Early Tuesday morning, people occupying the encampment at Duluth City Hall were told to leave the area. This is after a one week notice from the Duluth Police Department. A handful of folks packed up their belongings to avoid a misdemeanor charge. Although several tents still remain at the Duluth City Hall encampment, even after the deadline to vacate passed.

Onlookers watched to see what would happen between the people facing homelessness and the Duluth Police and Fire Departments. Lonnie Moore supports the encampment site, and stood in protest of the evacuation.

“Day by day we have new campers coming in, old campers leaving. We have some permanent fixtures,” Moore said. “There were some people who left this morning, there were some people who left yesterday, but there were also people who came in yesterday, people who came in this morning.”

Prior to evacuation roughly 30 people were living on site at any given time. Jeremy Murphy is a member of Anti-Imperialist Action. He says many people who’ve here don’t know where else to seek shelter.

“I’ve been to the Chum and I’ve seen people sleeping on the hard floor up against the wall. There aren’t enough beds available even with shelters,” Murphy said. “I mean, we have more vacant homes than we have homeless people.”

Members of Duluth Police’s Life Safety team are coordinating with community outreach partners to assist during this transition. Francois Medion, has been living at the encampment for the past two weeks, and he says they have formed a strong bond with one another.

“We can take care of ourselves, you know, even in the worst situation. That’s something– it’s hard for people to understand. But people, they have all their own problems. But they watch for each other. They steal from each other. Of course, it’s a great problem. But they care for each other here. Everybody cares for each other. This is really amazing.”

We did reach out to the Duluth Police Department to hear what the next steps are for evacuating the city hall encampment. Although we have not heard back as of news time. For more information about the new Duluth City Ordinances you can read more here. Also for more details on what the city ordinances entail you can read more here.