He would walk down Superior Street, greeting the homeless and hungry by name, and they'd reciprocate. Everyone in Duluth knew Steve O'Neil, especially the destitute souls he championed.
"Steve O'Neil was indeed the Mother Teresa of Duluth," businessman Bruce Stender said Tuesday of the longtime advocate of Duluth's homeless and poor. O'Neil succumbed to cancer Monday, a day after turning 63.
O'Neil, who won his third term on the St. Louis County Board last November, was better known for creating Duluth's Loaves and Fishes community, a combination of community activism and religious faith that became a voice for the homeless.
A Chicago native who earned a master's degree at the University of Minnesota Duluth in the 1970s, O'Neil and his wife, Angie Miller, made advocacy a part of their daily lives.
They took homeless people into their home. O'Neil worked with the American Lung Association during its campaign to end smoking in Minnesota restaurants and bars. In addition to their two children, O'Neil and Miller helped raise 25 foster children.
"For people who were poor, people who didn't have a voice, people who lived on the margin, he helped give them hope," said Sister Lois Eckes, of the Benedictine Sisters of Scholastica Monastery in Duluth. "He made everyone feel respected and important, showing genuine love and concern, always listening with his heart."
Jim Soderberg, former executive director of CHUM, a nonprofit that stands for Churches United in Ministry, said O'Neil loved talking to people, but was a better listener.
"You'd walk down the street with Steve and it would take you forever to walk a block," Soderberg remembered. "He was open and courageous. He was respectful, bright and passionate — even when dealing with people who had strong disagreements with him.
