Rebuttal to Mayor Mendenhall on SLC’s Homelessness Crisis

by LONI NEWBY, Unsheltered Utah Secretary

Earlier this month, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall gave a moving speech about the concerns and approaches that should be taken to ensure the safety and well-being of the city’s unsheltered population while maintaining suitable conditions for the housed population and business owners in the area. Since that speech, several abatements have taken place each week, being common for multiple camps to be forced to move in a single day. 

From a logistical standpoint, this has scattered our unsheltered neighbors to spaces much farther from the services they need, like access to public transportation, proximity to free food providers sources, and medical facilities. This has become a reckless practice that is repeatedly inflicting trauma and unsettling people who have no other legitimate options.

There are too few beds to support the current unsheltered population; therefore, forcing them to move without a viable destination is a Sisyphean effort. Mayor Mendenhall acknowledged that this population would likely grow as the pandemic assistance programs waned. And yet, the City has ramped up the regularity of abatements that move these folks down the road with no reasonable or safe place for the unhoused people to go.  “Our homeless resource centers have been operating near or at capacity, and too many people literally have nowhere to go,” said Mendenhall, vowing to restore the 300-bed shortfall that came with the closure of overflow programs. 

Due to our boots-on-the-ground outreach work of the nonprofit Unsheltered Utah, we perceive this estimate to be a gross underestimation of what is currently needed. If the emergency 300-bed request by Mendenhall is filled by Dec. 1, those shelter beds and overflow options will be full. There will continue to be a need for more. Based on the number of people encountered on outreach by Unsheltered Utah, even if there were 500 more beds available, they would likely be fully occupied, and there would still be folks facing hypothermia on the streets. 

We hope that an accurate, comprehensive Point In Time (PIT) Count will help alert those in leadership positions to acknowledge the extent to which the unsheltered population has grown in the past nine months. 

A step in the right direction was made at a state level when a Special Point in Time Count for Salt Lake County, Weber County, and Carbon County was scheduled for September 10. This data-gathering operation helps quantify the number of people residing in unstable housing situations, tents, cars, RVs, etc., as there are varying degrees of homelessness. 

According to endhomelessness.org, the count is performed in part to locate homeless individuals, connect them to services, help policymakers and program administrators set benchmarks for progress in addressing homelessness as a whole. This Special PIT Count should give a more accurate accounting of the number of unsheltered individuals residing on the streets than the limited interaction PIT Count that took place this winter during intense COVID-19 restrictions. 

These numbers are factored into nearly every aspect of programming and funding. Our fear, as an organization, is that unsheltered folks we interact with regularly may go uncounted again due to continuing abatements. Much to our dismay and dread of the most poverty-stricken and vulnerable population, abatements are now exceeding the level of assistance we can provide.

It’s become difficult for caseworkers to keep track of their clients. It is impossible to get people to the appointments scheduled to help them better themselves: housing appointments, medical and mental health appointments, court dates, and even providing their places of employment if they have been forced to relocate due to another abatement. 

This process is exhausting advocates and caseworkers alike as we try to calm people who have been pushed down the road like litter, all the while recognizing that their trauma is legitimate and that these practices are not helpful, kind, or cost-effective. If the people trying to help are this tired, imagine how those trying to survive this continuous push to become invisible must feel.

Mayor Mendenhall said, “Despite these efforts, the homeless services system remains unable to ensure that any person has a safe, sheltered space to sleep at night and access to the services they need to help them get back on their feet. This reality isn’t acceptable.” 

The Mayor has recognized that there are urgent needs; she said, “The gap between now and more permanent solutions ahead of us needs to be bridged.” She’s right. So let’s bridge the real, immediate gaps: give people a place to legally camp.

Like her call for a bridge option for mental health and addiction: We need an immediate middle-ground for simply surviving without a home. We propose rapid change, halting abatements, and implementing a managed camping site with services provided by volunteers and caseworkers, where community standards apply for occupying the space. 

Denver has done it successfully, so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We need the City's cooperation: land sanctioned to allow people to sleep, complete, and survive where they are legally entitled to stay until more permanent options become available. 

In Salt Lake City, the appearance and disappearance of camps of unsheltered people are bare of note until you witness the process with police tape, heavy equipment, and dejected individuals gathering all they can carry away from their camp. Comment sections of news stories lead folks to believe that only criminals, drug addicts, and other degenerates would choose a life on the street. These stereotypes harm the people who need assistance in the worst hardships of their lives. 

But isn’t there supposed to be a tiny house village for them? Eventually. There is a plan for long-term sheltering options that will allow some of that sense of independence while hopefully offering solutions for mental health issues, addiction cycles, and treatment for the many health conditions that go untreated on the street. To be successful, that program's barriers need to initially stay low, allow people to make the mistakes and relapses that are part of learning sobriety, and transition to higher expectations may help people prepare for higher housing standards. The ground has not been broken, and the summer is nearly at its end. 

Winter will not be kind, but we can be. 

We can dismiss harmful narratives about the choice to remain in this lifestyle. There are very few people who genuinely thrive in chronic homelessness. Most want nothing more than a door that locks and a space to call their own. Brick and mortar solutions are slow and costly, and this crisis is now. We have to address why people reject the limited options available to them legally. 

Mayor Erin Mendenhall gave an address on August 5, stating, “The overwhelming majority of those we attempt to help decline our assistance. And they do so for a variety of reasons, but the end outcome is the same. And we have to live in that reality. We have to address that reality. We can’t make good policy if we ignore this.” 

Yet Salt Lake City’s Mayor has failed to address why the beds are available, on the rare instances they are, go unfilled. Reasons for rejection include that communal-style shelters offer less privacy than occupying a tent. A zipper isn't much, but it provides an enclosure where personal space is one's own. 

As an advocate, I have been told repeatedly, there is more of a sense of safety and belonging through self-curated camps and street families than in large communal spaces with strangers. Some couples choose to stay outdoors together because they would be separated by gender in shelters. 

Rules and restrictions in the sheltering programs often feel like overreach when dealing with adults. Many opt for a sense of freedom versus feeling like they are being parented, or worse, incarcerated. Personal belongings must be limited, abandoned, or given away to meet the baggage allowance to enter traditional shelters. 

This property might seem scant; it might even seem worthless. But, for some unsheltered neighbors, it is all they have, all they have worked for, and all the currency they have to get other things they need. Each item clung to holds value, and to enter shelters, they were asked to discard these items.  

Or worse yet, if they don't seek shelter, they are susceptible to abatements where their personal property is destroyed and carted off. Casual cruelty isn't a good look for a city when it’s the headquarters of a religious establishment focused on family, faith, and service. Repeatedly investing money into damaging abatements only builds distrust for law enforcement, the health department, and the city. 

By establishing a managed sanctioned camping site, the City would be meeting people where they are, in a space that they have grown accustomed to dwelling in. Still, it would be improving their experience by removing elements of harassment and increasing access to services.

An outreach organization of the City’s choice can be designated to manage the area to ensure that needs are being met for the lowest tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, including food, water, warmth, and rest. Police will address safety concerns as needed, but each tent should be recognized as a personal dwelling—set guidelines for cleanliness and personal property organization. 

This campground can be established on a trial basis, with the informed consent of all campers that evictions can be made for not meeting the standards for the community. The City has funds from the American Rescue Plan earmarked for addressing the negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency; our unsheltered population has undeniably grown with the pandemic.

Funds could provide portable restrooms, warming shelters, shuttles to showers, and laundry facilities for less than the cost of near-constant abatements. Volunteers could fill in the gaps like we try to already. This designated area could be monitored for people experiencing temperature-related health concerns; education can be provided to help prevent carbon monoxide deaths and overdoses. 

It isn’t walls, and it isn’t forever, but it can certainly be home -- an olive branch to people who just want to survive another day. It can be a space to rest without being villainized for being impoverished. Until better options are physically available, the City can choose this bridge.

Once an adequate number of beds becomes available through shelters and the tiny home village, this bridge camping space can be phased out, or it may be embraced and replicated as needed when the unsheltered population continues to grow through this housing crisis. 

The fact is, there are some who will always reject existing shelter options, but sanctioned camping would give them a place to land without fear of being pushed down the road or be harassed for not being able to afford a roof overhead. Tent living is where many of these folks feel safest and most secure right now. Tents are homes and will more than likely remain their preference until better options that offer a balance of stability and independence become available. As Mendenhall said, we have to live in that reality; we can’t make good policy if we ignore this on-going and growing crisis.