Many cities have anti-crime laws. The DOJ says one in Minnesota harmed people with mental illness

The Minneapolis suburb of Anoka is located where Minnesota’s 150-mile Rum River flows into the mighty Mississippi. Like other communities, it touts itself as a pleasantly quiet place to live.

But last year, a federal investigation found that Anoka illegally discriminated against residents with mental health disabilities. The city gave landlords weekly reports for five years revealing personal medical information of tenants who received multiple emergency calls to their homes.

In at least 780 cases, the city also shared details of mental health crises and even how people had attempted suicide, all under the guise of enforcing an ordinance intended to deter crime and eliminate public nuisances, the U.S. department said of Justice.

Laws like Anoka’s, one of hundreds introduced in the U.S. since the 1990s, have long been criticized for unfairly targeting poorer neighborhoods and communities of color. Now they are under scrutiny as sources of mental health discrimination.

“It’s horrific,” said Elizabeth Sauer, an attorney for Central Minnesota Legal Services, which serves low-income people. “Can you imagine if the most intimate details of your life were simply broadcast to every landlord in the city where you live?”

Anoka’s “crime-free” ordinance was enacted in 2016, and at the time, city council members said they were fighting crime and making neighborhoods safer. Jeff Weaver, who still sits on the council and did not respond to requests for comment, described the problem at the time as “some nasty landlords.”

“It’s like a cancer in these neighborhoods,” he said at the 2016 meeting, which was featured in an online video.

According to FBI statistics, reported crimes in Anoka dropped 57% from 2016 to 2022, although crime rates were already declining before that. The city’s annual financial reports show that in 2022, the police department had seven full-time employees, 16% of its workforce, on the team enforcing the ordinance.

Anoka’s ordinance requires landlords to screen potential tenants, respond to resident complaints and take a property management course, among other things. It allows the city to suspend a landlord’s rental permit if police respond to four or more “nuisance” calls per year. Before that, a landlord could be fined up to $500.

According to the ordinance, nuisance calls involve “disorderly conduct,” such as criminal activity and actions that endanger others. It also covers “unwarranted calls to the police” and allowing a “physically abusive condition” but does not define these further, leaving wide discretion.

According to the DOJ, Anoka used that authority to provide landlords with details about the adults and children involved in emergency calls, their diagnoses, medications, and names of individuals’ medical and psychiatric providers.

Sue Abderholden, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, called Anoka’s ordinance “pretty aggressive” and said that if a tenant has a heart attack or other medical emergency, first responders are unlikely to tell the tenant to get help has searched. one time too often.”

“Why would we do it if someone has a mental health problem?” she said.

Minnesota has had a psychiatric hospital in Anoka for more than 100 years. Anoka Metro Area Treatment Center is the largest hospital, with 110 beds.

Federal fair housing laws prohibit landlords from asking whether someone has a disability, including an intellectual disability, or refusing to rent to them on that basis. Minnesota law, meanwhile, prohibits landlords from limiting or preventing calls for emergency services and also preempts local ordinances that penalize landlords for such calls.

But many crime-free ordinances, like Anoka’s, direct landlords to screen rental applicants, sometimes by the same officials who decide whether emergency declarations will count against them or against a tenant.

Following the investigation, the DOJ ordered Anoka to revise its ordinance and remove any medical or disability-related information for individuals from its reports, something the city is working on. Public records show that city council members met in an executive session last month with Scott Baumgartner, the city’s private attorney, to discuss a “draft remediation agreement,” but they provided no further details.

Baumgartner confirmed in an email to The Associated Press that the city is “discussing a resolution” with the DOJ, but said he could not discuss it further “prior to the final resolution.”

Anoka’s ordinance and response are neither unique nor new.

In recent years, communities in California, Ohio and elsewhere have faced and settled federal lawsuits related to their “nuisance laws.”

In Illinois, Tina Davies and her five school-age grandsons were evicted from their Peoria home in 2015. Davies’ eldest grandson was on probation at the time for vandalism and often stayed out late. Davies, on instructions from his probation officer, reported the incident to police when he was away from home. She later learned the calls violated Peoria’s nuisance ordinance.

The HOPE Fair Housing Center later cited Davies’ case in a lawsuit against Peoria, claiming her family was wrongly accused of fighting and having loud parties. Davies believes the city decided that because her grandson was in trouble at school, he was the cause of all the problems in their neighborhood.

“You’re making it hard for everyone who’s having a hard time and trying to keep things going – you know, trying to keep the kids under control and making sure they’re going to school and minding their manners,” she said in a telephone interview. “I try to give him stability, and this is the thanks I get?”

Critical studies, including a 2018 report from the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union, further show that enforcement of “no crime” laws is often strongest in poor areas and areas with large minority populations. Other lawsuits, including one filed by the DOJ against Hesperia, California, also indicate that some communities are adopting such laws after an influx of new residents of color.

Lawsuits have also argued that such ordinances harm victims of domestic violence by penalizing them for calling the police or other help, even in life-threatening situations.

While the DOJ investigation did not reveal identifying information about the individuals whose information was shared by Anoka with landlords, 2023 U.S. Census data indicates that people of color make up about 20% of the population.

In response to growing criticism, many cities and states are reconsidering such policies.

Last year, Maryland banned landlords from evicting tenants due to the number of emergency calls to their addresses, and banned cities and counties from penalizing landlords for emergency calls. A California law that took effect Jan. 1 significantly limits cities’ use of such ordinances, and advocates expect a push for similar legislation in Illinois and Minnesota.

While proponents of such ordinances argue that they protect people living in fear, critics say rethinking them is necessary to break the cycles of homelessness that many people with mental illness face.

“Police don’t make them safer or better off, and then you add to that the threat to destabilize their housing, to drive them from their families,” said Kate Walz, associate director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project, a fair housing organization. and tenants rights group.

Housing advocates instead point to tenant associations and tenant-run housing cooperatives as ways to alleviate the problems targeted by nuisance laws.

Jose Cruz Guzman, a board member of the Sky Without Limits Cooperative in Minneapolis, said emergency calls to an apartment would draw support from fellow residents.

“Because the relationship between the neighbors is so much better … if there is a problem, I can go in and talk to the neighbor,” he said, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter.

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This story contains a discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988.

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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Associated Press reporter Steve Karnowski contributed from Minneapolis.