In a Tumultuous Year, COVID Puts Homeless Crisis Front and Center
From summer to fall 2020, a homeless encampment was based near the Lake Harriet bandshell. We went inside the homeless encampment, where a cityâs growing housing crisis took on faces and names.
The Lake Harriet homeless encampment
The Lake Harriet homeless encampment, photographed in late September, is across the street from the Lake Harriet Bandshell and overlooks the lake.
Editorâs Note: Some of the homeless persons in this article agreed to speak with only limited attribution. Others are highly vulnerable individuals. As a result, the editors decided to identify all only by their first names.
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The 13 conservation officers who will occupy these previously vacant stations have spent the past year training in all aspects of public safety and natural resources protection.
Ryan Brown will fill the vacant Karlstad station, and Corey Sura will fill the Baudette No. 2 station in Lake of the Woods County.
The new COs were selected from among hundreds of applicants and spent May to August at the Conservation Officer Academy at Camp Ripley near Little Falls, Minn. After initial training, where they learned all aspects of the job in classroom and scenario-based situations, they worked for 16 weeks in the field with experienced officers throughout the state.