Brainerd Denies ‘Bridge on 7th’ Shelter’s Request for Year-Round Operations

Bridges of Hope’s plans to pilot year-round operations at the Bridge on 7th warming shelter have stalled after the Brainerd City Council unanimously agreed against allowing year-round services at this week’s meeting.

Bridges of Hope’s intention to shift the warming shelter’s operations from September through April to year-round first hatched after Brainerd and Baxter passed ordinances prohibiting unauthorized camping in public and private areas.

“It’s not what we want per se, it’s in response to a community need,” asserted Bridges of Hope Executive Director Jana Shogren. “We’ve been doing this for a few years now and in the summertime, even though it’s not ideal, folks have been able to figure something else out. Maybe they have been able to camp somewhere. Now that is not legal, we thought, honestly, that it would be the common sense response for us to be open [year-round].”

Shogren had high hopes for the warming shelter getting city approval to operate year-round. However, the city council, and initially Brainerd Police Chief John Davis, exhibited a different perspective.

“Our concern primarily is, a year-round model, what that would look like as far as the draw,” Chief Davis said during the city council meeting. “The question is, these really good resources that we have here for our community, would we be exhausting those if we went to a year-round model?”

Council Member Kelly Bevans voiced his approval for a one-year trial run regarding a year-round warming shelter.

“I’m a little bit disappointed in that I’m not exactly sure that homelessness is not a problem in the summer,” Bevans said. “I might disagree with the chief in that if the warming house was opened in the summer, it may reduce the amount of work you have to do rousting people from public lands.”

Any motions towards that died down during the meeting.

“One of my key concerns is data,” said Brainerd City Council Member Kevin Yeager. “When I asked very simple data questions like, ‘Who are these people? Where do they come from? Do they have warrants?’—nobody really knows.”

“As other communities aren’t going forward and bringing warming shelters to their community, it then rains down on this community to take on that burden, if you want to call it that,” added Brainerd City Council President Mike O’Day.

Council members opted to renew shelter’s interim permit for one more year, maintaining its current operating hours during the colder months. But Shogren views this as a step in the wrong direction.

“The decision on Monday night not only put people out with nowhere to sleep as of May 1st, it also leaves five or six people without a job,” Shogren said.

According to Shogren, 70% of those who have stayed at the Bridge on 7th overnight shelter only do so for two weeks or less. Bridges of Hope will be holding a special meeting on Thursday to discuss its next steps.