Does Utah need a homeless boss? Sweeping bill to restructure system OK’d Ashley Imlay © Laura Seitz, Deseret News Soren Simonsen, executive director of the Jordan River Commission, takes down information as to where he is seeing homeless camps during the 2021 Point-in-Time count, a nationwide annual event to survey people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021. A Utah House committee on Thursday OK’d a sweeping bill to restructure a homeless governance system in the state.
SALT LAKE CITY A Utah House panel offered early support to a bill that would create a central leader on homelessness and make other sweeping changes after a study late last year identified several issues with the state’s homeless services system.
Utah House committee approves bill that would make changes to the state s confusing homeless system governance
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Robert Gehrke: The pandemic makes Utahâs homeless situation more complicated than ever
More people are camping outside or getting vouchers to stay in hotels.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Robert Gehrke.
  | Dec. 23, 2020, 2:00 p.m.
Theyâre down by the library or at Pioneer Park, clustering under overpasses and in lots, the makeshift homeless camps that seem to be as widespread and jammed pack as theyâve ever been.
As with everything during the pandemic, the coronavirus has exacerbated the inequities in our society and made one of our most intractable problems many times worse.
âThere is always going to be some amount of unsheltered homelessness in our community and I think we can be smart about how we respond to that,â Michelle Hoon, the project and policy manager with Salt Lake Cityâs Homeless Engagement and Response Team, told me, âbut I think the pandemic has made it a lot more challenging.â
More than 100 people protest Salt Lake County Health Department for homeless camp removals Sara Tabin
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kevin Nemelka joins Black Lives Matter and other groups, to protest the way the health department has been forcing people experiencing homelessness to move in the middle of a pandemic and the coldest time of the year, in front of the Salt Lake Public Health Center on Friday, Dec. 18, 2020. © Rick Egan
More than 100 advocates for unhoused people protested outside the Salt Lake County Health Department’s building at 610 S. 200 East on Friday because of recent homeless encampment clearings ordered by the Health Department.
Enabling street camping is not compassionate
The Pioneer Park Coalition issued the following statement:
As temperatures begin dropping to near freezing levels, scores of our fellow citizens will sleep on the streets tonight. Many of these individuals are caught in the grip of opioid addiction or struggling with severe mental health challenges. It shouldn’t be this way. The freezing temperatures aside, unsheltered individuals are more likely to become victims of violence and sexual assault too.
Across the city, beds are available at our state of the art resource centers, rooms are available at the new overflow shelter, and service providers with wrap around resources are ready to help. Strangely, some groups call any attempt to bring our unsheltered population reprieve from the dangers and hardship of street life “heartless”. These groups could use a reminder from the late Mother Theresa who told us, Poverty doesn t only consist of being hungry for bread, but rather it
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