This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
City and county governments have lost control of the homeless issue due to their significant degree of dysfunctional communication and coordination. It seems like government officials need to take a page from the business playbook to develop a solution.
I do not buy into the narrative that government should run differently than a business. I served on senior management teams during the "go go" years of the commercial internet (1994-2003). My clients were large corporations (Wells Fargo, Union Bank of California) and 12 internet startups. The team's first and foremost responsibility was to communicate and work with all departments to develop a strategy then implement that strategy.
Interestingly, the startup teams were able to work and communicate with each other more easily than the larger, established corporations. It would have been unthinkable for the marketing department to develop a plan, and then announce it without including the sales team.
When Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski announced the sites for new homeless resource centers, two of my Facebook friends, both members of the City Council, posted that they were not consulted. When Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams announced facility plans, the mayor of South Salt Lake was not consulted and found about it while on a radio show. McAdams criticized Biskupski's plan to swiftly close Road Home shelter. They hadn't talked about this before? This is political sniping.
Draper Mayor Troy Walker's acceptance of a shelter, though well intended, was announced two days before the state-set deadline without consulting his community.
McAdams and Biskupski had a meeting recently about a short term plan, an idea proffered some time before by Sheriff Jim Winder, but did not include him in the meeting, saying: "It was a mayor's meeting." Jason Mathis of the Downtown Alliance disagrees with the plan and I can only assume that the sheriff and Mathis did not meet before to discuss the plan.
No, just no. Not on our tax dollars.
The insensitive Draper meeting is symptomatic of the need for a new approach. The mayors, the sheriff, the Downtown Alliance and others are in no small way responsible for the anger from the community because officials have not developed a convincing nor comprehensive plan, and have not convinced the community that they have the ability to do so.
The narrative around the issue has been and continues to be about locating new facilities in neighborhoods which has drawn acclaim except from communities that may receive such facilities. Communities fear the potential of stabbings and drug dealings mainly because they are not convinced government has a plan to prevent such. While there are references in writing and some oral narratives, there is no plan that states convincingly to the community how to prevent homelessness and how the current homeless will become productive citizens, the end product. Neighborhoods are envisioning recycling facilities, not solutions.
I spoke some time ago with Kevin Pelltier, the board chair of the nonprofit Weingart Center in Los Angeles, which addresses homelessness. He has been working on the issue for 30 years. He noted that the ACLU has made it difficult to address the issue as it focuses on civil rights, and justifiably so. I then asked Pelltier if he had asked the ACLU to the solutions table, and he said no.
McAdams' recent statement to turn over the issue to a nonprofit gives me pause. Challenge the business community to call a meeting of stakeholders to include the ACLU, business leaders, federal, state and local government (enforcement, elected, agencies), NGOs, UTA, healthcare providers and, yes, managers of the prison systems. In the same room they: 1) develop a plan focused on evolving the homeless that are able to work into productive citizens and solutions for the outliers (e.g., mentally challenged, addicted); 2) commit in-kind, time, and financial resources to implement the plan; and 3) promote the plan to the public. This plan needs to include, before facilities are built, services to address the current populations in the streets.
Government as it currently functions cannot solve such large societal problems alone. Governing elected officials focus far too often on re-election while businesses focus on results. Government tends to function in bureaucratic silos ("It's not my responsibility"). The success of internet companies is in a large part due to an absolute rejection of bureaucratic concepts: They function as free form communicators and teams where everyone's responsibility is shared.
Terry Marasco is on the board of Utah Moms for Clean Air and was a senior customer contact consultant getting banks and startups on line during the internet's early commercial development.