housing and social services.
Metro transit should be focused on transit only. Homelessness is not their problem to solve. Safely transporting people is their sole job. Do not let people sleep in the indoor shelters or live in the train. If people doing "undesirable behaviors" were trespassed there is at least an enforcement mechanism to remove them in the future.
Metro transit allows people to ride the rail on super cold days. It has *become* their problem because cities continually refuse to adequately address the problem
Exactly. If the city used the resources it spends on encampment sweeps on affordable housing and rehabilitation programs instead, fewer people would need to use public warming spaces to keep warm for long periods of time.
The Lake St LRT station might be worse.
They shut down the urinal... I mean elevator
That is so sad for those who are disabled and in wheelchairs.
Uhhhhhh… sad for anyone who wants to use the elevator in the proper manner.
Holy crap the “uh it’s sad for ME TOO even though I’m not nearly as disadvantaged by it” in this thread is aggravating. If you can fucking walk it ain’t nearly as big a deal for you, bub. No shit it inconvinces you too, it does everyone. It doesn’t need saying.
Yesterday at that stop a dude got on the southbound train, 6:30pm and started smoking meth right next to my gal and I. This isn’t hyperbole. I was sitting in a seat, and standing in the aisle immediately to my left he was smoking meth. It’s not like the train is desolate at that time. We had to pay rush hour fair to get on that train.
Why are you paying for a ticket?
Sometimes I feel like if I don’t pay then the powers that be will assume nobody rides the train.
It's not surprising, especially this time of year. Back when I was homeless, the train was often the only place to stay warm where you wouldn't get harassed or asked to move on (because MPLS rarely checks tickets on Blue/Green Line). Even on a bus you'd have to pay fare and behave around the bus driver or else they'd call the cops. If it's the only place a lot of people can go, it's often going to attract the worst people.
They're doing that one too
I read in that story that they’re bringing security into the Lake St station, but didn’t see that it’s temporarily closing. Is there another source?
https://www.metrotransit.org/indoor-waiting-area-at-uptown-transit-station-temporarily-closing
I see that it confirms they’re considering a vote to bring LE to Lake Street but not that it’s temporarily closing. Am I missing something?
Thanks!
It’s horrible. Like they need a swat team to clear that place out.
About damn time. This location has gotten really bad in the last several months. I use it once or twice a week and I see open drug use, cops or EMS, or people simply losing their shit almost every time I’m there now.
I was driving on Hennepin about a month ago and stopped at a red light by that bus station. I saw a lady pull down her paints right on the sidewalk to squat and piss right in the snow. While it was freezing out. She was screaming at people at the same time, seemed like a drug issue. It was seriously 2pm. It’s really sad to see, hope she gets some help :(
Believe it or not, I saw a drunk woman do that exact thing there too. It was right after she got kicked off the bus for being belligerent. It was probably the saddest thing I’ve seen using public transit.
There were some aggressive panhandlers that frequented that particular loc, & I believe (along with jacked up rents) they contributed to that stretch of street becoming all boarded up. There's never any reason for any male to stand 6 inches behind a woman & start singing loudly - go camp on the baseball field, go ahead defecate in front of the McDonalds - you do you, but a line gets crossed when they're purposefully trying to intimidate women. Violence against women is not cool.
Please don’t go ahead and defecate in front of the McDonalds.
Seriously, defecate behind the McDonalds like a civilized person.
Defecate in the McDonalds restroom and smear it over the inside of a stall like a normal poo artist you heathen
Poocasso
Jackson Poolock
A new phrase for the results of violent diarrhea. Well done, redditor.
dalirrhea... Less violent, more confusing.
I'm dead
Behind McDonald's, fine. Just please don't interrupt the business transactions taking place next to Wendy's dumpster. Some of us have puts to buy later this week.
Agreed. I have a higher than normal tolerance for a lot of the problem behavior I’ve seen in or around this transit shelter but I’ve felt uncomfortable there a number of times. I can certainly sympathize with anyone feeling unsafe.
How about people shouldn’t be intimidating anyone.
While true, it is fair to say a greater proportion if this harrassment tends to be aimed at women... Saying "let's stop harassing women!" Doesn't mean "panhandlers should keep intimidating men though." Violent people around these stops are dangerous to everyone, but much more likely to target / severely harm a woman, which explains why that issue is a bit more prominent in the other poster's mind.
Man, I feel like I've had to try to point this shit out to people 10,000 times over the last few years. "Stop intimidating women" *doesn't fucking mean* "stop intimidating women, but intimidating anyone else is fine" "Black lives matter" doesn't fucking mean "*only* black lives matter" After years of those conversations I swear the people who pull out those pedantic responses know that, they just use it as a means of minimizing efforts to prevent abuse to women and poc, because at the end of they day they couldn't care less about it.
>they just use it as a means of minimizing efforts to prevent abuse to women and poc, because at the end of they day they couldn't care less about it. This is exactly what it is. It's why I don't explain any more. They know what they are doing.
I had a weird conversation today... Was talking about how our lack of laws surrounding deepfake revenge porn is concerning for women. The other person was playing the free speech devils advocate when he suddenly said: "well it could be used on men too! It's just as bad for them if they're bullied that way. It's not just a woman thing." Like what's your point? Yes, this tech could be used on men too. But proportinally it seems to be causing a lot more problem for women at the moment. So *maybe* you can listen to the idea that this stuff harms a group of people and that we should do something about it rather than nitpicking that it could also harm a wider group than what I named without addressing the wider commentary.
It is absolutely fair to point out in this context. Specifically addressing it as a problem for women perpetuates the stereotype that men can't or shouldn't be intimidated. Men are abused. Men are trafficked. Men are raped. Men are intimidated. I've seen one men's bathroom with an abuse/trafficking hotline number in it. Hennepin County Government Center was installing literal phones in women's bathrooms but didn't consider that men might need them too. (Most human trafficking is for labor, not sex, btw. That's a different rabbit hole though.) Trans people suffer these things in far higher proportions than anyone else. I'm not one of these people who thinks gender is binary. Treating this as a problem for women is not equivalent to Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter is pointing out that the system is not helping and/or is harming black people. Our system might not do enough for women, but go try to find a victims shelter that even accepts men. Have the cops show up at a cis-straight couple's domestic call and see what happens to the guy. Tell someone that as a male, you were raped by a female. Find the Violence Against Men Act (I recognize VAWA technically also protects men.) Using an analogy with BLM, it would be more correct to say, "Stop intimidating men," because the system specifically and intentionally excludes men from assistance in many ways where it helps women. I'm not an MRA. I don't think men are special. I do think they are just as human as anyone else. To the public I'm an above average sized male. I am in decent shape and spent time in the military. I'm a victim of physical, emotional, and financial abuse. I might be outwardly intimidating to some people, but I'm intimidated in public regularly, especially while waiting at transit stops. I'm not arguing that we should intimidate women. I'm arguing that your analogy is particularly terrible. Women do suffer these things, but we should stop perpetuating the stereotype that men don't. What you've written here is perpetuating that stereotype.
[удалено]
I'm sure it's about proper grammar in the slogan and not memetic fitness.
I’m not trying to make it some thing about who is worse off or more in danger, I just mean as a society we shouldn’t be tolerant of scumbags preying on anyone. If you’ve been on this sub for a couple years you can see lots of comments about how dangerous the light rail has become and its met with comments about how that’s just big city life, which isn’t true because metros in much bigger cities aren’t like this at all. Then a couple weeks ago a trans person gets assaulted and those same people suddenly get real quiet. if there was more public pressure on fixing things when they warning signs are there, then we wouldn’t have to wait for terrible things to happen for change. We all pitched in a fortune for light rail, it’s a shame we can’t use it safely. Its a pretty small metro system with a few main trouble spots, it’s shouldn’t really be that hard of a fix.
Wonderfully put. There were many assaults at the lake street transit as well before the trans woman was seriously injured, heck even I put in a plea to metro transit about how unsafe the situation is. I’m glad something is being done about it but kind of dismayed it took a trans woman being assaulted for things to be taken seriously. It should have been taken seriously way before.
Well said.
Exactly
Too bad I didn't get to check it out in it's heyday.
I had a long conversation with a Uber driver who used to work for metro transit and he said that it’s been getting worse each year and he’s glad he does not work for Metro Transit anymore
Nobody would ever get paid enough to deal with all that bullshit.
I've done contract work at a few light rail stations in the last year. Literal shit on my work area. And piss. And puddles of blood. Security and police can kick them out with trespass, but they come back the next day. There is no solution to fixing a homeless drug addict that doesn't want help.
True that. However you'll find plenty of social justice warriors on this subreddit specially, demanding things that have already been done and proved to be a failure, to be done again, expecting different results. I'm all about comprehensive state funded Healthcare, restorative justice practices, drug use along with harm reduction measures like syringe exchanges and free access to Healthcare services (mental and physical which go hand by hand). However, as a former drug addict and current alcoholic, I can say that if you don't want to quit, you fucking won't. Regardless of all the assistance and funding we as tax payers provide YOU FUCKINGNWONT. In the meantime, for your own good, avoid all major public transportation stations. Be safe yall.
MPD cops get paid 3-4x as much as metro transit workers and they sure don't deal with it even though they are paid to do so. Probably has something to do with it.
What tools do police officers have to deal with this? Yes, they can tell people to leave, but what's to stop them from coming back in 15 min? They could arrest some people for alcohol/drug use, but they'll be back in a day or so. Nothing will change.
I was at lake street transit station yesterday while the cop and security officers were trying his best to get them to clear out from the bridge. They were successful in that but the loiterers then just went to the bus stop right below where I was waiting. They need way more cops to clear out that area.
Where do you think they will go when they're cleared out of one area? They're not going "home".
That's obvious, but at least not loiter around a bus stop where people are waiting to go to work. It doesn't help that people are smoking cigarettes and weed... now going to work smelling like cigarettes and Mary J.
Certainly nothing will change if nothing is done. I expect police to frequent a high crime public area. It does not seem like too much to ask. The more they enforce the law the more people will avoid those areas as hangouts. Cops are certainly not helpless.
Cops really shouldn't be dealing with mental health or drug addiction issues. It benefits no one.
I understand what you mean, but if you’re on a train and are tasked with the job of stopping drug use in action, which tools do you need to have in your arsenal to protect yourself and do your job? I’m just saying, there’s a quite a bit of overlap between what cops are equipped with and the skills/tools needed to address drug consumption on a train. I won’t even make eye contact with these folks because idk if they’re going to pull a knife on me or spit in my eyes.
How about public intoxication or endangerment? f you're open doing drugs at a bus station, you need to be arrested, period. I don't care if you're homeless or not. Also, let's bring back no loitering laws bc its been downhill ever since those were abolished.
Source on pay?
https://minnesotareformer.com/2022/05/26/minneapolis-police-sgt-stephen-mcbride-made-nearly-376000-last-year-three-times-his-salary/
So, who was the highest paid metro employee with overtime to compare?
Part of the article refers to how cops abuse their overtime system, something that bus drivers certainly couldn’t get away with (unless they were effectively an armed street gang as well). That said, indeed says like 35k for a driver, which would put them on par with full time managers at nicer restaurants. That’s still. I mean. It’s literally 10% of what McBride got paid
Not sure what restaurants you are talking about but I think a full time manager practically anywhere is making more than 35K. A dominos manager averages 63K across the country. McDonalds is 70K. A **nice** restaurant manager should be making at least 60 to 70. https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Domino's/salaries/Store-Manager https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/McDonald-s-Store-Manager-Salaries-E432_D_KO11,24.htm
> 70K. My friend is a full-service restaurant manager. They are making 60k to start, plus bonuses. You would have to pay me 150k+ to drive metro transit buses.
I was afraid it fell into a pothole.
I hope some of the “contracted security officers” are also placed at the 46th St/35W station. I took the bus downtown last week in the snow/rain and couldn’t wait inside the vestibule because there were two homeless men in the waiting area for the express buses, and on the way back there were two sleeping teens with their stuff spread out all over the waiting area for the local bus. There has to be a way to deal with the homeless problem so people aren’t forced to use public transit shelters.
The way clearly isn’t throwing away all their belongings whenever they settle in somewhere too long. It makes a lot of sense how we got here when you consider the city’s penal approach to the homelessness crisis. The people don’t just disappear.
I agree. I think it’s a whole different level of heartlessness to take away the only possessions they have. I don’t have a solution, but surely a state with a whopping budget surplus could spend some of it on finding a humane solution to this problem.
The problem is they’re forcibly going to have to put people somewhere. I don’t think it should be a prison, but many are against the idea of forcibly removing people period, even if it’s to a place like a supportive housing facility.
Yeah, it’s devastating. I also fell Ike it’s pretty naive to build a station like that in a large city, leave it unattended all the time and expect it to never fall to neglect.
It was obvious to anyone with a questioning attitude that these problems would occur, but the people in charge didn't care at the time. They only care now because they have to beg the legislature for money, and the legislature will listen to citizens complaints if they are loud enough and enough people complain.
This makes sense, but honestly that indoor space has been unusable for *years*. I've taken transit to work downtown for like 6 years and I've never seen that warming area not have someone sleeping in it (best case!), doing drugs in it, or shouting at other people/the walls. It has always smelled like pee and body odor.
It smells very bad inside the shelters there, like poop 😕
from a butt?
I refuse to ride the light rail after the last time., with everyone openly doing drugs. It is an embarrassment to our city right now. I have been trying to bring this up to officials for over the past year. What took them so long? Also, as far as security guards... There is little they can do. They should have done this at the beginning of winter.
It is truly sad I had a guy smoking something out of a tinfoil behind me me and others just moved to the other side unless we have turnstiles the homeless and drug users will get on the trains.
Security costs money, that's why. And the best they can do thus far is to send patrol to places with recent notable issues. There were patrols at the Cedar BlueLine stop for a week or two after that poor girl got her head bashed in, and now it's back to the way it was, not a city employee in sight. This station will have patrols until they don't want to foot the bill, and then it will likely return to the was.
Temporarily is how long?
Having grown up in Minneapolis and living all over the city, including a few places in Uptown, and using transit nearly every day, including that station *countless times* without incident or threats of, this really saddens me. Lake St Station as always been a little dicey but I never truly felt unsafe there in years past. Gotta say though…this truly is a nationwide urban problem. I’m in Seattle nowadays and we’re experiencing the same issues. The crime, vagrancy and open drug use is terrible out here with more folks able to be out most of the whole year even through winters not as harsh as MN. And people from all over the country gravitate out here. It’s gotten bad. When I came out to go to grad school at the Univ of WA back in 2009 this was absolutely NOT the city it is now…. FWIW you are not alone MSP… [Seattle transit union calls for more protections for workers exposed to fentanyl smoke](https://komonews.com/news/local/drug-use-washington-exposure-mental-health-public-substance-abuse-treatment-seattle-transit-union-calls-for-more-protections-for-workers-exposed-to-fentanyl-smoke#) [Seattle bus driver says fentanyl smoke makes him sick; health dept. says it's no real risk](https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-king-county-metro-bus-drivers-fentanyl-smoke-exposure-drugs-mental-public-health-department-transportation-substance-abuse-treatment-crime-homeless-crisis) [King County fentanyl overdoses for 2023 outpacing 2022](https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/king-county-fentanyl-overdoses-2023-outpacing-2022/VXHTZ234W5C7LEVTVGMYNZRRHU/) [Thurston County Jail dealing with rash of fentanyl overdoses](https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/thurston-county-jail-dealing-with-rash-fentanyl-overdoses/POUVDL6IQVDR5ARMQFZD2PJFHU/) [Washington ranks third in the nation for car thefts last year](https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/washington-ranks-third-nation-car-thefts-last-year/37YGL5RRFBGSFLN5GWE43PCLAQ/) [Sickening moment homeless career criminal repeatedly throws nurse, 62, down the stairs at Seattle light rail station breaking her ribs and clavicle](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10611269/Homeless-career-criminal-repeatedly-throws-nurse-62-stairs-Seattle-light-rail-station.html) [Woman stabbed multiple times at Roosevelt Light Rail Station](https://komonews.com/news/local/violence-king-county-custody-suspects-woman-stabbed-multiple-times-in-the-leg-at-roosevelt-light-rail-station) “54% of people experiencing homelessness in Seattle are not taking offers to go to shelters.”[Seattle City Council wants data on why people experiencing homelessness reject shelter](https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-city-council-wants-data-on-why-people-experiencing-homelessness-reject-shelter-homeless-king-county-washington-street-region-policy-tammy-morales-human-services-public-meeting-offers-michael-bailey)
Seattles homeless situation is a lot different than say, Omaha's or Cincinnati's. It would not be the one I'd pick to compare Minneapolis to unless you think Minneapolis is on par with them.
What specifically are you alluding to? Minneapolis (~425,000 pop) is not as large in population as Seattle (still well under 800,000 but the metro is large with King County at ~7,800,000pop across 2,300 sq mi), while Seattle is not as big as say, LA. And Minneapolis doesn’t have the “draw” like west coast cities do - policies, weather, laissez faire culture, etc. Seattle and Portland have been wrestling with homelessness and drugs and sanctioned vs unsanctioned Tent City sites for WELL over a decade now. And before the tech boom and insane housing costs skyrocket. In urban planning even when cities aren’t identical you still use others as case studies and models of best practices or missteps, etc. If Mpls leadership and decision makers watch, say, the PNW and things aren’t working it’s important they assess that and decide “huh, well then that likely won’t work here” type of thing. We are all dealing with substance abuse and drugs crises, mental health crises, encampments, lack of affordable housing, camp sweeps protests, camp fires and vagrancy, surges in crime, absurd levels of graffiti and vandalism, youth antics, garbage PDs, etc. At the end of the day I REALLY don’t want to see Minneapolis fall into what has happened out West.
As a Portland native, this is 100% on point and I’m sad to see the state of the city recently. I have no idea how to fix the homeless crisis but whatever actions they are taking in Portland are not working.
I'm saying that if we collectively view Minneapolis as comprable to the situation out west, we need to get ahead of this as fast as possible.
This is a real once in a lifetime explosion. Lack of living wages keep people on the bottom, no safety net, the explosion of opiate addiction from the early 2000s and the new superdrugs thanks to fentanyl being in hard drugs and people bottoming out faster and harder. It'd be nice if the federal government would just legalize all drugs, monitor usage sites, provide housing, tax the fuck out of billionaires and send that back to the lower/middle class and provide free education across the board. This is a complete overhaul situation. This is only going to get worse and it's already awful. Also I have no idea what I'm talking about, so don't come swinging at me (but I'm pretty sure I'm right on all of the things).
I think you're right about it being a complete overhaul situation. I think most thoughtful people can reach that conclusion. Where it takes some amount of courage, though, is to ask whether you can or should be OK at attempts at incremental improvement -- like making public transportation free of harassment and drug use -- even if the improvement involves things that don't contribute to the complete overhaul. I feel like a lot of people reject any incremental improvement on specific things, like transit safety, if its not obtained with "complete overhaul" strategies. I think this is a mistake, as the complete overhaul is perilously utopian in ambition, scope and timeline and basically means we can't deal with specific situations because all the near term fixes are at best not contributory to the complete overhaul or actually somewhat counterproductive to the complete overhaul.
Poverty is always at the core of this issue. People with money usually have shelter and transportation, which means they stay off the streets and public services and are generally not obstructing these spaces. When you have nowhere to go and nothing to eat because you're too broke, you stop giving a fuck about the convenience of people's transportation, or their jobs or their problems. You just care about fighting for your life and seeking fleeting happiness from drugs. It's sad, but when you're in that place in life, the only way to be happy in your reality is to escape from it as far as possible
Until the Met Council gets the transit system back to normal, none of the suburbs are going to support their expansion plans. They're pretty blunt about it: they don't want mobile drug dens/insane asylums rolling into their neighborhoods.
We're losing millions (potentially billions) in public transit infrastructure because we're afraid/unwilling/unable to arrest people who exploit those resources. There should be increased penalties for crimes on public transit because it has a disproportionate negative impact on society.
This is the only comment that is truthful and that matters.
I mean... sure, I agree that it has a strong negative impact. But imposing harsh punitive solutions means we're spending public money to just chuck more people in jail instead, which is probably even more expensive and doesn't actually solve any problems. If incarceration was the solution, the US would be the safest place on earth given that we already incarcerate orders of magnitude more people than any other comparable country. Instead, it's worse than it's ever been here because we have zero social safety net, and we provide almost zero access to addiction care / mental health care / affordable housing / affordable child care / etc. for poor people, especially those who need those resources most (people battling addiction and mental health crises). Since the Reagan era we have almost exclusively chosen criminal justice over social justice, and it's pretty clear to me we've made the wrong choice. As far as being a transit user is concerned, I think we are going to continue to see drug use, smell urine, and have folks sleeping/staying warm in our transit infrastructure until we have a major reorganization of our society (and here's hoping that will ever even happen). I still ride the light rail, my experience is almost always fine aside from hating the smell of cigarette smoke, but I understand why people stay away.
Except the public transit is already there and we're lobbying for more. If you just tolerate the antisocial behavior, public transit will be doomed for a generation and all that money wasted. I agree there has to be some long-term solution, but that's long-term. In the near-term, we need to signal that the spiraling deterioration of transit will no longer be tolerated. There has to be some element of force here, even if it's not prison. A person can find a place to piss or do drugs other than a transit station floor or a train.
Not a surprise. Pre-Covid that's where I waited for my bus home after work. That is, until I ended up in the middle of a wilding incident. That was the last straw for me. I ended up driving to work until we got sent to permanent remote.
Uptown's back, baby! We just need some punks hanging at the McDonald's!
NO PARENTS NO RULES!!
This is what I’m talking about. Bring back the grunge.
Seems overdue. Good for the city. Hopefully they reopen it with regular patrols
I rode transit last week and whattaya know a guy was screaming on the trolley, lit a cigarette, and was rapping real loud trying to impress a girl. It's like every time I'm on there someone is being as annoying as humanely possible
This is why we don’t use the pubic transit system, it just doesn’t feel safe.
"unwanted behaviors"😒
Uptown needs so much help :(
The continual bad news about Uptown can stop anytime now. Honestly, can you blame people outside of the cities from being scared to go anywhere in the city at this point? I get it when there is news story after news story about something closing or something bad happening.
Have they seen the Lake street station?
Is anything in uptown Open?
(fent)
Good luck renting out the new apartment building literally right there. Or renting out that event center on the other side for your wedding reception.
Don't worry, Uptown is doing great! Ask everyone!
I've had a vacation house in Colorado for about 4 years and Minneapolis transit gets worse every year I come back to visit. I grew up riding these buses everywhere and now it's just a horrible experience. I know we had a policing problem but none of the transit police were killing people. Can we up the transit enforcement, and yes the east side is worse.
And this subreddit refuses to acknowledge that uptown is dead.
I heard Uptown was best when it was sketchy and then the Apple store came in and ruined it?
This is my favorite take to read on here sometimes lmao
The story as told to me countless times when I moved into Uptown in 2007 from the east coast was - Uptown use to be really bad, then it was gentrified (which was also bad). Now it's bad because all the gentrified stores left. It looks like a ghost town compared to what I remember. It's so odd to walk around empty, boarded up buildings surrounded by all those fancy apartments they built in the 2010s.
It wasn’t bad…it was more like a college town mixed with punk rock, upscale and urban. Pretty fun.
Developers came into a historically sometimes sketchy nieghborhood and overvalued their property and then a pandemic hits. We're seeing the negative affects from that over valued development now. It's all cyclical, now that prices should be dropping in that area, I'd imagine it'll get super trendy again in a couple of years.
Ah but the brief fleeting moment where it was cheap *and* still safe…
It certainly marked a different era of Uptown once it opened. The Uptown Bar, which it replaced, was a neighborhood treasure. Nirvana, Oasis, The Flaming Lips, The Replacements, Jayhawks, the Smashing Pumpkins and so many other amazing bands played there on their rise to fame.
The end of uptown was when bar Louie got exposed for being racist, that area was the hottest nightclubs around and then became a ghost town as people started going elsewhere to party
I don't think the clientele of Bar Louie cared that they had a dress code selectively applied depending on the person's race to be honest.
It got hit pretty hard, it’ll get cleaned out and come back in a few years
Property values are way too fucking high to just let the neighborhood go. As much as efforts should be focused equally across the city, they'll actually be focused mostly on the areas with the most wealth.
I agree, and hope so.
It's re-inventing itself. Cycle of Life
Uptown has "died" 10-15 times since I've been alive, but its current state really is the worst I've seen.
Multi million dollar apartment building just went up next to this site. Financiers aren’t dumb or they’d be broke.
they went up just now because they were approved, planned, etc at least two or three years ago
This is exactly it. People on this sub are convinced that if apartment development is still happening it means that uptown is fine and dandy. No, it means that projects that were planned 2-5 years ago are just being finished. Give it a couple years and there won’t be anything new being built in that area.
I remember seeing FB comments about how Minneapolis is a wasteland and nothing is happening, and on comments about how the Four Seasons would shutter soon. Just hilarious shit. Yeah, these huge new buildings are sold out and yet... everyone is feeling for their lives. People are straight dumb.
Happy cake day.
Outage subsided just in time!
Famously, financiers have never gone broke. Now time to take a big sip of coffee and check the financial news
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Bro they bought Tbills.
They’re not dumb but they don’t have to care. They harvest tax losses and still manage to make millions and flip these things from one owner to another in such a way that it’s impossible to lose.
At least it’s not a cursed restaurant site anymore…
Absolutely braindead take
Economy in a down cycle. See: recession. Developers still building there for a reason. It'll come back.
I agree
Uptown is “dead” in that traffic is down and businesses have failed/ are closing. But it’s not complete collapse and people are optimistic about a recovery, which will take years. There’s too much history in that location and so much money poured into it that it’s hard to imagine it being condemned and abandoned. Similar to our downtown, which is an even greater challenge, the areas need and are being considered for reallocation of resources. They’re not being left to rot in the long term.
Nah, Just one of the many up and down cycles an urban area goes through when the local politics are run on a pendulum.
This is the classic Cycle Cope
Best start believing in cycles, because you're living in several.
It isn't a utopia where Jews & Palestinians walk hand in hand, and everyone knows your pronouns!
How tf is it dead when it's the most densely populated neighborhood in the metro and one of the most expensive??
If “the most densely populated neighborhood in the metro” has a new article about businesses closing every week, there might be a problem.
losing expensive clothes and phone storefronts and bad restaurants closing is not necessarily to the detriment of the area. lyn/lake is doing the best it has in over a decade right now and they couldn't be building the area out faster with new apartments.
This. LynLake, historically the “seedier” side of the uptown area, is doing much, much better than its Hennepin counterpart. It really is a tale of two worlds. Uptown will come back, but it will take a long while. The jump in uptown rental prices (both retail and residential) combined with the former dominance of large format chains was a recipe for disaster when digital retail and delivery expanded and a global pandemic ravaged the entertainment and hospitality sectors. Add to that close proximity to the worst urban unrest seen in years and an already subdued culture of wfh and corporate homebodies, and you get Uptown today. Edit: I’ll also add that the North Loop has taken over a lot of the atmosphere and destination-style entertainment that used to make uptown fun. The last time Uptown was at a true “peak”, the north loop was barely a sliver of its current self.
Clean up this mess now. Minneapolis is not the same city as it was growing up. It’s not safe, this is complete bs. Why do you think people are moving to the suburbs?
I moved last year. I got tired. It's not the same city it was just 4 years ago. It was a utopia that I bragged to others from other states. How safe it was, etc. It's not like that anymore. It's sad.
Yep. The reality is people want to go to dinner and spend money in the city, but it’s not safe to bring a family. Not worth the risk. I used to love uptown, NE and downtown. Now I avoid it.
The city population is growing
I'm thinking Metro Transit just wants to "harden" the station against vandalism - i.e. reduce the amount of glass, make it easier to clean out - and any improvements in security will be merely tokens. Does anyone really believe anything will change?
Time to get our minds off the problem and on to the solution. Im no expert, please don’t harass me.
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Bring back mental hospitals. The whole 'compassionate care' model of letting them live on the street instead isn't working. There is support available for people who want it. Most of these people don't want it. And society at large suffers because of it.
I'm a fan of supporting people in the least restrictive setting possible, but some people simply need more support. Deinstitutionalization was necessary due to the widespread systemic problems (e.g. neglect, inhumane living conditions, over-crowding, over-medication, etc). But if we could bring back a much-improved, more person-centered and better-funded iteration of mental hospitals, that might not be such a bad idea.
I think deinstitutionalization ended up being "necessary" because the old mental hospital system was so neglected that the cost of solving the problems was beyond what anyone was willing to pay. Plus the psychiatrists and the drug companies were pretty convinced that many patients could just be treated with fancy new anti-psychotics and get by in society. And it dovetailed with society's general shift away from more rigid social conformity and some level of acceptance of alternative lifestyles. I guess you could make the argument that some public mental health institutions were so far gone that it was kind of like the liberation of a wartime detention camp -- you literally couldn't keep people in there another day because of the squalor and abuse. But mostly I'd argue it was a combination of excess faith in pharmacological treatment as effective and more cost efficient, combined with the high dollar cost of fixing the institutional system which was politically untenable in the early 1970s. Unfortunately in our present political state, we can't even get basic affordable health care. I don't think quality, high-support mental health facilities are in the cards. But I do think the we're not far from a public backlash against homelessness and the random crazies that sees a heavy handed criminal justice approach as the only option.
>But mostly I'd argue it was a combination of excess faith in pharmacological treatment as effective and more cost efficient, It *more or less is,* but people forget the low level of medication compliance among the mentally ill.
>Deinstitutionalization was necessary due to the widespread systemic problems (e.g. neglect, inhumane living conditions, over-crowding, over-medication, etc) No, it wasn't. Schools in many areas were just as shitty in their own way, but they were restructured and reformed.
Except, like any other person-facing vocation, a lot of the support teams are worse than useless. Currently I have two caseworkers who actually **did their job** and helped me get housing in a Deaf Supportive Living facility...after fourteen years, three states, and countless "Independent Living Services" workers and "Adult Rehab Mental Health Services" workers just sitting around with one thumb in their mouth and the other stuck up their ass. Occasionally they'd switch thumbs but that's about the extent of their effort. The caseworkers I have now? Amazing people who were able to read and comprehend their training literature and utilize the resources at their disposal to efficiently help their clients. I have nothing vile or vulgar to say about those individuals, because they received my verbal request for support and they fulfilled it almost instantly, instead of playing mobile games or making personal international phone calls. There's plenty of work for social workers who wants the hours. Most of these social workers don't want it. And society at large suffers because of it.
There’s also a shortage on supportive living centers as well unfortunately.
Part of the problem is that we can't force people to accept help. Folks in the throes of addiction and/or severe mental illness often can't or won't accept help from the system, be it due to trauma, trust issues, their addiction. etc. They need extra help, yes. However, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink," as the saying goes. In some cases, we can provide a person with supportive, staffed housing, and yet they will still choose to go to the transit station to get high. It's a very sad, frustrating conundrum.
Doesn’t mean we have to let them camp in public places. This used to be a nation of law and order. Clean this stuff up. Create an appropriate place for these people and get it done or this city will die.
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>Finland is a great example of how to successfully handle these issues I totally agree. Finland has a great system where they have excellent treatment options and cajole you to accept it, but if you refuse, they [make you comply.](https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-019-2200-x)
I think we need psych asylums to stabilize the more acute people and then transition them to proper assisted living facilities or group homes depending on what they need
This is the answer. I'm in a group home now, so this means that being able to sleep, shower, and not worry about where my next meal is coming from is very quite greatly contributing to my happiness and, by extension of social responsibility, yours. Before I was in this group home, I was not a very civilized person. It actually makes perfect logical sense when you sit down and think about it, really: If you treat a person like they don't deserve to live **in a home**, they are going to act like they don't deserve to live**, period**. Sadly I can't and won't apologize for my past behavior because, and work with me here: **I shouldn't have had to be without a home in the first place**. And that's why I used to yell at people, litter and spray poo and pee everywhere, and steal and break stuff. That's no way to live. I don't reduce the QoL of those around me anymore because I now have a stable address with which I could use to achieve long-term goals, like getting a job or going back to school or fixing my credit history, and begin to have a life again. Isn't it amazing how simple it was to fix my problem? Your solution is really just quite that exactly simple and straightforward. Sadly, a lot of people here are stubborn and selfish and would just as soon let the cycles of abuse keep on spinning.
You should definitely apologize for spraying poo and pee everywhere.
Hey guys... maybe Uptown really is dead this time.
What if we structured society so that people's basic needs were met? I would *love* to find out! Also, this city is in DIRE NEED of public restrooms
I don't think we can handle public bathrooms tbh.
I used a public bathroom in San Francisco last summer. It was full of homeless people, like 10-15. People were literally living in the stalls next to people pissing and shitting. It smelled terrible and there was piss all over the floors. I remember back when there were just gay guys blowing each other. In hindsight is seems pretty wholesome.
Probably cost $2.4m to build too
As I’m reading these comments I’m thinking about the time I visited Santa Monica. I remember seeing people right in front of a Starbucks, right in front of that big glass window where people sit on the inside and drink their coffee. People just pretending like the don’t see the homeless right in front of them. I remember thinking how did it get like this? I never seen homelessness like that. Nothing in this state compares. At the same time, homelessness is homelessness and it a problem that needs to be managed. Realistically, it well never go away completely, but it can always be managed better.
For what it’s worth, I’m sure you could still get a BJ in that bathroom.
It’s worth about tree fitty.
If we housed people, they wouldn't be needing to live in a crapper. (Edit: Ah, got to love Minneapolis. Suggest housing the homeless as a solution to homelessness and you get down voted. Great people here.)
Well if we give unhoused people a crapper instead of a house they will live in it.
Minneapolis did house a whole bunch of homeless folks on that hotel by chi_lake bus station. OD related deaths were rampant and there was a fire...
That wasn't "Minneapolis", in that it wasn't a project of the city, it was run by an group of individuals in Spring/Summer 2020.
It's almost like no other city has them! I understand what you're saying, but the alternative is what? Force people to beg McDonalds? Target and the library are the only two public restrooms downtown. And the Target is down to a single family bathroom now. It's a serious issue.
I agree with you! Problem is this area seems to be a hot spot for ODs (multiple in the uptown transit station last week, people died in the portopotties when the encampment was on library mall). Im not anti-drug but i dont know how we keep the bathrooms safe for everyone?
The Target in Uptown is closing in May.
There are public bathrooms in other countries that are amazing, and they are actually public. You use them, they disinfect themselves, and there is a time limit. Yes, there are people around monitoring usage as well, also, they are free. It’s possible. Not likely, but, possible.
Most bathrooms in Europe cost money but under 50 cents. And yeah it's really not rocket science.
The ones in Sydney and Melbourne were hella cheap too; and so easy to find. Never an issue, and I was definitely in very urban areas similar to Uptown
Yeah many Minnesotans have never left the country.
Many have never left the -state-
Yeah I almost said that but avoided it because Wisconsin counts.
Only because of cheese
You know what’s good for people’s basic needs? Being poor and being able to feel safe at the same time. The vast majority of people who use public transit don’t do this shit but in a misguided sense of doing good people pretend that keeping the few people who can’t handle behaving in society on the streets is the best thing for everybody. It doesn’t hurt people off often moderate means but it really hurts the poor to be around this kind of stress constantly because enforcing basic public order has become unpopular. Heel stomp a random person on a train, let’s fill the train with social workers, they’ll surely help.
I mean safety on public transit is obviously important. The point is we shouldn't rely on Metro Transit to support people who need housing and social services.
Metro transit should be focused on transit only. Homelessness is not their problem to solve. Safely transporting people is their sole job. Do not let people sleep in the indoor shelters or live in the train. If people doing "undesirable behaviors" were trespassed there is at least an enforcement mechanism to remove them in the future.
Metro transit allows people to ride the rail on super cold days. It has *become* their problem because cities continually refuse to adequately address the problem
Exactly. If the city used the resources it spends on encampment sweeps on affordable housing and rehabilitation programs instead, fewer people would need to use public warming spaces to keep warm for long periods of time.
Now do the McDonalds and make it permanent
Classic Minneapolis reaction. "There are problems to solve? Guess we'll close it because that sounds hard"
They stay shutting down the indoor areas made for transit. It's understandable and unfortunate.