A man who has worked in multiple countries to improve homeless services has agreed to debate Utah’s House speaker on the effectiveness of the police-led operation that cleared hundreds of people from a downtown Salt Lake City neighborhood and led to almost 1,700 arrests and counting.

The two men — consultant Iain De Jong and House Speaker Greg Hughes — clashed in recent days, with De Jong criticizing the approach of Operation Rio Grande and Hughes, an architect of the effort, defending the arrests and police activity.

Hughes didn’t respond to Tribune requests for comment. But in a Deseret News article Tuesday, he challenged De Jong to debate “anytime, anywhere.”

Around midnight Tuesday, De Jong gave his 21st Century response, via Twitter:

“If you are serious about a debate anytime & anywhere I am game,” De Jong wrote to Hughes from his business account, OrgCode. He picked Dec. 22.

.@GHughes51 If you are serious about a debate anytime & anywhere I am game. https://t.co/tpY386Yyf8 #gameon — OrgCode (@OrgCode) October 18, 2017

“Let’s set it up,” Hughes wrote back early Wednesday morning, telling De Jong to email him to get something scheduled. Asked later on Wednesday whether the debate was on, Hughes told The Tribune via text: “Ready and willing!”

Hughes proposed the debate after De Jong took to Twitter last week to dub the operation “a disaster.”

(Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune) Homelessness advocate, educator, Iain De Jong speaks at a breakout session to Utah homeless service providers at Utah's 14th Annual Homelessness Summit in Salt Lake City Wednesday Oct. 11. He spoke on housing-focused services in shealter and when to encourage self resolution.

He also irked Hughes and other leaders of Operation Rio Grande when he tweeted during a homeless summit in Salt Lake City: “Panel of privileged white people talking about homelessness &addiction is clearly about social control, not social service.”

In response, Hughes wrote a public Facebook post that critics like De Jong were wrong.

“Who are you going to believe? This out of state guy who heralded Utah’s grand success of ending homelessness prior to Operation Rio Grande,” Hughes asked, “or the five senses God gave you that are in perfect working condition?”

When Hughes was contacted by The Tribune on Tuesday to discuss his response to De Jong’s criticism of Operation Rio Grande, a board member for a local treatment center called instead.

“Greg Hughes is a conservative, but the guy’s put skin in the game on this,” said Travis Wood, the Odyssey House board member. “His ideas, personally, I think they’re correct.”

Hughes told the Deseret News the criticism “doesn’t speak well to whatever contract he has or whatever expertise he’s being asked to bring to our effort.”

De Jong has consulted with Salt Lake County for “many years,” he said. He’s been working under contract to help as the region moves to close The Road Home downtown and open three new, smaller “resource centers” in summer 2019.

He said the “lion’s share” of his work under that contract is done. He’s answering any questions architects may have as they design the three new shelters, two in Salt Lake City and one in South Salt Lake, he said. Officials from Shelter the Homeless, the nonprofit board overseeing the shelter reform, didn’t immediately respond to questions about De Jong’s contract and involvement.

De Jong said last week the state launched the crackdown near the homeless shelter downtown without first securing housing and treatment options.

“It’s happening in the wrong order,” De Jong said Tuesday. He added the arrests occurring during what’s described as phase one of a three-phase, two-year effort would make it more difficult for people to achieve housing if they’re arrested in the initial response.

State and local officials say the arrests that have occurred have helped separate homeless individuals who are near Rio Grande for the services that exist there from criminals and drug dealers who prey on them.

As of last week, most of the nearly 1,700 arrests made in the opening weeks of the operation were later released within several days, according to data obtained by The Tribune.

The massive array of state and local agencies working on the operation are trying to rapidly expand treatment beds available to residents suffering from addiction. De Jong says they should have started by opening up more housing options.