To glimpse the future of homelessness policy in the age of President Trump, consider 16 acres of scrubby pasture on the outskirts of Salt Lake City where the state plans to place as many as 1,300 homeless people in what supporters call a services campus and critics deem a detention camp.
State planners say the site, announced last month after a secretive search, will treat addiction and mental illness and provide a humane alternative to the streets, where afflictions often go untreated and people die at alarming rates.
They also vow stern measures to move homeless people to the remote site and force many of them to undergo treatment, reflecting a nationwide push by some conservatives for a new approach to homelessness, one embraced and promoted by Mr. Trump.
With outdoor sleeping banned, removal to the edge of town may become the only way some homeless Utahns can avoid jail. Planners say the facility will also hold hundreds of mentally ill homeless people under court-ordered civil commitment and the effort will include an “accountability center” for those with addictions.
“An accountability center is involuntary, OK — you’re not coming in and out,” Randy Shumway, chairman of the state Homeless Services Board, said in an interview. Utah will end a harmful “culture of permissiveness,” he said, and guide homeless people “towards human thriving.”
I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before…
I’ve known that this sort of thing was on the way but… god this is terrifying.
I mean, based on history it was inevitable that US Empire would collapse.
I have never, ever expected it to happen during my lifetime.
Incredible.
I’m 54, never in my wildest dreams did I think we would become the Nazis. And it’s not like I’m ignorant of history, yet I guess I was. “Can’t happen here.” :(
Nice is them to Concentrate them all in one Camp for everyone’s safety, especially theirs.
It’s going to have to be run like a prison and a hospital or it will be a monster clusterfuck. Imagine 1,300 people, mostly men, many experiencing withdrawal, fighting to get out, eat up with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia, jesus fuck me.
And the homeless aren’t typically the most sociable sorts. Lemmy acts like they’re just some dudes down on their luck. Some are, and probably by a higher percentage ATM than ever before in American history. But if you can’t finagle some sort of roof over your head in a Utah winter, it’s a fair bet you wear underwear outside the pants.
Only violence I’ve encountered on American streets was from the homeless. And I’ve worked the streets of South Chicago, ran with meth heads, drug dealers, lived in the worst parts of Tulsa, got into seriously hinky shit in my 20s. No violence. The homeless offered me an ass whuppin’ 4 times in downtown Pensacola, twice in just 3 nights in the French Quarter, as in, men chasing us down the street.
The legal issues are going to cost the state 100s of millions to fight out. Incarceration without clear evidence of a crime? Involuntarily medicated? Misdiagnoses (big deal in these sorts of places)? How many will die from alcohol withdrawal alone?! The ACLU and like organizations will have a fucking field day. They’ll win some, lose some, laws and regulations constantly shifting in a vortex of fucked up. Imagine working in a place where the rules vary daily, according to your job, and there are serious legal repercussions to fucking up. Who’s going to do that for what pay?
To put this in perspective, the largest single hospital in my area has 566 beds. To pull this off, they basically need a prison that’s double that size, plus the medical professionals, plus the corrections staff of a large county jail. (Ours maxes at 810 inmates.)
Also, add in IT, payroll, accounting, indoor and outdoor maintenance (tougher in a prison/hospital), admin staff, the list goes on and on.
“We have all the problems of a major theme park and a major zoo and the computers aren’t even on their feet yet.”
Some wit will say, “Just provide decent housing!” Yes, that works for many, we have the evidence. But anyone thinking that’s a magic bullet for this issue hasn’t been around the sort of people I’ve been around, up close and personal, in their homes and trailers, petting their dogs, listening to their rants, not judging them from driving by. And those are people who have managed to keep a roof of some sort! Put those mentally ill, addicted, anti-social misfits, all together?! Where?!
Typical America. We have a monster problem that needs attacked, nearly on a case-by-case basis, “Let’s build something BIG! Everything goes in the square hole!”
To be fair, some good can come of this. Some might dry out permanently, some might get on the drugs their mental health requires, some will get medical care better than letting their feet rot off from diabetes and frostbite. I often trust the professionals, in government and private enterprise. After all they know a shitload more than laymen can discern from a headline and a brief story. But when it comes to dealing with the worst off people in America, that’s where I don’t trust them, or us.
homeless people are dangerous and scary
You know, I have had precisely the opposite experience.
housing isn’t everything
True, but I think it’s the necessary start as both a show of good faith from a world that has thrown people away, and a stable foundation on which to built and therapize.
“Involuntary Detention Camp” - I think the word they are looking for is jail or prison.
“Jail” or “prison” implies due process that will be entirely lacking here.
Can they just put anyone in there or do they have to prove you are homeless first?
I think it’s on vibes.
SLC was one of the first places in the US to pilot a housing-first program to great success. And now this. It’s incredibly sad.
There’s no hate like Christian love, thanks Mormons!
culture of permissiveness
Yeah. The culture of allowing others permission to exist has really gone too far. It’s starting to infringe on my freedom.
Prisons are remote. Rehab is nearby. They know what they are doing.
