Salt Lake homeless camp cleaned out due to unsafe health conditions
“’The only reason we did this is that there was nowhere for us to go. As couples as families, there are no available shelters,’ said Stacy Johnson, one of the leaders of the camp. ‘We don’t want to be in the public view 24 hours a day bearing its shame…This is to me is robbery. This is a crime what’s happening to us!’ […]
‘We have a responsibility to our residents–housed and unhoused–and businesses to ensure that public spaces are safe, clean and accessible. Homelessness is not a crime, but some camps can and do present serious health and safety risks to those living in them and the public at large.’ Mayor Erin Mendenhall said in a statement adding ‘We rely on our partners at the Salt Lake County Health Department to determine when a camp poses a risk to health and safety and needs to be abated. Our outreach team, public services, and police departments provide supportive services to ensure that the abatement proceeds in a manner that is safe for health department workers and the unsheltered. We also work closely with the Salt Lake Valley Coalition to End Homelessness, whose role it is to determine shelter needs, to help unsheltered people connect to housing and services.'”