It would be easy to interpret the letter sent to me by Gov. Spencer Cox, Senate President Stuart Adams and House Speaker Mike Schultz in December as a threat, but the reality is the letter opened a door on which Salt Lake City has been knocking for years.
I have long said that the statewide homelessness problem is bigger than Salt Lake City can address on its own, and I have worked aggressively to get our regional partners to shoulder more of the load.
I am hopeful that this new process begun by state leaders will ultimately result in the resources needed to finally make sustainable long-term progress.
In my time as mayor, Salt Lake City has focused on aspects of the homelessness challenge that the city has some control — affordable housing and public safety — while collaborating with county partners on the aspects they control, namely behavioral health and criminal justice reform. We have invested in affordable housing, built Utah’s first microshelter community, opened Utah’s first tiny home village for the chronically homeless, increased proactive policing citywide and offered unprecedented rental and mortgage assistance to help people stay in their homes.
As I have said consistently: Those efforts are not enough. Homelessness affects not just the unsheltered but all of us, and Salt Lake City has not done enough to support those affected by homelessness. Salt Lake City must be more responsive to those residents, small businesses and visitors.
It is clear that we must do more. That responsibility lies with me.
While the Salt Lake City Police Department is — and will continue — enforcing the law, the city has been perceived as being too lenient in doing so. Everyone deserves to feel safe on our streets, in our parks and on our trails, but that’s not the case right now.
We reduced crime by 5.4% in Salt Lake City in 2024 compared to 2023. It’s also true that the presence of unsheltered individuals — some of whom face severe mental illness — can make people feel unsafe and that their presence can also hurt our business communities.
Both of these things can be true at the same time, and it is our responsibility to address them both. We cannot police our way out of homelessness, but we can make the public safer. We can and must do better.
The state’s directive to present a plan that looks beyond merely on what the city has jurisdiction is a long-awaited acknowledgment that the challenge extends well beyond city hall. Our siloed efforts have failed, and systemic changes are needed, requiring leadership, conviction and action.
My team at Salt Lake City has its official response to the state leaders’ request with 27 direct action items the city can implement and 23 additional recommendations that require broad system support.
This plan was shaped by input from nearly 50 state legislators; City Council members; residents; service providers; employees; business, philanthropic and religious leaders; and, importantly, those who have endured being unsheltered in our community. This effort would not have been possible without them, and I am deeply grateful for their valuable input.
Salt Lake City is taking immediate action.
First, I am offering city-owned property as a temporary location for an interim indoor shelter facility with more than 1,000 year-round emergency shelter beds. This will get people off our streets and into humane living conditions while the state constructs a permanent low-barrier campus.
Second, I have already directed the Salt Lake City Police Department to intensify its presence downtown and in areas with higher homelessness-related crime. It will do so by deploying the Violent Crime Apprehension Team to crack down on drug and firearm offenses and launching a new Community Impact Division.
The plan’s 50 actions and recommendations directly address issues raised by other government entities and nearly 150 frontline staff in the city’s police, fire, 911 dispatch and public lands teams. They are specific, measurable and achievable.
No action Salt Lake City takes alone will ever be enough to achieve the outcome Salt Lakers and Utahns deserve: a state where homelessness is rare, brief and non-recurring.
Success at this scale requires more than isolated programs. It requires intensive coordination, sustainable funding, accountability at all levels and time. None of our individual actions will be effective without coordination at every point in the system, or we will certainly fail again. Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, the state of Utah and every other partner in this system must be held accountable for our roles in the current system failures and our work toward better outcomes.
I invite Salt Lakers and Utahns to review our Public Safety Plan in the hopes that it may more fully contextualize our complex challenges and provide a path forward for all of us. I invite state legislators to join our fight by funding necessary solutions and updating statewide policy during the upcoming legislative session.
The plan is not perfect, nor is it completely exhaustive of opportunities for further improvement. But the cost of inaction far exceeds the challenges of action. The future of our city depends on our collective ability to act boldly and decisively, with the conviction that every person we serve — whether housed or unhoused — is worth the effort.
(Erin Mendenhall) Erin Mendenhall is the 36th mayor of Salt Lake City.
Erin Mendenhall is the 36th mayor of Salt Lake City.
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