From Encampment Shootings to Media Scapegoating, the False Idea that Homeless People ‘Refuse Help’ Is Costing Lives
Thirty gunshots rang out over a Minneapolis homeless encampment on a Monday night, September 2025. At 10 pm, pedestrians ran frantically through the streets past the Target, at the intersection of South 28th Avenue and East Lake Street, in response to the horrific assault. Police were greeted with a gruesome scene of violence committed against homeless encampment residents.
A man and woman lay slumped in tents with gaping gunshot wounds to their heads.
More gunshot victims emerged with life-threatening injuries.
Blazing fires.
Bullet casings.
This was not even an isolated incident.
Earlier that same day, a neighboring homeless encampment had also been relentlessly shot at. ABC News reported that a total of 13 homeless people were injured during the two brutal attacks.
In response to the incidents, Mayor Jacob Frey immediately suggested encampment sweeps as the solution to the violence committed against homeless people. Advocates and experts say that encampment sweeps are violence against homeless people, because they forcibly evict residents and leave them with no place to go. Yet, the mayor continued claiming the sweeps would ensure safety, although studies repeatedly prove this is not the case. Throughout the conversation, he relied on one key word to drive his flawed logic. The word was resistance. It’s a common theme used to deflect.
“These homeless encampments are not safe either for the people that are in them, nor are they safe for the surrounding neighborhood. With this particular one, we’ve been saying this for months. We have been met with resistance for trying to clear this particular encampment,” Frey said.
Whenever people want to blame homeless people rather than solve homelessness, the word “resistance” comes into play.
The Dangerous Rhetoric of ‘Service-Resistant’
In a now-notorious news segment, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade claimed homeless people should be subjected to “involuntary lethal injection” and killed. The comments were harshly criticized, particularly in the wake of such violence against homeless people already being committed. These remarks received rightful chastisement, but there was another important part of this conversation that went under the radar.
The comment that was made before Killmeade encouraged murder against the unhoused community adhered to that key theme of resistance yet again. If you rewind the segment by just a few seconds, you will find that co-host Lawrence Jones spoke negatively of homeless people who allegedly resist resources, stating they deserve to be in jail. Killmeade then followed that statement up with an even more egregious suggestion by claiming they deserve to be killed. This is not an accident. It is a natural progression. Listen to the exchange and then pay attention to how it mimics real life.
“Either you take the resources that we’re going to give you, or you decide that you’re going to be locked up in jail,” Jones said.
Killmeade then takes the inevitable next step by saying, “or involuntary lethal injection.”
There is a brief pause, absent of objection, and then Killmeade callously adds, “just kill them all”.
Shelters Aren’t Always Safe or Accessible
Most myths begin with repetition. The same damaging lie gets told from multiple different sources, reputable sources, even, until it is finally embedded in the very fibers of society, until it’s finally believed.
Myths about the homeless community exist to relieve us of the moral obligation to seek empathy for all. They are often centered on the false notion that homelessness is a moral flaw when it is actually a social failure. One of the ways people in positions of power vocalize this is by claiming unsheltered people are merely rejecting services. Experts say it simply isn’t true.
In a candid conversation with Invisible People reporters, Barbara Poppe of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness explained how the myth and the phrase incite and excuse violence against unhoused communities.
“Mainstream media really goes out of their way to broadcast incidents of homeless individuals not accessing emergency shelter, when, in fact, emergency shelter is not widely available in most communities across the country,” Poppe said. “There are no shelter beds that are widely available and not being utilized. The number of people who are unsheltered and living outside far exceeds the emergency shelter capacity. So just on a scale basis, there’s a fundamental mismatch.”
“The second piece to it is that many of the shelters that are operating are not able to provide a safe and quality environment,” she continued. “Many shelters do, but not all shelters do. And for some individuals, the way shelters are operated doesn’t allow their residents a pathway off the street.”
“For example, some of the shelters have curfews, so you have to be in by five o’clock at night,” she said. “If you’re not in by 5 o’clock at night, you lose your bed. If you work a job that doesn’t get out until nine o’clock, you have lost your bed. So, there are rules that make staying in a shelter counterproductive to the goal of getting off the streets.”
The vast majority of homeless people are employed. Many of them work low-wage positions and odd hours. Hence, this is survival being packaged as resistance.
“Also, these environments, where there are large dormitories, feature folks sleeping on mats or chairs. Individuals don’t feel safe in those environments,” Poppe said. “Some feel like they’ll get a better night’s sleep if they can be in their tent under a bridge, in a quieter space than sitting on a metal chair in a large waiting room outside of an emergency shelter.”
Family Separation and Systemic Failure
“The programs that are available aren’t always compatible with what folks actually need. Many times, families have to be separated to access shelter. In some communities, there aren’t even shelters for everyone,” Poppe continued. “For example, if you are a single father with your children, in many communities across the country, there’s no emergency shelter that will take you in. And that father has to hand his children over to Child Protective Services, which breaks up the family. Oftentimes, teenage boys are separated from their families because they are not permitted in the shelters either.”
While there are some excellent programs for unsheltered people, homelessness is not the same experience for everyone, and people have drastically different needs. Dismissing homeless people as choosing their fate and resisting outreach only excuses and perpetuates violence against them.
Stop Spreading the Myth — Start Building Solutions
The same script is being used repeatedly. It starts with rhetoric and lies that paint unsheltered people in a negative light. Afterwards, there is a call to arrest them.
The world just witnessed what happens when nobody speaks up against criminalization. Eventually, somebody suggests murder. Tell your local legislators to protect people from enduring homelessness and violence by making housing a human right for all.