Being homeless means the opposite of “safety in numbers.” I’ve only let one other vandweller know where I park. It’s safe, well lit and has nearby businesses with washrooms, which is a pretty decent setup.

Locally, residents are also very aggressive to homeless camps. Thankfully, no shootings yet, but there’s this pervasive belief that we’re all addicts with machetes just waiting to snap or run into a busy street.

I get so sick of “the homeless are the problem, not soaring housing costs and a deteriorating job market that led to homelessness.”

Minneapolis police have said over a dozen people have been hurt in two separate shootings at homeless encampments across the city on the same day.

The first shooting at a transit station wounded five people, and happened in an area that had seen two prior shootings in the past month.

Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara rued the shootings as disturbingly commonplace.

“Here we are yet again in the aftermath of a mass shooting. This is not normal,” O’Hara said.