10/08/2026
Compassion and Public Safety Are Not Opposites
Recent comments regarding homelessness in Red Wing raise concerns that deserve to be taken seriously. Every person in our community deserves to feel safe—families walking downtown, business owners opening their doors in the morning, our police officers and first responders, and people who have nowhere safe to sleep.
At Hope & Harbor, we do not believe compassion requires ignoring dangerous or illegal behavior. People should be held appropriately accountable for their actions. Homelessness does not excuse criminal behavior, just as having a home does not guarantee good behavior.
But neither should the behavior of a few define an entire group of people.
Recent commentary cited 865 police calls involving people identified as homeless. Yet the same information indicates that 210 of those calls—nearly one-quarter—were associated with a single individual. That fact alone should caution us against drawing conclusions about an entire population from the actions of a small number of people.
We also believe our community deserves accurate information about shelters.
The assertion that opening a shelter necessarily increases crime in the surrounding neighborhood is not supported so simply by published research. A 2025 peer-reviewed study specifically examined a rotating, low-barrier emergency shelter and analyzed arrests and calls for police service around 15 shelter sites. Researchers found no significant increase in either arrests or calls for service when the shelter was present. (Science Direct, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, April 2025) A broader 2025 review of research found that the evidence concerning emergency shelters and neighborhood crime is limited and mixed, while research on permanent supportive housing generally finds positive community effects. (Emerald Publishing, Housing, Care and Support, June 2025)
We should also remember that people experiencing homelessness are frequently victims of crime themselves. A large population-based study found people who had experienced homelessness faced substantially higher rates of crime victimization, particularly violent victimization, than the general population. (PubMed, National Library of Medicine 32504586)
Minnesota's own research gives us additional reason to look beyond stereotypes. Wilder Research's 2023 Minnesota Homeless Study counted 10,522 people experiencing homelessness on a single night, including people in shelters and those without formal shelter. (Wilder October 2025) Among Minnesota adults experiencing homelessness, 47% were on a waiting list for public housing, while another 10% could not even get on a waiting list because it was closed. One-third reported having been turned away from a shelter during the previous three months. Of those turned away, 62% subsequently slept outside, in a vehicle or vacant building, or on transit. (Wilder July 2024) That is why shelter is not the solution to homelessness—and Hope & Harbor has never claimed that it is.
Shelter is the place from which solutions can begin.
A person moved from one public place to another is still sleeping outside and is still homeless. This does not resolve homelessness, addiction or mental illness. A safe place to sleep, however, gives outreach workers and service providers an opportunity to build relationships, assess needs and connect people with housing, employment, health care, treatment and other services.
That is the work Hope & Harbor seeks to do and we invite you to volunteer if you would like to participate in our mission.
We also respectfully reject the suggestion that nonprofit organizations have an incentive to perpetuate homelessness. Our goal is exactly the opposite. Success is not measured by how many people remain in our shelter or walk through the doors of a resource center. Success is helping people reach the point where they no longer need us.
For Hope & Harbor, this is also deeply connected to the Christian faith from which our organization grew.
Jesus did not teach us to choose between compassion and responsibility. Scripture calls us to both justice and mercy: “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)
In Matthew 25, Jesus identifies himself with people who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, poorly clothed, sick and imprisoned, telling his followers that what they do for “the least of these” they do for Him. And James presents an especially difficult challenge to Christians: if a brother or sister lacks clothing and food, simply wishing them well without meeting their physical needs is not enough—faith must result in action.
Those commands do not require us to tolerate violence, drug dealing, public indecency or behavior that endangers others. Mercy without accountability is incomplete—but accountability without mercy is incomplete as well.
We believe Red Wing is capable of both.
We can support our police officers and first responders. We can protect residents, businesses and public spaces. We can insist upon appropriate behavior. We can advocate for better mental-health and substance-use treatment. And at the same time, we can make certain that another human being does not freeze to death on a Minnesota winter night.
Those principles are not in conflict.
Hope & Harbor was created by people from this community who saw neighbors in need and chose to respond. Our volunteers, churches, donors, staff and community partners do not do this work because homelessness is politically convenient. They do it because they believe every human life has value and because they want people to move from crisis toward stability.
Homelessness is complicated. No shelter, police department, nonprofit, church or government agency can solve it alone. We welcome serious conversations about public safety, accountability, mental illness, addiction, housing and how our community resources are spent.
But those conversations should begin with facts rather than fear, and with the recognition that behind every statistic is a human being.
We don't have to choose between a safe community and a compassionate community. Our responsibility is to build a community that is both.
Janet Hansmeier
President and Board Chair
Hope and Harbor
The Next Step
Community Care Fund
