Salt Lake City has reduced homelessness in Salt Lake City 72% since 2005. How did they do this? Comedy Central recently highlighted Utah’s cure and it is pretty simple: they give homeless people homes.
But doesn’t that cost a lot of money? Lloyd Pendleton, the director of the Utah Homeless Task Force says it costs $12,000 per person per year. How can taxpayers absorb such a high figure? Well, it actually saves money, because the taxpayers are currently paying $20,000 per person per year in emergency room and jail costs. Utah is one of the most conservative states in the union, but on the other hand, Salt Lake City is dominated by democrats. The last 5 mayors have been democrat. Before that, Mayor Conrad Harrison was an independent. You have to go back more than 40 years to 1974 to find a republican mayor (Jake Garn) concluded his term as mayor of Salt Lake City.
I did a quick search of Lloyd Pendleton and discovered his LinkedIn profile. Lloyd’s previous employers include the State of Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Seminaries and Institutes of Religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He graduated from Brigham Young University.
Wheat & Tares 
Not being a US citizen or really closely across US politics, my comments will only be general in nature.
My feelings are that most decisions in politics are motivated by money. They might be the right decisions – but they will be motivated by money. I see no real reason to believe that this is not the case here. Would the same decision have been made if housing them cost $40,000 per year..I doubt it.
I couldn’t see the video but go this really interesting message…
“Sorry but this video is unavailable from your location. But hey, at least you have Kangaroos and Boomerangs”!!!
I don’t consider this a success. I also don’t think this demonstrates the principle of charity correctly. Charity is when you freely choose to give away your own money to the needy.
Awesome video. I loved Jeffrey R. Holland’s recent talk, “Are We Not All Beggars?” I think it calls for this kind of action. While money has to play a factor (because you can’t buy homes if you don’t have the money), I really don’t think efforts like these are solely about money. I think a lot of people, in politics or not, really just want to help those who are suffering. I do some volunteer work with the homeless, and I think it’d be really hard to be involved with them and not genuinely care about their well being. It’s similar to serving a mission or having children, I imagine. You love those you serve. Even if your initial motivation wasn’t love, I think it will become love.
Can we add a third option to the conservative/liberal dichotomy? I see it as a success, but not specifically a success for either conservatives or liberals.
This is a wonderful solution! I was voluntarily homeless in SLC in 2009/10 as a part of a walkabout while studying the homeless. I was unaware of this program then, there were plenty of homeless on the street but SLC seemed to be a homeless friendly city. The only problems I witnessed came from an occasional insensitive cop and people coming and going from Temple Square who were apparently homeless blind. It’s great to see this caring answer taking place in SLC.
My interesting message was a lot less fun:
This video only plays in the United States
To watch our clips of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart,
visit our much more distinguished sounding cousin,
Comedy Central UK at comedycentral.co.uk
So I did as it asked and tracked down The Daily Show (is it the same Daily Show?), but that clip doesn’t appear to be available. So I’m also only able to give general comments.
It is something I’d heard about before. A family member linked to an article a while back, and it seems to work well. It isn’t just about putting people in a housing, but also about providing the necessary social support to get them properly on their feet where possible. That has to be a good thing.
As a nurse in Texas, I admitted a homeless man to the hospital. He was kind, suffering, depressed, addicted to alcohol and needed help. We helped stabilize him medically. If he a choice between eating a meal or alcohol…alcohol won. The medication needed for depression is more important than food. He was lucky his sister was coming and she was helping him get an apartment, government help for his mental disorders, and therapy. Few are that lucky.
Having been ultra conservative and now ultra liberal. I understand both sides. Fear was my conservative. I don’t like republcan or democrates. It seems that both see only things as black/white or right/wrong according to them. life is all gray and more about harmfulness than wrongness. Been an interesting transition. I worry democrates are not empowering people but instead enslaving people with dependence. to keep their vote at huge expense. I feel republicans are harming by seeing life and people as “human resources” to control and not “human beings”. Governing the world with “self-righteousness” war is the conservative method of finding peace in the world. It just is so-complicated to me now with no real answers that are right/wrong. Lets just promote love and more non-harming approaches.
I like that they are helping SLC homeless.
When my husband and I were just married, having enough money to get to temple square, and to get back to Idaho. Standing outside was a man holding a sign that he was a diabetic and needed test strips. My husband said, “lets help him”. I thought he was crazy. I looked around at the thousands of people who had passes. We had nothing. Only a few dollars to our name. I was in school, pregnant, we made $7 hour on one income. We were staying with my grandparents for this low cost vacation to temple square. We actually walked him to the pharmacy close by and they are about $35 dollars for one bottle. I was socked at the cost. I did the finances and that was our “widows mite” till next payday. We went to my grandparents and we didn’t tell her. She gave us the $20 we needed in gas to get home just out of kindness(kind of like gas prices today…not good for my area…my husband works in exploration…may be homeless ourselves one day and need someones helping hand.)
At a certain point, you have to deal with people as they are, not as they “should” be. It’s fine to say “teach a person to fish” and use it as an excuse never to give away any fish. But if we can just admit that there will always be a certain portion of the population who will never fish, who will never get a job, and who will always be addicted to drugs. What do you do with these people? The only thing you can do is contain them, try to make their living hell a little less hellish. “The poor you will always have with you.” You will always have those who bury their talent in the earth.
That’s not to say that people can’t change, and that social services should never try to help people out of poverty and dependence, or that tough love isn’t sometimes necessary. But we should be realistic about the fact that not everyone will change, even with the most perfect social services program.
As long as the SLC solution promotes self-sufficiency rather than dependence, it’s a good thing. We shall see how it works out.
I recall a bit over 30 years ago that Sacramento County, strapped for funds, cut out General Assistance to able-bodied adults and contracted the Bannon Street “Poorhouse” (run by the Volunteers of America, remember them referenced by the Jefferson Airplane?). Predictably, the “sob sisters” went to work and SUED the County to discontinue that practice and be compelled to give out cash assistance (may those selling ‘ripple’ or predecessors to “Two Buck Chuck” had a better lobby). THe best link I could find:
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20084532,00.html
I agree that the best ‘charity’ is that which is GIVEN rather than TAXED. Creating an entitlement class in whatever guise is proving to be the ruin of America. Mitt was dead to rights about the ‘47%’.
I can’t say whether this is a liberal or conservative solution. I think the best solutions meet both basic principles: they do right by people, and they also are less expensive than doing wrong by people.
I see it as a liberal solution only to the extent that there is a willingness to use public resources to solve a public problem, something many conservatives are loathe to do. Otherwise, it could be viewed as a smart business move or some other kind of move. What it really tells me is that SLC believes in the importance of community and these days that is worth a lot.
Brigham Young said something similar about aid to Indian tribes, back in our benighted past when whites had moved in and destroyed their traditional ways of making a living. I can’t find the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of it being cheaper to feed them then to fight them. As with many such high-sounding, well-meaning Native policies, it sounded better than it actually worked out in practice. Hopefully SLC’s homeless policy won’t be derailed the same way.