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ST. LOUIS — Yusef Scoggin refers to the divided nature of government in the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ region as our “Achilles heelâ€� — a weak point that often fails, stopping progress in its tracks.

The city of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ is separate from the county of the same name, and that county has more than 80 municipalities. Then there are the surrounding counties of Jefferson, Franklin and St. Charles. And, of course, there’s the other part of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, across the Mississippi River in Illinois, with its Madison and St. Clair and Monroe counties.

“The fractured nature of our community has plagued us for many years,â€� Scoggin told a crowd of leaders from those various places on Tuesday afternoon at in north ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.

Trying to get all those government entities rowing in the same direction is a challenge no matter what the issue.

This week, though, leaders from across the region came together to announce a promise: they want to tackle one of the big problems that for too long has had people pointing fingers at each other.

“I believe that we can all solve homelessness together,â€� ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Mayor Tishaura O. Jones said at Tuesday’s unveiling of a broad plan labeled “Housing First STL.â€�

All of the elected leaders of the have committed to the plan.

Earlier this year, following a previous process to address violent crime, Jones asked fellow elected officials in the region to convene a summit on homelessness.

The result is a first-of-its-kind plan for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ that recommends a coordinated system to get people quickly into housing. Nonprofits currently serving the unhoused population would work together to unify their disparate systems, under the guidance of an anchor institution. That will be the next critical step: who’s in charge?

A key to the plan, modeled after successful efforts in Houston, Dallas, Milwaukee and elsewhere, is accessing money from the business and philanthropic communities. Then, the goal would be to push the hodgepodge of organizations serving unhoused people to focus on a “housing first� philosophy.

There’s one big hurdle to overcome: the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ region doesn’t have enough affordable housing. And getting local governments to change their laws so people can more easily get into shelters, transitional housing or apartments will be difficult. Witness the bill signing in City Hall that took place shortly after the Housing First plan was unveiled. It took two years for the bill to get to that point.

But after several twists and turns, Jones finally signed the bill, , that creates zoning options for a variety of special housing circumstances. It should help the city overcome its current shortage of affordable housing.

“This bill complements what that (Housing First) system needs to be,� said Adam Pearson, the city’s director of human services and a key leader in the regional housing summit.

The plan produced by the Housing First summit will have to be developed by civic, business and nonprofit leaders. They will need to examine the most successful approaches in the region, work to adopt them across governmental boundaries and scale them to size.

Scoggin knows as well as anybody that the work won’t be easy. He’s run the human services departments in both ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ city and county, and he’s been executive director of a nonprofit that serves unhoused teens. Now he’s in philanthropy, serving as executive director of the Delmar Divine Charitable Foundation.

Getting past the region’s parochialism will take sustained effort, Scoggin says, and it will require lasting power beyond the next election for mayor or county executive in the various entities that make up the East-West Gateway Council of Governments.

“We have all the elements already in ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ needed to do this work,â€� said Samantha Stangl, executive director of the nonprofit . “It’s just a matter of connecting the dots.â€�