Downtown ambassadors bring powerful impact to Sioux Falls streets

This piece is sponsored by Downtown Sioux Falls Inc.

The phone call came in from a business on Phillips Avenue one day not long ago, and Dan Larson responded.

“We get calls there quite often,” said Larson, an ambassador for Downtown Sioux Falls Inc. “This time, two gentlemen were there panhandling and had been for a while. One was jumping into traffic and acting erratic, so I asked his buddy what was up.”

The other man, Lars, “was having a really bad day. His family won’t talk to him. He has no money. He’s hungry,” Larson learned. “He was trying to kill himself.”

There was a rope in his hand.

“That’s a lot to deal with,” Larson acknowledged. “I said, ‘OK guys, let’s go for a walk, and get out of this spot.'”

As he deescalated the situation, an idea came to mind.

“What about this?” Larson said to Lars. “I’ll buy the rope off you. I’ll give you $5 for it.”

The offer worked.

“That kind of changed his day, his mood, everything,” Larson said. “After that, I saw him several times, and he hugged and thanked me. It was a very positive, very good thing.”

As the group of ambassadors on the Downtown Sioux Falls Inc. team has grown — there now are seven total — the benefits have added up in a big way.

After scaling up from four ambassadors thanks to increased city funding, DTSF added to the team during the peak summer season and specifically to engage with people spending time on the streets downtown.

“The ambassador team is a shared-services model that saves everyone money, allowing property owners, businesses and the city to pool resources for critical core services that no single entity could provide alone,” said Brandon Hanson, CEO of DTSF.

“Other downtowns and neighborhoods often ask “How can we get something like this?” and peer cities look to Sioux Falls as a model for their own ambassador programs.”

Ambassadors are out downtown daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

For Brian Gochal, now in his second year, a typical day starts early with cleaning trash from the area around the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House at Eighth Street and Indiana Avenue.

“And then, I’ll either power wash gum stains or start pulling all the garbage and recycling cans,” he said.

“And then, since I’m the early shift, I’ll walk through the core of Phillips Avenue, pick up garbage from the night before, and then we might be putting up new banners to promote the newest event coming downtown.”

Along the way, “if I see anyone sleeping in a stairway or in front of a shop, I have to help them realize that’s not the place they want to sleep,” Gochal continued.

“That’s not my main job — my main job is to beautify the area — but secondary is helping people who are having problems. We all care enough to find them the help they need. It isn’t like we just move them on. We call somebody to find out what they need, and we have the contacts to make that happen.”

The ambassadors are led by Martin Dill, who is the original ambassador for DTSF in 2021 and has continued supporting the program.

He’s still on the streets helping with the daily tasks in addition to managing the team — generally on duty before 6 a.m.

“We’re doing power scrubbing for a couple hours, then we switch over to gum stains — Brian took up 900 gum stains the other day. On Thursdays, all of Eighth Street gets done with a  team of three to make sure it’s spic and span, once a month we literally replace all the black plastic liners that line every garbage can, and at least once a month we’re making sure every cage lid gets cleaned and disinfected,” he said.

“And along the way, we’re offering greetings to everyone we see. If we see someone looking at their phone or standing in front of an information kiosk, we always stop and ask if we can help find anything. Once a month, we check the wells on all the SculptureWalk pieces, we take care of weeding at the Metli Plaza by the Arc of Dreams, and we’re always cleaning up stickers and graffiti on signs, poles, windows and newspaper boxes.”

If it sounds like a lot, it is. Ambassadors complete an average of 1,400 combined tasks daily, according to data tracked by DTSF.

In 2024, they removed almost 25,000 pounds of trash and spent 1,247 hours on beautification — like flower bed maintenance, gum removal and power washing.

A closer look at their work last year reveals:

• 525 graffiti removals, reducing vandalism and enhancing public perception of safety.
• 16,679 hospitality engagements, including greeting visitors, providing directions and supporting unhoused individuals.
• 6,000 direct interactions with the unhoused population from April to September, representing 80 percent of ambassador time during peak months.
• 600 welfare checks, providing immediate, compassionate response to individuals in crisis and connecting them with EMTs or other services as needed.
• 1,400-plus police calls prevented in summer through effective de-escalation, reducing strain on law enforcement while ensuring issues are handled with care.

“Feedback is consistently positive. Businesses discover new layers of the service as we continue outreach and reminders of what the ambassadors can provide,” Hanson said.

“One downtown bank recently used the ambassadors for the first time and was blown away by the quick response, professionalism and the compassionate handling of an individual needing social services, all while maintaining customer access.”

The business community also supports the program. Part of the funding for ambassadors comes through the Downtown Sioux Falls Business Improvement District, or BID, supported by downtown property owners. Plus, organizations such as Avera Health have stepped up with additional sponsorship.

“Supporting the Downtown Sioux Falls ambassadors provides so many benefits to businesses and residents, as well as the visitors that we love to have downtown,” said Micki Lundin, director of community partnerships at Avera and a member of the DTSF board of directors.

“The ambassadors help us keep our city clean and green, safe for all and do a wonderful job of engaging with everyone they encounter,” she said, adding that the team is “a crucial resource to the unhoused population.”

“The ambassadors are a great connector of people to services and a wonderful representation of Sioux Falls to our visitors.”

Powerful impact

At 62, David Jaques is a lifelong Sioux Falls resident who appreciates that he has found a job “that makes you feel kind of nice, knowing you’re helping out your hometown,” he said. “The walking is really good exercise. I enjoy meeting new people and the people who live and work downtown.”

In his second year on the job, he has learned that every day brings a different challenge — like one recent Sunday morning when two people he had gotten to know stopped him on the street and pointed him toward a person lying in a parking lot.

“I would have driven right by,” he said. “But I pulled up and found him face down in a mud puddle and rolled him over. He wasn’t able to breathe. We got an ambulance, and the driver said if I hadn’t gotten there when I did, he would have died. But it was the other two who told me.”

That’s the encouraging part, he said.

“Last summer, a lot of these people were afraid of us,” he said. “They looked at us like we were police, and now they understand we’re trying to make sure they’re safe and all right.”

Mike Nitz, known as “Pokey,” just finished his first year on the team.

“I really like helping the homeless,” he said. “We are the ones that get to know them the best on the streets, and we’re down there with them all the time.”

One man who was a large presence downtown last summer now is in treatment in Oregon and recently arranged for his cousin to come too.

“I would assume in the next couple months he’ll get out of treatment,” Nitz said. “He’s a great young man and used to be a lot of help to us downtown, and he finally just decided he was tired of waking up in the gutter every morning basically, and I’m hoping he ends up being a counselor. I think he’d be really good at helping others.”

While they’re seemingly incredible stories, they’re very much a part of daily life for the ambassadors and the people they serve, Dill said.

“Sometimes, I won’t even hear about it for a couple of days; it’s such a part of what they do,” he said. “But it’s awesome. In the beginning, people weren’t sure about this program — and it is a significant expenditure to bring this to downtown — but it’s great. Every day, we have people from out of town who tell us they’ve never seen a downtown as beautiful as this. But beyond that, we’re literally saving lives.”

Looking ahead

While the ambassador program depends on city and BID funding, “our intent is to maintain five full-time ambassadors year-round, while looking ahead and pushing to expand beyond that,” Hanson said. “We would like to continue to prioritize the warmer months with seasonal ambassadors as we’ve heard over and over again this year that the burden to businesses and police is much lower than we experienced in 2024.”

Funding is essential to success and especially to growing the program. With more funds, DTSF could:

• Widen service hours beyond 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Invest in equipment to increase efficiency.
• Expand staffing to service all areas of downtown as effectively as Phillips Avenue.
• Provide more shared-service security.
• Support snow removal and cleanup on a larger scale.

“Every day, requests come in that we cannot say yes to. Without sustained or increased funding, downtown’s growth will outpace our services, leading to a slip into unmanageable conditions that will cost everyone more to fix later,” Hanson said.

Thanks to a grant from the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation, DTSF is evaluating the program thoroughly this summer to determine:

• Exactly how many ambassadors are needed to service a district of this size.
• What training and support the team requires for safety and efficiency.
• What equipment best meets the needs of downtown businesses and the city.

“This grant will also allow ambassadors to receive on-the-spot training from industry professionals in homeless outreach, safety and managing a growing district, ensuring the program continues evolving to meet the needs of downtown Sioux Falls effectively and compassionately,” Hanson said.

For ambassadors like Gochal, the job is rewarding on multiple levels.

“I’ve been part of downtown for the last 20-something years, living and working down here, and I play downtown all the time. When you see a place that’s clean, I almost want you to take it for granted,” he said.

“I don’t want you to know we’re there. If we’re doing our job, our section of the city is just clean. You don’t have to know I’m there. You don’t have to thank me. Just enjoy it.”