A trial opened this week in St. Louis Circuit Court over a sidewalk encampment that sat for nearly four years outside a Tower Grove South home, with homeowners Steven McClanahan and Richard Baumhoff seeking $66,000 from the city over what they call a prolonged failure to act. Eisa Ali Agbar Nimir and Zerigha Osman Boia Agbar, a Sudanese couple, first appeared outside the pair's home at South Spring Avenue and Chippewa Street in August 2020, and stayed there until the city tore the structure down in April 2024.
The trial is underway, as reported by St. Louis Magazine. Over time, the encampment grew into a fixed structure built from Aldi shopping carts, tarps, and blankets, complete with a hibachi grill, kerosene tanks, bucket showers, and a bucket toilet — and it drew rats, per the outlet's reporting.
Homeowners Say the City Watched but Never Acted
Attorney Bevis Schock represents McClanahan and Baumhoff. A St. Louis Post-Dispatch profile identified Schock as an attorney in a panhandling case.
The lawsuit, filed February 16, 2024, includes nuisance claims. The Citizen Services Bureau received messages from McClanahan spanning more than 27 pages, per the seed reporting, and McClanahan has testified that police officers told him then-Mayor Tishaura Jones had tied their hands.
City Says It Was Working the Case, Not Ignoring It
City agencies held numerous meetings about placing the couple into housing, and a city task force was formed in 2023 specifically to address the South Spring encampment, according to the outlet's account. City workers, alongside staff from the International Institute and police, tried repeatedly to persuade the couple to accept housing and worked to build a relationship of trust with them.
Legal Hurdles Baked Into Missouri Takings Law
The case tests a high bar under Missouri law: inverse condemnation claims generally require proof of affirmative governmental action, not municipal inaction or a mere failure to abate a nuisance, under the precedent set in State ex rel. City of Blue Springs v. Nixon, according to the Supreme Court of Missouri.
The litigation also arrives after a period of legal whiplash on encampment policy. In December 2023, the Missouri Supreme Court struck down a state camping law under the state constitution's single-subject requirement.
After the Sidewalk, a Few Blocks Away
The case follows other high-profile encampment actions in the city, including a planned dispersal of an encampment of more than two dozen tents outside St. Louis City Hall in February 2023 that was postponed while the city sought shelter; police had logged about 50 calls for service, and EMS had received more than 30 calls involving overdoses, seizures, and other medical emergencies, according to KSDK.
St. Louis obtained Built for Zero certification for by-name data covering all single adults experiencing homelessness in 2024. The initiative also provides real-time case management. Hoodline has also reported on safety concerns near other St. Louis encampments.
