Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey says he has vetoed a new homeless encampment response policy that the City Council passed last week.

The ordinance, authored by Ward 10 Council member Aisha Chughtai, directs public health resources to encampments occupied by at least 20 people. 

Within 10 days of the encampment's formation, the city would install portable toilets, handwashing stations, fire extinguishers and provide naloxone. Officials are instructed to organize solid waste collection, maintain safe needle disposal sites and provide information about resources such as warming and cooling sites and public transportation. 

The ordinance also says that a pre-closure notice would be posted at least seven days in advance, and encampment residents would be provided with personal property storage.

Frey argued in his veto letter that the ordinance would "incentivize encampments to grow" and would delay city staff's ability to connect unsheltered people to resources available in the community. 

"Once shelters have been offered, once housing has been offered, once services have been provided, and often times rejected, encampments should be closed," Frey said. "Because they're not the best way to get people into permanent housing."

Critics of the ordinance, including Council member Linea Palmisano pointed out at last week's council meeting that the health and safety protocols would be "expensive to provide and maintain." 

Another sticking point for the mayor revolved around what happens if an encampment is started on fenced-off city property, while disregarding no trespassing signs.

"What this ordinance would say is when you violate the law like that, you're actually rewarded, because we gotta allow you to set up that encampment and keep it for seven days," Frey said. "And just a few days later we've got to add portapotties to the very place that you weren't supposed to be in the first place."

Supporters of the plan said the seven-day period would allow for people living in the encampment to make plans and shelters could prepare for an influx of people. 

"This does not stop city staff, any city staff from going and interacting with people that are in encampments, asking them to make plans to move forward, offering them services," said Council member Aurin Chowdhury.

"Encampments have been over the news for, for many many years, since we've been here. We're just, we're going in circles. And I think it's this is the starting point that when we decide as leaders, let's take action, let's figure out a way to deal with encampments," said Council member Jamal Osman.

The ordinance was adopted with an 8-5 vote. Council Members Elliott Payne, Robin Wonsley, Jeremiah Ellison, Jason Chavez, Emily Koski, Osman, Chowdhury and Chugtai voted for, with Michael Rainville, LaTrisha Vetaw, Katie Cashman, Andrea Jenkins and Palmisano voting against.

The council would need nine votes to override Frey's veto.

Back in January, Minneapolis police issued a special order allowing officers to proactively intervene and close encampments while the city provides services for housing and drug treatment. Frey says the plan is working and encampment numbers are dropping, along with the dangerous crimes he says they foster. Keeping encampments open longer, he said, would reverse the progress the city has made.

According to the city, 315 people have transitioned from unsheltered homelessness to a shelter this quarter. There was one city-supported encampment enclosure across the second and third quarter this year, showing that fewer large encampments are forming.

This fall, the city fined developer Hamoudi Sabri $13,000 for failing to clear a homeless encampment on his south Minneapolis property. Sabri said he set up the camp on his parking lot as a humanitarian response after seeing camp after camp get cleared. Roughly 50 people called the surface lot home, but city officials moved to clear it in the wake of a mass shooting that left one person dead.