On an absolutely beautiful April morning, Willie White and Luis Villanueva stepped out of the stuffy lobby of Minneapolis’ Lake Street Safety Center and started to walk their beats.
White greeted people by name as he passed them, asking about their day or whether they needed anything. He joked with customers and staff at J Klips barbershop. Inside Colonial Market and Restaurant, Villanueva chatted in Spanish with a woman behind a register.
It was an uneventful morning, but it’s not always. White and Villanueva are Community Service Ambassadors – contractors with the city to provide a welcoming presence in the neighborhood while responding to safety events that might not be taken on by a police officer. Overdoses are among the most common concerns – Villanueva used Narcan on someone just a few weeks ago.
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Now, three years after the City Council allocated the funding, the ambassador program is expanding into Uptown, where officials hope it can provide a piece of the puzzle to bring foot traffic and business back to the corridor.
Currently, service ambassadors patrol weekdays from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. in two parts of the city: five along East Franklin Ave. between 5th Ave. S. and 21st Ave. S., and seven along East Lake St. between 2nd Ave. S. and the Lake Street Midtown Station.
City data shows that most of their interactions occur as they patrol, as opposed to being dispatched. Combined, the teams report more than 1,000 “responses” each month, largely under the umbrella of “neighborhood support.”
Eight ambassadors and a dispatcher, hired on as city employees, are expected to begin walking the streets in Uptown starting Nov. 8. The city has allocated about $1 million for the Uptown effort.
White, who has experienced homelessness, said he brings a unique perspective to working with people facing challenges similar to those he once faced.
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“I’m not saying that police officers don’t go through things,” White said, “but some of the ambassadors have been through situations where we can relate to people on the streets and kind of help them through their situations.”
Council member Elizabeth Shaffer, whose Ward 7 includes part of Uptown, commended the informal “Uptown United” group for taking on similar work to the ambassadors. Still, she said, the city program’s expansion is welcome.
Vacant storefronts pepper the neighborhood – the empty Apple Store perhaps looming largest. And plans to revamp the Seven Points mall have been on-again, off-again.
“In order for businesses to thrive, to move into Uptown, we have to have a stable street environment,” Shaffer said in an interview.
Council member Aisha Chughtai, whose Ward 10 also includes Uptown, said she’s been excited about the program ever since bringing forward funding for it back in 2023. She hinted that a “lack of willingness” from Mayor Jacob Frey’s administration led to a slow launch for this and likeminded efforts, like adding a budgeted crime prevention specialist to the area.
When asked, Frey deferred to Amanda Harrington, Minneapolis’ director of neighborhood safety, who said the pilot program took time to build and that it couldn’t be started everywhere at once.
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While the ambassador program is still getting spun up in Minneapolis, a similar system is fully in place in St. Paul, where the Street Team has 34 ambassadors serving all of downtown from 7 a.m.-11 p.m. seven days a week.
Joe Spencer, president of the Saint Paul Downtown Alliance, said the team has cleaning ambassadors that keep the area looking nice who are more focused in the mornings, while safety ambassadors work throughout the day but increase in number in the evening.
Ambassadors have made “a tremendous impact in the experience of downtown,” he said. He called out their reported 84% compliance rate when asking someone to stop anything defined as “problematic behavior.”
“That’s nearly 3,600 times that a police officer didn’t have to be called,” Spencer said.
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