Salt Lake City is allowing drug activity to go unchecked and doesn’t deserve key funding meant to help communities that host shelters, one of Utah’s most influential figures in the fight against homelessness said this week.
During a Wednesday discussion about how Utah should allocate funds earmarked to support shelter-hosting cities, state Homeless Services Board Chair Randy Shumway sharply criticized law enforcement efforts in the Beehive State’s capital.
“I want to explain why I am going to vote for Salt Lake City not to receive mitigation funds next year unless we see a substantial improvement in law enforcement,” Shumway said. “I believe that the current practices are allowing for our most vulnerable population to be preyed upon in a very open environment.”
During the discussion, Shumway said a lack of law enforcement around drug activity and other crime has created “mayhem” and is a “travesty” in Utah’s capital.
“What we are seeing in Salt Lake City is incubating the root difficulties for a vulnerable population who is unable to make decisions on their own because their emotional and mental stability is being ravished by the drugs that are being allowed to be pushed because we are allowing them to be easily accessible on the street,” he said. “Their trauma is being exacerbated. You put a person on the street for a week, and they have been repeatedly physically assaulted, they have been raped, and they have been pumped with such poisonous toxins that many of them don’t know their own name.”
Andrew Wittenberg, spokesperson for Mayor Erin Mendenhall, replied to Shumway’s comments in a statement Friday, saying it is important “not to conflate drug trafficking with homelessness.”
“They are not one and the same,” he said. “The state’s effort to increase emergency shelter space and funding is laudable and desperately needed. Our success in addressing on-street camping is directly tied to the availability of housing services, emergency shelter, and mental health and drug treatment options. Withholding this funding — which is generated directly from city taxpayers and redistributed by the state — from providing crucial services hardly seems like a wise response and will only result in more people living in inhumane conditions without adequate shelter.”
In the latest legislative session, state lawmakers created Shumway’s board as a replacement for the much-larger — and oft-criticized as unwieldy — Utah Homelessness Council. Another bill approved by legislators requires the board and the state’s Office of Homeless Services to craft rules guiding how shelter-hosting cities share evidence of how they enforce camping and panhandling bans. It also prevents the board from funneling shelter mitigation dollars to cities that don’t enforce such laws.
Ultimately, board members voted 8-2 on Wednesday to adopt a proposal by mayors of shelter-hosting cities and state homelessness officials that requires cities to provide the board with shelter utilization numbers and data on interactions police and outreach workers have with homeless Utahns.
Only Shumway and former Bountiful Mayor Jim Behunin voted against the plan, instead preferring an option that would have required cities to report numbers on arrests, citations and referrals for camping, panhandling and drug use in public.
The board has not yet voted on which cities will receive funding.
Utah leaders have long criticized Salt Lake City for not doing enough to crack down on unsanctioned camping and drug activity. Late last year, the city announced a plan to more strictly enforce the city’s camping ban as long as shelter space is available.
In a statement Friday, Salt Lake City Police Department spokesperson Brent Weisberg emphasized the city’s enforcement operations that are already underway.
“The Salt Lake City Police Department remains committed to prioritizing our efforts to reduce victimization and enhance public safety,” he said. “Addressing these complex challenges demands a collaborative approach, and we are proud of a collaborative accomplishment. We have made significant efforts to reduce crime, target drug traffickers, increase social services and engagement, and [prevent] the establishment of illegal encampments.”
Weisberg added that crime is down 12% in downtown Salt Lake City when compared to 2023, with violent crime falling by 24%. Wittenberg, meanwhile, said the Police Department has seized more than 87,000 fentanyl pills this year.
