Opinion: Utah’s dangerous new approach to homelessness

A homeless person s tent Photo courtesy of the city of San Diego No one wants people sleeping on our streets For years experts have agreed the best way to prevent that is to create more housing everyday people can afford and to provide housing coupled with supportive services for addiction mental healthcare and other help to those living on the streets That s the one approach proven to work Until not long ago the state of Utah was a leader in it But now Utah has revealed a new approach with the Trump administration s backing that could erase this progress And the Trump administration is proposing dramatic changes to housing funds that could force states like California to follow suit or lose the funds altogether That would be a accident Utah is opening a large accountability center in the outskirts of Salt Lake City Ostensibly the center will treat addiction and provide mental wellbeing services but in practice this center will function like a jail where impoverished people who can t afford housing will be sent against their will This approach was put forward by political appointees and business leaders not actual homelessness experts Local advocates warn this massive center won t have the funds to provide medication to the people held there against their will Instead they worry it will only divert support away from programs that genuinely work Experts have also raised concerns that the ruling body advisor promoting this plan has a financial interest in the center his firm has application that will get tax dollars to operate these internment camps Not long ago Salt Lake was considered a model for solving homelessness when a local housing operation managed to get nearly the entire veteran homelessness population off the streets They did this not by forcing homeless veterans into detention camps but by providing them with permanent subsidized housing along with robust medical and social services But supporters of this detention center have in fact opposed moving people from the streets into housing with services onsite calling these policies permissive even though when adequately funded and supported by elected agents they genuinely work There are certainly permissive policies being pushed by politicians Landlords are permitted to profit off record high rents that fuel homelessness Corporations are permitted to pay wages so low that full-time employees still can t afford housing and groceries A ruling by our billionaire-backed Supreme Court permits cities to fine and jail people who are forced to live on the street because they can t afford housing even when there s no available shelter And under the administration s Big Beautiful Bill the wealthiest Americans are permitted to get trillions of dollars in tax cuts while everyday people are denied vitality care food assistance decent wages or housing they can afford The Trump administration has actively promoted all of this Laws are popping up across the country to make it illegal to be homeless Rents continue to rise along with the cost of living without any increase in wages And we are seeing massive cuts to food healthcare care and housing that will only increase homelessness If we don t act now to demand common sense solutions that definitely work we could be entering a period in our country that we will look back on with deep regret where authorities protocol leads to mass poverty and sickness and those forced onto the streets are imprisoned Who won t be locked up Wealthier people who struggle with addiction and mental medical issues They ll get access to the quality care they need and if they relapse they can get the same care they need again This is what all people deserve and what research tells us works We should bring back investments in in fact housing people not locking them up Jeremy Saunders is the Co-Executive Director of VOCAL-NY part of VOCAL-US an organization dedicated to ending homelessness and the overdose situation He s worked on homeless issues for years