This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Efforts by officials to move the downtown emergency shelter and disperse homeless people to different neighborhoods is receiving a lot of press. The Legislature, along with local governments and philanthropists, has pledged financial support to relocate homeless people away from west downtown. Neighborhoods selected for new shelters worry their property values will decrease and crime will increase. Meanwhile, west downtown developers will see values rise rapidly.
Salt Lake County's previous homeless crisis dates to the 1980s, when agencies last really focused attention on an alarming increase in the number of homeless people. Reasons determined back then for the growing numbers were lack of affordable housing, jobs, medical catastrophe, death of a spouse, followed by behavioral health and addiction issues.
In 2008, with the national economic downturn, a new crisis developed that is still being felt. While Utah has seen a gain of well over 1,000 permanent supportive housing units, there has also been a surge in the number of new people who cannot hold onto housing, and thus the homeless cycle has become a chronic condition.
Depending on the perspective, homeless people are variously described as needing substance treatment, lazy and dependent on social welfare or in need of a social safety net. In all these scenarios, they also obstruct plans for new development.
In 2016-17, government officials announcing new plans to "(re-)solve our homeless crisis" may have forgotten that everything they have rolled out has been tried before, with the exception of dispersal of services to new neighborhoods. What we have not learned is that the way to reduce homelessness is not through scattering services but to finally address affordable housing, job training, health insurance and meaningful addiction and behavioral health treatment.
A new generation of Millennials is now confronted with low-paying jobs, lack of affordable housing and the threat of homelessness. This means, potentially, your sons and daughters, the children of your neighbors, and people in your churches may become homeless. We are switching from manufacturing and service jobs to specialized technology in our industries, and even taxi drivers are in jeopardy for their jobs. These changes take a huge toll on poor people and are becoming more and more acute, as we see the costs of replacing human labor with artificially intelligent (AI) robots in the workplace and contracted workers with no health care or other coverage.
The new plans do not sufficiently confront issues of affordable housing, jobs or treatment for behavioral health issues. Meanwhile, homelessness continues to be criminalized, jails serve as de facto shelters, homeless youth become homeless adults, and neighborhoods continue to say "not in my backyard."
An article in the early 1980s described homelessness as the cracked mirror image of American society. The converse is now true. In 2017, the perverse amount of wealth held by 1 percent of our population is our cracked mirror image. Homeless and near-homeless people still cannot find decent paying jobs, housing, and affordable health insurance that could move them out of the lowest echelons of poverty. Charity, our default mode, helps stem the tide but also creates a dependency between the rich and poor that does not solve our hardest societal issues. Blaming homeless people for laziness and drug use is not, and has never been, the answer. They are excuses for not addressing the core issues that can change the lives of unemployed and underemployed people.
America was founded on the idea that we contribute through our government to provide resources for the benefit and fulfillment of all, and that democracy is more than just voting. Democracy still requires us to care about each other. Our 45th president is learning rapidly that running a business is easier than governing a nation. Our new administration must remember that homelessness is a national issue, and job creation must include those who have been neglected so long.
It is time the 1 percent "job creators" figure out how to use their vast wealth to help create a society that truly reflects American values. Upscale developments in old warehouse sectors, while increasing the wealth of already super-rich people, are not the answer. Building permanent affordable housing, providing meaningful training for new, innovative jobs, and single-pay health insurance with effective behavioral health treatment are still, after all these years, the key to getting the 1 percent of our poorest people out of extreme poverty.
Allan Ainsworth is founder and retired CEO of Fourth Street Clinic, retired University of Utah professor and advocate for disenfranchised people.