Being homeless on Duluth’s coldest nights is an emergency, and it needs to be treated that way.
That’s the approach the executive director of the city’s primary homeless shelter is taking as she asks St. Louis County and Duluth to respond to a need that she says is only increasing.
“If the city and the county decide they have no resources for this, well that's a moral statement about the budget and an ethical statement about the budget,” said Lee Stuart, executive director of CHUM, a faith-based agency that serves Duluth’s homeless. “So the next step of that is (saying that) these citizens of St. Louis County and Duluth are someone else’s problem.”
CHUM’s downtown Duluth shelter has beds for 80 people. It’s always full, Stuart said, and pads are placed on the floor to provide room for more. No one is turned away for lack of space, she said, but some choose not to stay at the shelter if it’s extremely crowded.
In letters to the County Board and the City Council this week, Stuart proposed opening government-owned facilities, each staffed with a law officer, on nights when conditions are particularly cold.
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“Would it be possible to open a couple of community centers that are already heated, in various areas of the city, so that people could come in under much the same conditions as they come to CHUM (non-violence, relatively sober)?” she wrote in her letter to city councilors.
Duluth Mayor Emily Larson, who was a social worker at CHUM for 12 years, said she thinks something can be done.
“Finding a good way to do that really will require a comprehensive approach,” Larson said. “It can’t just be CHUM. It can’t just be the city. It can’t just be the county.”
Contacted separately, county Commissioner Patrick Boyle and City Councilor Noah Hobbs said they’ve been in touch, and both are interested in working out some sort of solution.
Hobbs, the council president, said he’s hopeful he and Boyle can convene a meeting of interested parties to seek at least a temporary solution this winter.
But it won’t be easy, Boyle said.
“I think the main thing is staffing and how do we work that,” he said. “That’s a big issue. It’s going to take some time, but I think we have to do our due diligence and look into this.”
Carl Crawford, Duluth’s human rights officer, agreed that the issue should be addressed jointly, and emphasized its importance.
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“It’s significant if anybody has to be outside when it’s desperately cold,” Crawford said.
Stuart hasn’t targeted specific facilities as potential shelters, nor has she suggested the criteria that would prompt shelters to be opened.
Depending on how those criteria were set, it could involve a lot of nights. The National Weather Service in Duluth, citing records dating back to 1928, reports the city has an average of 41 days with subzero readings during the winter, 69 days below 10 and 106 days below 20.
Stuart said her primary goal is to get the conversation started about people caught outside in frigid conditions.
Larson said she thinks such a conversation can bring results.
“What I have found is that in this community when we put our minds and muscle behind something we get things done,” she said. “As a community we can figure out short-term strategies.”
In Sunday’s News Tribune A look at how efforts to end homelessness in St. Louis County have fallen short.
