“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.”
That statement, attributed in various phraseologies to the journalist/essayist H. L. Mencken, is certainly true of the problem of homelessness in every major city, including Salt Lake City.
I will be the first to acknowledge that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to all aspects of the issue.
Some of the homeless are in that condition because of unforeseen personal circumstances, and they need help. Some are on the streets because the price of housing is stupidly high — thanks, in large part, to NIMBYs. They need more affordable housing near where they work. (Full disclosure, my day job is to represent developers trying to build housing in the face of often stupid opposition.)
Others are unhoused because of drug or mental health problems, and they need treatment. But, of course, we as a society are too cheap to help subsidize that need so mostly we just let them wander, untreated, like (mostly) harmless zombies on public streets.
For those groups of people, there are no easy solutions.
But for a different group of the homeless, the criminal class who chose to support themselves on the street at the expense of the innocent people who live, work and own property in downtown Salt Lake City, there is a simple solution that is not wrong: Criminals belong in jail, and we as a society should do what it takes to put them there and to keep them there.
And it can be done. But it does take some sophistication. It takes recognizing that not all criminal conduct has the same consequences.
Sleeping on a sidewalk and even urinating/defecating in public, while repulsive, are not the same magnitude of offense as theft and burglary. If we have limited resources, as we do now and probably always will, then we need to allocate those resources intelligently. And we are not doing so at this time.
In April, my house was burglarized by two people who were, as far as I can tell, homeless. The Salt Lake City Police Department caught them in the act — as I watched on my security cameras — and took them to jail.
I had originally understood from SLCPD that both men were released immediately. I was wrong, and I apologize for that error. I later found out that one of them had an outstanding warrant for one of several prior violations and was transported to Davis County jail. According to police records at the time he burglarized my home, he was out of jail from prior violations even though he admitted to violating his parole in that case. The other person, also with a lengthy prior record, was let out of jail within 72 hours of breaking into my home because — I’ve been told — the district attorney hadn’t received files from SLCPD. He quickly proceeded to break into another person’s home and then to steal a truck from yet another person.
Many of the arrests resulted in very low bail and often that bail, as I understand it, is simply a “promise to appear or pay.” With no security for the payment. A promise to pay from a homeless/jobless person. That doesn’t make much sense to me.
Since this story broke, I have talked with numerous police officers, a few mayors and a few prosecutors, all of whom have horror stories to tell about how this revolving door is hurting society. A SLCPD officer I know tells stories of nurses affiliated with Salt Lake County Pretrial Services (which evaluates charged criminals for release and which, bizarrely, is run out of the County’s Department of Health) giving wink-and-a-nod advice to the homeless to claim a medical need to not go to jail.
The chief of the SLCPD has stated on the record that, to paraphrase, his department has been instructed to not arrest non-violent criminals because an arrest would put those persons farther down the list for getting the treatments and services that they need — essentially that he values the future possibility of threatening homeless criminals over the rights of innocent victims.
If Chief Mike Brown would like to debate me about this in a public forum, instead of responding with an equivocating press release as I suspect that he will, I would be happy to do so at any time and at any place. I actually dare him to do so. But I know that he won’t have the guts to do so.
There are a few simple solutions:
Homeless people who steal, burglarize or commit violent crimes should be arrested. I know that the SLCPD line officers will do that if they can.
The DA’s office should file charges on this class of people within 72 hours so that the jail does not release them.
Pretrial Services should not consider homelessness as a get-out-of-jail-free card. And neither should judges.
There should be no release for these types of crime based on a “promise to appear or pay.”
The jail (and the prison) should have enough beds and staff to keep this group of criminals locked up if they are convicted.
And we, as a society, need to pay enough in taxes (or in cuts to other programs) to pay for this outcome.
I know that people who live, work, shop and play in some parts of Salt Lake County may not see the urgency in paying for these services, as the homeless don’t usually live in Sandy, Herriman, South Jordan or other similar places. But, as a society in Utah, we face the choice of letting our capital city go the way of Los Angeles, San Francisco or Seattle. I have been to each of those cities in the last year, and certain areas of their downtowns are hellscapes.
We must choose to do better.
Bruce Baird
Bruce Baird is a mostly retired lawyer who lives in downtown Salt Lake City. He primarily represents real estate developers regarding large, master-planned new developments along the Wasatch Front. He has previously also worked on numerous political campaigns. Full disclosure, Baird represents the Gateway regarding a request by Catholic Community Services to expand the Weigand Center. The opinions stated above are Baird’s personal opinions and not necessarily those of any of his clients.
Correction, Sept. 14: 8 a.m.: This has corrected information about a man being released from Davis County Jail within 72 hours.