It’s just after 5:30 a.m. on Thursday and St. Paul’s police chief is downtown, trying to wake three people sleeping on a sidewalk under a tarp they’ve hooked to a fence.

Axel Henry’s pre-dawn patrols downtown have been part of his morning routine for about 2½ years, ensuring that workers and visitors arriving for the day don’t have to step over piles of debris or slumbering people.

“We’re not showing any compassion for folks if we’re letting this happen,” Henry said. “But the other thing is, we also have to have equal compassion for the businesses” and for people living in, working in and visiting St. Paul.

Amid ongoing attempts to revitalize downtown St. Paul, the city, nonprofit organizations and business community have been working to address homelessness, perceptions of crime and public safety.

If repeated offers of help and warnings aren’t working, Henry said police need to enforce city ordinances and state laws. He thinks it’s time for the community, the city council and the city’s leadership to look at revamping outdated ordinances to address quality-of-life issues.

“My position has been: We are what we allow, and I think we’ve allowed too much of this stuff to happen,” Henry said, such as tents on sidewalks or on boulevards. “That doesn’t mean that I want to arrest my way out of the problem, but I feel like we got to a point where enforcement wasn’t even a part of the solution at all, and it needed to be.”

Familiar Faces

Chris Michels, program director for Familiar Faces, talks with one the program’s outreach specialists, Arturo Garcia, during the organization’s daily morning meeting on Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

As Henry talks to people in the early mornings, he’s texting Chris Michels, who oversees the city of St. Paul’s Familiar Faces program.

It has that name because they work with people who are “familiar faces” at shelters, emergency rooms, jails and other places.

Michels and two outreach specialists are out and about during the day, making connections with people on the streets, and getting them social services and help.

The outreach work of Familiar Faces just marked one year and they’ve had contact with 263 people; they provided informational services or referrals 1,053 times, which includes people they saw more than once, Michels said.

The biggest problems that Michels sees center around the opioid crisis, not having enough housing and shelter space, and people who are too “busy surviving” to maintain connections for resources and care.

City council President Rebecca Noecker, whose ward includes downtown, said she hears from people who are appreciative of the social services approach of Familiar Faces and a city team focused on homeless encampments, and also from people who feel unsafe or uncomfortable downtown.

“If there were easy answers, solutions would have been found long ago,” she said. Staffers are “doing the hardest possible work with people who have a lot of challenges.”

Reports of major crime are down about 20 percent year-over-year downtown, according to St. Paul police data.

Quality-of-life crime reports are up about 4 percent, with drugs and narcotics marking the biggest increase: There were 128 reports through Sept. 28 versus 91 during the same period last year. Henry attributes the increase to “proactive work of officers to clean things up” downtown, including open air drug use.

Morning patrols

St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry on patrol in downtown St. Paul early Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. If repeated offers of help and warnings aren’t working, Henry said police need to enforce city ordinances and state laws. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Henry leaves his house in St. Paul’s Little Bohemia neighborhood, off West Seventh Street, in the 5 a.m. hour most weekdays. He makes coffee at home and brings it with him. He gets about seven hours of sleep, unless he’s called out to a major incident overnight.

A St. Paul police officer for 27 years, Henry became the department’s chief nearly three years ago. It took a few months to settle in to his new responsibilities and then he began his morning patrols.

Henry, who works out every day, then heads to the police department’s gym and is at his desk by 7:50 a.m.

The impetus for Henry’s patrols along the way to work was complaints about tents downtown. By day, city staff would work to clear them out. “And at night, they would return,” Henry said.

By taking part in the work himself, Henry said he’s showing officers that they have his support in enforcement actions and that he prioritizes quality-of-life issues when they’re not responding to emergency calls.

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On Thursday morning, Henry drove past people sitting outside Catholic Charities’ Higher Ground near Grand Casino Arena. They have the most overnight emergency shelter beds in the city for adults, and many nights they’re over capacity, said Elizabeth Lyden, Catholic Charities Twin Cities executive vice president of external affairs.

There are 60 beds for women and 172 for men. On Monday, for example, there were 62 women and 180 men staying at the shelter.

“We used to see a real flux when it came to how many shelter beds were available each night,” Lyden said. On warm summer nights, they’d see fewer people. “Over the last year, that has gone away, which is very concerning. I don’t see that as a change in behavior as much as we just have more people that are needing assistance.”

There also has been an increase in older people seeking shelter, which brings its own challenges because Higher Ground has bunkbeds and it can be difficult for them to get onto the top bunk.

Sleeping on a sidewalk

St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry checks on a man sleeping on the sidewalk along Exchange Street in downtown St. Paul. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

When Henry sees a man asleep on the sidewalk, using a plastic bag with his belongings as a pillow, he stops his unmarked police vehicle and turns on the emergency lights on Exchange Street near Ninth Street.

“Sometimes it’s a medical distress issue” or an overdose, Henry said of why he and first responders are obligated to check on people lying on the ground.

Henry tells the man that sleeping on the sidewalk makes him vulnerable.

“Do you want some help getting housing?” he asks. The man says, “Yes.”

Henry tells him: “I don’t want to offend you, but I gotta ask: Have drugs been a problem for you getting housing? We’ve got help for that, too, if that’s an issue.” The man also answers “yes.”

Henry asks him if it’s OK if he texts the man’s name and phone number to Michels, so she or her outreach team can find him later.

Henry returns to his vehicle, saying, “I can almost guarantee Chris will answer this (text) before we get down the block.”

And she does, though it’s about 5:20 a.m. She responds that they’ve worked with the man before and will seek him out.

Other patrol officers also regularly text Michels to tell her of people they encounter who are in need of help.

Three P’s

Michels, who previously worked at Catholic Charities for 14 years, said the problem is not only about shelters having enough beds, but also accommodating various needs.

Chris Michels, program director for Familiar Faces, talks with one the program’s outreach specialists during the daily morning meeting on Friday. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Historically, the reasons that people sleep outside, according to Michels, are the three P’s: Pets (though shelters are getting better about letting people bring them in and that includes Higher Ground), property (people may have too much to store in a shelter locker) and partners (most shelters separate men and women).

When Henry encountered the three people sleeping under a tarp near Higher Ground, he told one man, whose belongings were piled into a stroller, that he had found him sleeping outside at least twice recently and they had the same conversation.

“It’s not legal. You’re blocking the sidewalk,” Henry said. Later, he added that this was warm for October and, when it’s negative 10 degrees, “I do not want to find you out here frozen.”

The 65-year-old man, who has a dog with him named “Good Boy,” spoke briefly to a Pioneer Press reporter. He said he was sleeping outside because his brother has been missing for about four years.

“I came to look for him,” he said, adding that he has not found him. He said he’s stayed because, “I’m sad and lonely.”

Sam Stoltz, a Familiar Faces outreach specialist following up on Henry’s text about the man, tells Michels that she got him into housing about a year ago. She says she’ll try to figure out what happened.

She determines the man was evicted in August, and plans to work again with him going forward, Michels said.

After Henry’s warning, the man packed up the tarp and blankets and asked if there was a broom he could use to sweep up the area. Farther down the sidewalk, there’s a pile of debris that appears to have been dumped by other people.

St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry examines a pile of trash on the sidewalk early Thursday. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

The St. Paul Downtown Improvement District has more than 30 cleaning and safety ambassadors. The cleaning workers are picking up trash and power-washing graffiti away: “If you take care of a space, it’s less likely to attract bad behavior,” said John Bandemer, St. Paul Downtown Alliance director of safety strategies.

The safety ambassadors do regular patrols, give directions to anyone who needs them, and check on people who are sleeping outdoors or in skyways. “They make sure they’re OK and that they know where they can go to get services,” Bandemer said.

Bandemer encourages anyone in downtown St. Paul who sees a non-emergency situation that needs attention to call the ambassadors, who work 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day of the week, at 651-236-0284. People can also request a safety ambassador to escort them to or from their vehicle.

Warnings, citations — then arrest

Another man who was sleeping under the lean-to was arrested by officers for not registering as a predatory offender. Registered predatory offenders in St. Paul who don’t have a permanent address are required to check in regularly at police headquarters.

For sleeping on the sidewalk or putting a tent on city property, Henry said St. Paul officers typically wouldn’t give a ticket for a first-time offense.

St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry, left, gets the name of a homeless man so he can share it with an outreach worker early Thursday. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“There isn’t a single person that we interface with that hasn’t been offered multiple” chances “before the warning of a citation or an arrest has ever come up,” Henry said.

An arrest or citation can be a way to get a person into drug court or mental health court, which can mean their charges are dismissed if they complete a treatment program, Henry added. He said he and St. Paul officers support those success stories.

A man who Familiar Faces outreach specialist Arturo Garcia has been working with is on a community-based civil commitment — he’s supposed to be getting help but not in a locked ward at a hospital.

His civil commitment case management team has tried a lot, but “he’s on the streets in really precarious and vulnerable ways, not doing well at all,” Michels said, adding that he’s been beat up and robbed of his prescription medication.

The man had a drug-related felony warrant and, in his case, getting arrested on his warrant meant that for a weekend, he had a bed to sleep in and food, though it was in jail, Michels said. On a recent Monday, he appeared in criminal court, was referred to mental health court and released from jail.

Garcia kept up with finding the man and reminding him of the date he was due in mental health court. He offered to drive him, but couldn’t locate him on the day of court. Michels and Garcia went to the courthouse and discovered the man had made his way there himself. The judge ordered another mental health evaluation and referral for treatment.

Ongoing needs

The people who Familiar Faces works with are usually having “lots of contact with traditional emergency response” or have been homeless for an extended time and have needs that go beyond the scope of care of shelters and drop-in day centers, Michels said.

Michels said many of the people have been temporarily or permanently banned by shelters due to substance use in the shelter, threats of violence or fighting, or other behavior.

They may have cycled through supportive housing programs and, in some cases, have been civilly committed for mental illness or chemical dependency. Case workers assigned to them may be having a hard time locating them to connect them with services. Some of the work of Familiar Faces’ street outreach is finding people, and collaborating with their case workers.

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Michels meets with Stoltz and Garcia most weekdays around 7 a.m. They come with the day’s plan — what places they’ll go to and the people they’ll try to find.

They then spend several hours each morning on the streets, “doing welfare checks, vulnerability checks, assessing what’s going on,” Michels said. Their work is currently focused on downtown and the University Avenue corridor between Dale Street and Snelling Avenue.

Back in the office afterward, they work on case management, trying to get people “to move toward a stabler place,” Michels said. That could mean checking in with shelters from which people were trespassed to ask if they can come back, helping people fill out paperwork for disability benefits or assisting them with applying for a housing referral.

Familiar Faces is in the process of bringing onboard two case managers, which will allow Stoltz and Garcia more time for street outreach, Michels said.

Downtown Improvement District ambassadors

People who see a non-emergency situation that needs attention are encouraged to call the Downtown Improvement District at 651-236-0284.

District ambassadors work 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day of the week.

People also can request an escort to or from their vehicle.