With the tents thrown away, the buckets of needles and human feces removed, and the once-lush lawns reseeded, our city – all of us – can get back to the hard work. As a community, we can continue to address the factors and challenges that lead to unsightly, unsanitary and unsafe homeless encampments, like the highly visible encampment that overran our Duluth Civic Center this summer and was cleared on Wednesday.

Cities of all sizes struggle with mental health issues, drug addiction, and poverty that leads to homelessness. We are not alone.

But Duluth is unique in that we have a plan that requires public buy-in and broad support to make a difference. It’s also a plan that’s full of promise and has already delivered results.

“A lot has been accomplished,” Joel Kilgour of Loaves and Fishes of Duluth said in an interview with the News Tribune’s opinion page on Thursday.

Loaves and Fishes is one of eight charities and other organizations in Duluth that launched the Stepping On Up plan in 2022. It’s an ambitious strategy aimed at getting people off the streets and into permanent housing. They usually compete for grants and funding for their own projects, but this time, as homelessness in Duluth became increasingly dire, they joined forces.

Stepping On Up is a five-year, $33 million, three-phase effort that includes creating safe tent sites and parking for people living in their vehicles, with sanitation facilities, trash receptacles and support services, increasing emergency shelter space, and creating hundreds of new permanent, low-cost community-based housing units.

Work has begun and begins with short-term, makeshift emergency measures.

Such as allocating a parking space at the Damiano Center in Duluth Hillside, where people living in their cars can park safely and have access to bathrooms and hygiene facilities in a trailer brought to the site. “We served 241 people in our first season,” Kilgour said, “which, frankly, is more than we expected. The need is there and we’ve connected with many households that weren’t previously connected to homeless services.”

A place has also been opened where homeless people can keep their valuables safe and secure. Currently, around 90 people are housed there. “Some people who live on the streets can store their valuables here and don’t have to carry huge backpacks around all day. It’s been very successful,” said Kilgour.

In addition, warming centers have extended their hours for Duluth’s frigid nights and increased staffing. More than 800 people were able to escape the dangerous cold last winter at the centers, which were open until May. There is also a volunteer-run free laundry program that serves between 30 and 50 households each week – that’s its capacity. And almost all homeless services in Duluth have hired additional staff, including new social workers at Union Gospel Mission and Lutheran Social Services, as well as additional capacity at the emergency shelters for victims of domestic violence.

“Everyone is growing to meet current needs,” Kilgour said.

Longer term, a youth home is under construction, expected to open in January, which will accommodate 12 young adults between the ages of 18 and 24. And the Chum home in the city centre is set to double its current capacity of about 80 beds, including an entire floor of single rooms, which “aligns with Stepping On Up’s plans to give people … a greater level of dignity,” Kilgour explained.

“The need is enormous. I mean, every time we do something, we learn there are huge gaps in the system,” he said. “We’re housing people, but to solve this problem, ultimately we need more housing. … (The encampment at the Civic Center) was really hard on people. But I also want to remind people that our shelter staff are dealing with this every night — and that’s with an even larger (homeless) population and with dwindling resources to support our programs. (The encampment) has definitely exacerbated the problem in people’s minds, and that’s a good thing. Hopefully, as a community, we can be more motivated to work toward meaningful long-term solutions.”

In a world where no community has successfully attempted to solve the homeless problem, no one can say Duluth hasn’t tried. In the last three years alone, the city has invested nearly $24 million to create affordable housing for low- and moderate-income residents. And just last month, the Duluth City Council approved an additional $500,000 for Stepping On Up, bringing the city’s investment in the initiative to $1.15 million.

The problem of homelessness will likely never be solved or eliminated. But Duluth, with its plan and the broad support for its plan, has an opportunity to effectively and strategically address the problem, to confront it as a community, and hopefully begin to manage it and get it under control so that our friends and neighbors who need help can get help.

“Not just a little money,” said a News Tribune editorial two summers ago, “but on an ongoing basis.”

The plan may be ambitious and expensive, but it’s also the best strategy Duluth has right now. If anyone has better ideas, please speak up. This is what we have to face – the discarded needles, the feces, the very real human trauma, and the needs of our neighbors: all of it.