City Backs Off Late-Night Dispersal of St. Louis City Hall Encampment (2024)

St. Louis city officials called off the planned disbandment of a camp of unhoused people in front of City Hall in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Police had congregated at a park around City Hall late Monday night to evict the camp’s holdouts at 10 p.m., but protestors and some residents of the camp refused to leave.

At 11:15 p.m., protestors, housing advocates and camp residents were told by an officer in a police SUV they would be arrested if they remained at the camp by midnight. But two hours later, around 1:30 a.m., Department of Human Services Director Adam Pearson and Alderman Rasheen Aldridge told the crowd that the camp’s disbandment would not go forward. They said residents could stay in their tents one more night and city staff would try to get them to housing in the morning.

The night ended with no arrests.

The camp began as a small cluster of unhoused people started living in tents near the north side of City Hall this summer. The encampment grew until an untold number of people were living in tents that sprawled across an entire side of City Hall along Market Street.

Residents who spoke to the RFT said there was no shelter space for them. Many had service animals or pets that shelters would not allow. Others were couples who did not wish to separate into single-sex shelters. This included William Clay and his wife, Erica Clay.

Erica Clay is seven months pregnant. She and her husband have lived in the City Hall encampment for three weeks after they were evicted from their home. The couple has tried to receive help from the city or St. Louis County, but to no avail. William Clay says they constantly call the United Way’s 2-1-1 helpline for assistance.

“Each and every time we go for help, they always tell us they have no beds or to check back,” William Clay says. “It’s been a constant recording of ‘no space.’”

The “decommissioning” planned for this morning, per the city’s wording, is one of multiple attempts to clear encampments of unhoused individuals living downtown in the past year. But what made this attempt feel more like an affront to unhoused individuals was the lack of notice. In past evictions, the city posted notices days, sometimes weeks, in advance, of an intended time and date of a clearing. No such notice was posted outside this time.

Aldermen were also surprised. Ward 7 Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier had just announced her plan to file an Unhoused Bill of Rights hours earlier in the day. A whole section of that bill, according to Sonnier, would prevent disbandments such as the one attempted Monday night. Under the Unhoused Bill of Rights, the city would have to provide a 30-day notice for disbandments and hold items left behind for 90 days.

Sonnier says she was “shocked” to hear of the Jones administration’s plan to disband the City Hall camp. She learned of the city’s plans only a few hours before the action was set to start.

“I didn’t know this was going to happen,” Sonnier says.

Both Sonnier and Aldridge stayed at the camp all night. Aldridge called the disbandment “inhumane” and “wrong.”

“There’s more people dying in the jail than dying out here,” Aldridge says.

In a release to reporters (which the mayor’s office embargoed the press from publishing until 15 minutes before the disbandment was set to begin), a mayoral spokesperson explained the purpose of the call to decommission the camp was “not an easy one to make.”

The city cited a number of factors: 50 police calls for service within the span of 45 days; 33 ambulance calls for overdoses, seizures and other medical emergencies; fighting amongst tenants and those who approach them; increasing calls of city employees who report being accosted at work; and drug paraphernalia found on site.

City officials also said they wanted to enforce a park curfew. Placed on a light pole in front of the camp, a sign on Market Street now says the park has a curfew of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Multiple residents told the RFT that the sign had not been placed there until recently.

The city’s Department of Human Services had conducted outreach at the camp at least 35 times over the past 65 days to connect residents to permanent housing, shelter and supportive services, according to the mayor’s office. As of 9 p.m. Monday, more than 12 accepted the resources.

Last night laid bare a problem that advocates have reiterated again and again in recent years. There are not enough low-barrier or walk-in shelters to accommodate the needs of the city’s unhoused population.

Sonnier’s Unhoused Bill of Rights would also establish criteria for safe camping zones, which Sonnier says would be required to have a hand-washing station, porta potty, a shower, 24/7 security, waste management, and services coordinated through the Department of Human Services.

The Board of Aldermen are also considering a bill that would lower the amount of signatures required to open shelters — a barrier that has prevented shelters from opening in the past.

But unhoused people like Gino McCoy and his wife need resolution now. McCoy, 28, says he and wife, who’s three months pregnant, have been living under the mayor’s window for weeks. They have three dogs who they don’t want to part with.

“As soon as we mention the dogs, they never come back,” McCoy says of the Department of Human Services. “Nobody follows up.”

Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed