×
×
homepage logo
SUBSCRIBE

Not a ‘bed crisis’ but a ‘human crisis’: How a top homeless leader wants to change Utah’s system

Chair of Utah’s Homeless Services board wants Utah to take a ‘human first approach’ while calling on SLC to more consistently ‘enforce the law’ against camping, drugs

By Katie McKellar - Utah News Dispatch | Nov 25, 2024
1 / 3
People hang out outside St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall, which offers meals to people in need, especially those experiencing homelessness, in Salt Lake City on Saturday, May 25, 2024.
2 / 3
Randy Shumway, chair of the Utah Homeless Services Board, speaks during a town hall on homelessness at the Thomas S. Monson Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024.
3 / 3
Joseph Grenny, left, co-founder of The Other Side Academy, and Randy Shumway, chair of the Utah Homeless Services Board, speak during a town hall on homelessness at the Thomas S. Monson Center in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024.

A town hall held Thursday night was advertised as a meeting to discuss the vision for a 30-acre “transformative” campus meant to house and rehabilitate up to 1,200 of Utah’s homeless at a time — a project that state leaders are currently working in secret to choose a property for somewhere along the Wasatch Front.

But instead, the forum — hosted by the advocacy group Solutions Utah — included two lengthy and passionate presentations by Randy Shumway, chairman of the Utah Homeless Services Board, and Joseph Grenny, co-founder of The Other Side Academy, focused on something much bigger: how Utah’s homeless system needs to change.

Shumway (who holds a position leading the state’s powerful body that distributes crucial funding and oversees the state’s homeless service providers) and Grenny (whose nonprofit offers an accountability-based residential training program where “criminals, homeless and substance abusers can change their lives”) presented how they think Utah could do better in its efforts to help the state’s most vulnerable.

To a room full of homeless service providers and community members at the Thomas S. Monson Center in Salt Lake City, Shumway said Utah’s homeless system needs to undergo a shift — both in philosophy and measured results — to better serve and rehabilitate Utah’s homeless. Another top homeless official, state homeless coordinator Wayne Niederhauser, was in the audience.

“Tonight my entire thesis is that we have been measuring the wrong things,” Shumway said. “And the result is that in many ways we have misdiagnosed the root problems, we’ve misdefined it, and not surprisingly we have ‘misresolved’ — yes, that’s a made up word — but we have ‘misresolved’ the root problem.”

Shumway said the root problem shouldn’t be defined as homelessness, “because the natural inclination” then becomes to solve homelessness with “bricks and mortar.”

“When in reality,” he said, “a better definition would be trauma.” He argued Utah’s homeless system should first and foremost focus on addressing and treating whatever trauma — whether it may be a loss of a job, medical issues, mental illness, addiction, or what have you — along with providing a safe place to live.

Shumway acknowledged that the forum was advertised as one that would explore the 1,200-bed homeless “centralized campus,” which the Utah Homeless Services Board has told state officials must be built by Oct. 1, 2025. But, he said, “neither Joseph or I feel equipped to come in and talk about a physical facility.”

“Because it is just that, a physical facility,” he said. “What we’ve got to create are solutions that encircle individuals to help them improve in life.”

Showing a slide with a list of local headlines focusing on the 1,200-bed campus — which would include the largest homeless shelter the state has ever seen — Shumway said the media too often focuses on “the physical facilities rather than the human crisis that is actually surrounding this population.”

He acknowledged that, “yes, we are exploring a transformative, centralized campus.” But, he said state officials are a long way off from actually building that campus. “We’re just not there yet. We are in the data finding, the data collection phase. But I can’t emphasize enough the bricks and mortar is not going to solve the problem. It’s a human crisis, and so we’ve got to be talking about human solutions.”

“This is not a bed crisis. This is a human crisis,” Shumway said. “And we have to therefore take a human first approach.”

Grenny, during his presentation, said Shumway’s call for a “human first” focus is a “central thesis” at The Other Side Academy — and at The Other Side Village, a tiny-home community for the chronically homeless, at 1850 W. Indiana Ave. in Salt Lake City that’s been under construction for years and is now getting closer to opening.

Grenny argued it’s “bigoted,” “condescending” and “deeply flawed” to believe people experiencing homelessness, no matter their situation, aren’t capable of working to improve their own lives.

“There is enormous potential in even the most marginalized populations,” he said. “They’re capable of extraordinary things. But we need to believe in them until they hurt. We need to believe in them and hold those expectations until the stress of our expectations helps them to reach beyond their perceived current limits.”

‘Human first’ versus ‘Housing First’

Shumway’s call for a “human first approach” contrasts with a model that homeless providers in Utah have used for years known as “Housing First,” which prioritizes placing people experiencing homelessness in permanent supportive housing as a first step, then offering services including substance abuse and mental health treatment.

However, Shumway said chronic homelessness in Utah has grown. The state’s 2023 point-in-time count, which took place on a single night in January that year, identified 1,004 people who met the state’s definition of chronic homelessness, making up 27% of the total number of people experiencing homelessness that night, according to a state report. That was up 96% from the 512 people experiencing chronic homelessness during the 2019 point-in-time count.

Shumway made his case for “why I think a fundamental change in philosophy and strategy — regardless of physical facilities — is key to coming to the rescue of this population.”

He pointed to the “guiding principles” document the Utah Homeless Services Board recently voted to adopt, meant to “bolster” Utah’s existing plan to tackle homelessness.

That document  includes a “framework” titled “The Pathway to Human Thriving” that’s meant to help homeless service providers “identify current needs and what incremental progress should focus on based on an individual’s situation.” It organizes needs (mental health, substance use, employment, physical health, housing, legal issues and social issues) based on whether an individual is “struggling, surviving or thriving.”

Using that framework, state officials are also implementing a “know by name” system that “provides each individual a care plan that is based on this pathway to human thriving,” Shumway said.

“As the state of Utah, we are no longer defining success as mere food and shelter,” Shumway said. “We are defining success that’s helping each and every individual realize the dignity that is inherent in each of us. We are in the business of improving human lives, and that’s how we’re going to measure success.”

He said leaders also must “align and coordinate” with homeless providers and other stakeholders around the state “on common objectives, metrics and systems.”

“A successful model will include health care to the individuals on the street. It’ll include a campus of various shelter options, including tiered, low barriers, sanctioned shelter,” he said. “It’ll have a heavy, heavy emphasis on efficacious wraparound services with safety, accountability, rewards and appreciation to help individuals as they make improvements.”

Shumway’s ‘legislative priorities’

In his presentation Shumway included a slide listing eight “legislative priorities” for state leaders to focus on. Some are already being implemented, while others haven’t yet been pursued. Shumway noted, however, that they were not “fully fleshed out” and acknowledged that at least one may be considered controversial.

They included:

  • Ensure the Salt Lake City Police Department consistently enforces the law
  • Integrate the ‘know by name’ care program statewide
  • Predictable, ongoing revenue for operations and wrap-around services
  • Transformative centralized campus
  • Allow intercept and diversion to mandate shelter, treatment, and even involuntary commitment for those posing very high risk to themselves and others
  • Implement criminal justice reform that focuses on healing and lasting recovery
  • Drug-free zones at shelters, and transitional and permanent supportive housing
  • Accountability for transitional, permanent supportive, and long-term subsidized housing programs through outcome-based funding

Calls on Salt Lake City to do more

Shumway zeroed in on Salt Lake City, in particular, arguing that the fentanyl crisis is particularly sharp in Utah’s capital city. He also said the city should do more to consistently enforce its anti-camping ordinances as well as more aggressively go after drug dealing — even more so than current efforts, which already involve the DEA, the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office and Salt Lake City Police Department.

“One of the very worst things we do for individuals experiencing trauma is unsanctioned camping,” Shumway said, adding that allowing people to camp on the streets leaves them vulnerable to dangerous situations, including violence, sexual assault and drugs.

Shumway argued police “have to kindly, humanely and very consistently enforce the law,” though he acknowledged crackdowns on camping have been met with pushback, including concerns around civil rights.

“I have heard comments like, ‘we can’t criminalize homelessness'” Shumway said. “No, but we can criminalize criminality. We need to come to the rescue of people who are being preyed upon.”

He said he’s also heard arguments that “you can’t force somebody who is shelter resistant,” which he dismissed as an “indefensible argument.”

“That’s like saying you can’t force somebody in a school zone to not speed because they’re school zone speed resistant,” he said. “No. Society operates on law and order.”

Shumway said that while well-intentioned people think they’re being “humane by allowing” on-street camping to persist, he argued the opposite, that “we’re being inhumane by allowing this to continue.”

“The reality is that the chaos and instability that we’re experiencing on our streets is hurting our most vulnerable the absolute worst,” he said. “It is perpetuating the root problems that they’re experiencing.”

Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall has argued that Salt Lake City does enforce its anti-camping ordinances, but she has also repeatedly pointed out that shelters have been operating at max capacity, making it difficult to provide places for everyone to go. For years she has also been urging the state and other cities to help increase shelter capacity — and plans to build the 1,200-bed homeless campus is the most significant step toward answering that call. However, its deadline isn’t until next fall.

Additionally, Mendenhall has said the fentanyl crisis is an issue that’s bigger than any one city, including Salt Lake City, can tackle, while also pointing out that Salt Lake City police are already working alongside the DEA to seize drugs and arrest dealers.

Still, Shumway argued the Salt Lake City Police Department (which has a roughly $120 million budget) should be doing more to stop being a “petri dish for really, really bad behavior that is harming our most vulnerable population the worst.”

“There are municipalities that are doing much more with much less,” he told Utah News Dispatch in an interview after his presentation. “We need to stop providing excuses for why we have to live in an environment in chaos and lawlessness that is creating so much harm … and instead start coming up with reasons why we can create predictability and safety, particularly for those who are suffering the most.”

All this costs money. Will they ask for more from the 2025 Utah Legislature?

Shumway told Utah News Dispatch he’s working with Niederhauser (a former Utah Senate president who now works on behalf of the governor’s office to negotiate for funding for homeless services) to tackle his listed “legislative priorities.”

“I think a lot of them can be accomplished in the 2025 session,” he said. “Yes, we are meeting with legislators constantly.”

He didn’t provide specifics, but he pointed to one priority — to provide “predictable, ongoing revenue for operations and wrap-around services” — as one issue Niederhauser has been working on.

Niederhauser told Utah News Dispatch in an interview after Thursday’s forum that he is indeed working on a “dedicated funding stream” for homeless services. In past years, Niederhauser said he has advocated for dedicating a portion of the state’s profits on alcohol toward homelessness, but he said that proposal “didn’t get traction.”

“Having been in the Legislature I know when to give up and move on to something else,” he said.

So now, he said he’s exploring possibly pursuing other ideas, like perhaps an optional local sales tax increase that the Legislature could authorize “a locality like Salt Lake County or any county in the state to enact.”

“So those types of things are being discussed,” he said. “A dedicated funding stream — with accountability.”

All the priorities Shumway has outlined will take resources — and money — Niederhauser acknowledged. “This isn’t going to be cheap,” he said. “We’re going to need the resources to make it happen.”

It’s not clear yet, though, what the Legislature will do.

Regarding the larger, philosophical goals Shumway discussed, Niederhauser said he doesn’t think “it’s a 180-degree change” from the direction Utah’s homeless system is already heading. He said one of the things state officials are working on with the “know by name” pilot program in Weber County is “the consistency and the intensity of case management.”

“Where there’s strong case management,” he said, “you have better outcomes.”

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.