People getting murdered, assaulted, and robbed isn't a homelessness problem (it is quite hard to survive winter being homeless in Minnesota) it is a gang, poverty, and policing problem. Part of it is accepting a large number of Somalian refugees, a small but significant number of whom disproportionally contribute to crime, but it's not exclusively that group.
Despite the business robberies, gun shots, assaults and murders blocks away from me, my rent is still $2000.
I'm also near that area, but outside the city and an entire house and yard and car is less than your rent. Luckily I don't need to commute into town, and it's pretty apparent that many who can leave the city are moving to areas like Stillwater and Woodbury. Too bad those cities don't have useful transit connections, though we might get something into Hudson soon.
Yes I'm paying a premium for space and location (having recently left mountain view also helped making everything seem very inexpensive), not having a family and wanting to be close to things to do contributes much to this.
However the "was that a gunshot or fireworks" question nearly daily with about a 50:50 distribution is not good for my stress levels or general sanity.
Highly recommend spending some weekends exploring the areas around MSP, there are lots of former small towns that are now basically exurbs or even part of the city, and depending on what you're looking for you may find something that fits better.
But trying to go entirely car-free is a pipe dream; but "car reduced" is possible.
Stillwater and Hudson both have park and rides (basically a parking lot stop for a bus dedicated to suburban 9-5 commuters), but unless you're willing to put up with doubling or tripling your commute time to take a bus into the cities, you're still better off just driving in and paying for parking.
What would be roughly a 30-40 minute trip by car becomes an hour and 20 minutes by bus, if you don't need to change buses too many times to get to your destination- and that's by ideal conditions (bus isn't running late, etc) (that example used stillwater park&ride to the north loop).
People getting murdered, assaulted, and robbed isn't a homelessness problem (it is quite hard to survive winter being homeless in Minnesota) it is a gang, poverty, and policing problem. Part of it is accepting a large number of Somalian refugees, a small but significant number of whom disproportionally contribute to crime, but it's not exclusively that group.
Despite the business robberies, gun shots, assaults and murders blocks away from me, my rent is still $2000.