On June 5, a state Department of Public Safety (DPS) helicopter flew low over Salt Lake City towards a steep hillside above Victory Road, where many unhoused people had fled to escape the city’s ruthless sweeps, the forced displacement of encampments. Nets lowered from the helicopter were met by Salt Lake County Health Department teams on the ground who filled them with people’s belongings.
Among the dozens of unhoused people surprised by the county’s latest sweep was a friend I’ll call Matt, who has lived in Utah since 1992 and has been unhoused for the past four years. Matt has a sweet dog, Baby-Girl. Because of that, he’s barred from staying in the city’s shelters.
We met last year, through Salt Lake City Mutual Aid, a collective that practices community building and harm reduction. Matt grew up in Oakland, I lived in San Francisco for several years and, on extreme Utah weather days, we reminisce about the Bay Area climate, and he talks about the Oakland A’s.
Like about half of all Americans, Matt has a history of heart disease and high blood pressure. On May 22, he had a heart attack. He called 911 and stumbled down the steep hillside to meet an ambulance — the city has blocked off the dirt road that used to lead to people’s camps. Matt spent four days recovering at CommonSpirit Holy Cross Hospital and, when he was discharged on May 26, I went with a friend to pick him up. He was thinner than I’d last seen him, haggard and hungry. We stopped by Walgreens to pick up blood pressure medication and found him a blood pressure monitor. I asked him where he wanted to go. The city’s shelter beds were at 100% capacity, according to the city’s Homeless Service Dashboard. Matt directed me to the library, where he could charge his monitor and phone, and then he wanted to go home to his tent, the only place he had to recover.
Nine days later, during the helicopter sweep, Matt told me his blood pressure monitor was taken along with many of his other belongings.
June 5 was considered a Service Day, a DPS spokesperson told me, coordinated by the Salt Lake County Health Department. Gov. Spencer Cox’s 2023 executive order encourages the 24,000 employees of state agencies to participate in service projects — though they participate as employees during working hours.
The Salt Lake City Police, Salt Lake City Rapid Intervention Team, Salt Lake City Streets, Utah Department of Transportation and Advantage Services also participated, according to a health department spokesperson. And use of the helicopter alone cost the city $1,350 an hour, a DPS employee told me.
The so-called “service” day was part of a shameful and dangerous pattern of government-sponsored harassment of Salt Lake City’s unhoused community. The health department employee told me that June 5 was the 18th time the city had swept the same area since 2011, including a 2019 sweep that also used a helicopter.
The health department spokesperson told me that such “encampment impact mitigation activities” occur “when a municipality requests our assistance in addressing a public health concern, when we are alerted to a concern by complaints from the public, or when our staff directly observe an imminent threat to community or environmental health.”
The co-option of public health language to justify policies that harm people of color and the poor is an old strategy. A wide body of research shows that sweeps are not effective in moving people into housing. Instead, sweeps undermine health, break up communities that provide essential care for each other and rob people of their belongings — including medicines, food and shelter. The American Public Health Association calls for a Housing First approach. Housing is integral to almost every measurable health outcome. Housing is also a basic human right.
Instead of addressing the fundamental housing problems we face, the city and county have routinely used public funding to cruelly destroy peoples’ homes and possessions, putting their lives in further jeopardy. Their approach should instead be to build trust with unhoused community members, who deserve as much respect and attention as any other constituent. Requests I have heard from unhoused community members include an immediate ban on sweeps; accessible public restrooms with working sinks; routine trash pickup; free public transit; cooling stations that provide water; and warming centers with places to sleep.
As housing prices rise, our most urgent priority must be the true meaning of public health: protecting the health and humanity of our most vulnerable community members.
Katharine Walter
Katharine S. Walter is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Utah and a member of Salt Lake City Mutual Aid. The views are her own and do not represent her employer.
The Salt Lake Tribune is committed to creating a space where Utahns can share ideas, perspectives and solutions that move our state forward. We rely on your insight to do this. Find out how to share your opinion here, and email us at voices@sltrib.com.
