DULUTH, MN—Karen Diver and I were sitting in her office in October when she asked the question that's been following me around this city for two months:
"If you're coming for the clean water, can we still promise you clean water with 50,000 or 100,000 more people?"
She's a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, former adviser to President Obama on Native American affairs, and she gets why people are moving here. Wildfires. Hurricanes. Heat that makes places unlivable. She sympathizes. Then she said: "If you are going to come here, then you need to support us as Indigenous people so that your climate solution doesn't end up in our cultural and spiritual genocide."
This is ceded Anishinaabe land. The Indigenous community is 3.5% of Duluth's population, and they're getting pushed out of their own homeland by a housing crisis that existed before anyone started calling this place a climate haven.
LeAnn Littlewolf runs the American Indian Community Housing Organization. They recently opened 29 low-income units in a renovated YWCA building downtown—the first new Indigenous-focused affordable housing in years. Four hundred people applied. Littlewolf told me what that number means: families doubling up in one-bedroom apartments, elders sleeping in cars, people couch-surfing through networks of relatives because there's nowhere else. "More than ever," she said, "we have people living outside."
The building sits a few blocks from Superior Street, where real estate listings scroll past at $340,000 for two-bedrooms that sold for $180,000 six years ago. Homes move in 19 days, often with multiple offers above asking. The median sale price hit $301,450 in July. A 2019 study said Duluth needed 3,600 new affordable units by 2024. The city has added 1,183 units total since then.
Littlewolf watches families navigate this every day. A single mother working two jobs who can't compete with cash offers from people moving in from California. An elder on fixed income whose landlord sold to someone who raised the rent $400 a month. The math doesn't work anymore for people who've been here their whole lives.
"Duluth is our homeland. This was Anishinaabe land. That's something that is never acknowledged."
Realtors describe working with climate refugees fleeing wildfires. "Put your running shoes on," one told me, "because it's going to be a mad dash to get to that house." The same week, I met someone who'd been searching for an affordable rental for four months.
Duluth's stormwater system includes 8.4 miles of pipe installed in 1880—45 years past standard lifespan—while 16% of properties face severe flooding risk over the next 30 years.
When floods hit in June, more than 50 roads washed out across St. Louis County. Highway 1 between Ely and Isabella stayed closed for weeks while crews rebuilt sections of roadway. Meteorologists analyzed the heaviest rainfall as 500-1000 year events. It required a Presidential Disaster Declaration for 22 counties.
The stormwater system needs $4 million annually for maintenance but operates on much less. Replacing one mile of aging pipe costs $907,000. The city expects an 85% increase in days over 90°F.
But people keep coming because everywhere else feels worse.
On Park Point, the seven-mile sand spit between Lake Superior and the harbor, billionaire Kathy Cargill spent 2021-2024 buying 14 homes and tearing down 12 of them. When the News Tribune asked about her plans, she threatened to sue. When residents expressed concern, she called the houses "pieces of crap" and told the Wall Street Journal that Duluth was a "small-minded community." The median price of Park Point homes jumped from $520,000 to $665,000 in one year. Wealth moving in at that scale.
The city's efforts feel necessary but insufficient. Mayor Emily Larson's administration dedicated $19.2 million in American Rescue Plan funding to housing, the largest allocation in Minnesota. A 60-unit affordable project in West Duluth should open early next year. The city declared climate change an emergency in 2021.
Shaina Nickila, president of the Lake Superior Area Realtors board, told me she thinks about her own kids: "Are they going to be able to afford a home if this continues?" She's part of the system helping newcomers find housing while watching longtime residents get priced out. Including potentially her own children.
I've spent two months talking to Indigenous leaders watching their people pushed out. Newcomers grateful for clean air while navigating an impossible housing market. City officials planning for a future arriving faster than infrastructure can handle. Everyone trying to figure out what happens when one community's refuge becomes another's displacement.
Back at the American Indian Community Housing Organization, Littlewolf is already working on the next project, trying to create more units, knowing that whatever they build won't be enough. Four hundred applications for 29 units. The math tells you everything about who gets refuge and who doesn't.
The "climate haven" label assumes a stable refuge. Everyone here is living in the gap between that promise and the 145-year-old pipes, the missing 4,000 affordable units, the families sleeping outside because there's nowhere else to go. Diver's question about clean water wasn't rhetorical. Nobody knows if the answer is yes.
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Wadena West housing project: The 60-unit affordable housing development in West Duluth expects to welcome its first residents by January or February 2026, providing a concrete test of whether new construction can address displacement pressures.
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UMD climate migration research: Researchers at the University of Minnesota Duluth Bureau of Business and Economic Research are working to put firm numbers to population changes driven by climate migration, which could finally quantify what realtors and housing officials are seeing anecdotally.
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Duluth's winter warming trend: A 2017 report revealed that Duluth's winters are among the fastest warming in the United States, with average December-February temperatures now 5.8 degrees higher than in 1970, challenging the "climate refuge" narrative in unexpected ways.
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Wildfire risk assessment: Despite its reputation as climate-proof, 63% of all properties in Duluth have some risk of being affected by wildfire over the next 30 years, revealing vulnerabilities that climate migrants might not anticipate.