PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Nomad Alliance
Kseniya Kniazeva
801-688-3197
RELEASE DATE:
11-13-24
PRESS RELEASE: UNSHELTERED TAKE THE NOMAD TRAIL OF TEARS FROM PROPOSED MASS SHELTER SITE
(photo of proposed Bacchus Highway location for mass congregate shelter campus, taken by Bill Tibbitts of Crossroads Urban Center)
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, NOVEMBER — The State Office of Homeless Services is proposing a 1200-bed mass-congregate shelter, to be erected at one of five possible locations. The Utah Homelessness Council is expected to vote on one of the five sites tomorrow, Thursday the 14th, when it closes the monthly meeting to discuss “Centralized Campus Site Acquisition and Development” at 1:45pm.
We invite the media to join the Nomad Alliance and our nomads as we walk, and take buses, trains and trax from the farthest of the proposed locations, 5600 South Bacchus Highway to DWS, a place where many unsheltered go to receive benefits, job training and more to get off the streets. We will be meeting at 5600 South Bacchus Highway at 1:45 PM today, November 13th, to begin our “Trail of Tears” and demonstrate the difficulty of access to the proposed site.
As Crossroads Urban Center recently discovered, all five proposed sites are “far away from other places homeless people go to find help.”
According to Crossroads Urban Center and reporting from the Salt Lake Tribune and KSL the following locations are being considered for the new shelter:
LeeKay Conservation Center, at approximately 2100 South and 7200 West,
Bacchus Highway, at approximately 5600 South Bacchus Highway,
Standlee Highway, at 5 South 5100 West,
Salt Lake County Oxbow Jail, 3048 South 1100 West, and,
Properties on Beck Street in North Salt Lake City.”
The recently-released homeless mortality report which showed the unsheltered die at 10 times the rate of the housed demonstrates the poor physical and mental health of this population. Many have chronic health issues like cancer, walk with canes, are in wheelchairs or are generally feeble and weak from the onslaught of living in the elements with poor nutrition, hydration and sleep. Others are diminished in cognizance; our mass DMV transport and voter registration push the last several weeks showed us how many needed help filling out the digital application to receive their IDs. Some don’t speak English. These latter barriers would make it difficult to navigate the 3-6 stages of walking or riding the bus or train from each of the proposed sites.
The Nomad Alliance serves the chronically unsheltered homeless, those living outside for years and even decades; most are shelter averse, avoiding the violence, theft, bed bugs, and infantilizing rules like curfews and often dehumanizing staff of the shelters and preferring the threat of staying outside in the cold rather than a shelter (even when the notoriously-full shelters have open beds). They congregate around the Weigand and downtown because it’s close to services, the soup kitchen, and gas stations where they can buy food with their food stamps, and few have access to bus passes or bikes to be fully mobile. And many work downtown full or part time, from the Delta Center’s nighttime cleaning gigs to Advantage Services’ street cleanups and abatements. A 2.5 hour commute each way (from the farthest site, and upwards of an hour from the closest), would prohibit them from maintaining their jobs.
Many already interviewed have said they will not go to this new shelter; please watch this conversation with Tony Lambert, one of our nomad team members who has been unsheltered for over a decade, on his opinions on this mass shelter.
“If you build it they will come” does not apply to the shelter system. While all shelters are full, many people we serve will never step foot in a mass congregate shelter especially if it's as far away as each of the proposed locations.
This behemoth shelter seems a step backwards in many ways. The Covid years demonstrated the need for non-congregate spaces to reduce viral infections. Additionally, those with PTSD and anxiety – a high number of the unsheltered – have a difficult time around many people, and non-congregate mass shelters are especially triggering for many.
We’re calling this media event the Nomad Trail of Tears because just as our Native American brothers and sisters were forced to move from their land and their homes, displaced to another forsaken corner of America, this proposed congregate shelter will likewise move the most vulnerable people to a far off corner of Utah, out of sight and out of mind, ostensibly to remove the “blight” of the unhoused from our city streets.
If we want to reduce the “blight” of tents on our sidewalks and the unsheltered loitering around our downtown, we must ask this population how they would like to be housed.
In our surveys and conversations, every person we serve would prefer to stay in a sanctioned campground vs a traditional shelter.
Small sanctioned campgrounds spread out around our County is the only thing that will reduce the number of visible homeless in our cities. It is what this population prefers. Why not ask them?
We invite the media to come and chat with our nomads as we walk and take public transport and ask their opinions on this mass congregate shelter themselves.
Thank you so very much.
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