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Letter: How about creating a designated campground for the homeless in Salt Lake City?

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sisters Natalie and Lucie Sullivan, volunteers from the Food Justice Coalition, deliver food to people experiencing homelessness, on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2021.

In the best of all possible worlds, we would have enough housing for all the homeless. But it’s not and we don’t. So how about use one of the big parking lots, or the old disused campground on North Temple, and set up a designated campground. Mark it off so each person or couple would have their own space for their tent; then you could have a storage area, where they could keep their stuff; portable toilets, a place for Volunteers for America and other social welfare organizations, drug counseling, and so on.

Many of them don’t want to go to shelters because of COVID, so in a designated camp they could all be tested and even vaccinated. And they could have their pets, another reason many won’t go to a shelter. The old campground on North Temple is on TRAX and bus lines, so they could get around. They could police themselves and help each other, since they’d all be in one place. It would be a lot cheaper and cause much less anguish and anger than simply bulldozing their camps periodically.

Roy Webb, Salt Lake City

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