Homeless encampments are pictured north of Salt Lake City. (Photo by Joey Ingelhart/Getty Images)
Two major themes are taking shape as Utah state leaders discuss changes they’d like to see in Utah’s homeless and criminal justice systems during the upcoming 2025 Utah Legislature:
More law enforcement and more healing.
The big question — is it possible to do both?
To Rep. Tyler Clancy, R-Provo, who also works as a police detective, those two goals aren’t at odds. Rather, they go hand in hand.
“Enforcement has to be the standard, not the exception,” Clancy said. “And then we’ve got to build this opportunity for healing.”
Ahead of the Utah Legislature’s general session scheduled to begin Jan. 21, Clancy is drafting legislation in two policy areas — drug policy and homeless services — with a focus on more consistently enforced laws (including steeper drug penalties) while also encouraging more people to seek treatment for addiction.
He has a long list of drug-related proposals he’s working on, including:
- Increased criminal penalties on hard drug possession, including raising a second conviction from a class A misdemeanor to a third-degree felony.
- Regulating “harm reduction” programs, including placing limits on needle exchange programs and banning “supervised consumption sites.”
- Creating a framework to ensure first responders who administer Narcan or Naloxone for overdoses immediately and consistently offer treatment resources.
- Legislation to give cities more tools to crack down on “flop houses.”
For homeless services, Clancy said he and other lawmakers are working on proposals to:
- Codify in state law, not just administrative rules, that homeless shelters be drug-free zones — meaning increased criminal penalties for distribution and possession.
- Expand Utah’s know-by-name pilot program so those who are chronically homeless are paired with a case manager focused on solving the root issues contributing to their struggles.
- Urge the federal government, through a legislative resolution, to exempt Utah from “housing first” requirements tied to Department of Housing and Urban Development funding for supportive housing programs and instead offer the funds through a block grant to allow more “innovation.”
Meanwhile, the state’s Republican leaders are also upping the pressure on the capital city to increase enforcement of anti-camping ordinances, drug use and distribution, and other public safety issues.
Pressure on SLC law enforcement
Last month, Gov. Spencer Cox, House Speaker Mike Schultz and Senate President Stuart Adams all signed a letter to Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall telling her to present a plan to “eliminate crime and restore public safety” in the city, giving her a deadline of Jan. 17 — five days before the 2025 session.
“If your plan demonstrates the decisive leadership and results needed to resolve these issues, we will work to strengthen and sustain your efforts through legislative action,” they wrote.
But they also issued a warning that lawmakers are prepared to step in.
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“However, if progress stalls or alignment cannot be achieved, the legislature is prepared to move forward with legislation to increase state involvement and oversight during the upcoming session,” the governor, Senate president and House speaker wrote.
They didn’t offer any specifics on what possible legislation to “increase state involvement and oversight” may entail. But as the session comes closer into view, it’s clear there is appetite among lawmakers to urge cities like Salt Lake to more consistently enforce the law to address public frustration with property crimes, drugs and on-street camping.
“We need to be tough,” Schultz, R-Hooper, told Utah News Dispatch in a recent interview, though he didn’t specifically mention the letter to Mendenhall. “We’ve got to work on the homeless issue, and I think that starts with holding people accountable for their decisions.”
Schultz said he hopes to see “the state, Salt Lake City, and Salt Lake County come together on enforcement,” but he added, “I believe it’s not just enforcement. I also believe there’s some problems with the judicial system.”
Too often people who are arrested end up back on the streets, the House speaker said, acknowledging that points to an issue with jail capacity too.
“It’s a problem,” Schultz said. “So we’ll see. We’ve got to do something. It really is a Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County issue, but we as a state want to try to help be partners in that.”
Though Schultz didn’t offer specifics on possible legislation, he said, “My hope is you’ll see Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County and the state come together to try to address these issues.”
Mendenhall issued a statement after receiving the letter saying she was as “frustrated as anybody” that the “progress on homelessness that we’ve all worked for has not yet materialized, but long-term progress takes long-term commitment and partnership.” However, she also said she “wholeheartedly” welcomed the “invitation” to continue working on the issue.
The day news of the letter to Mendenhall spread, House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, expressed frustration that Republican state leaders were pressuring Mendenhall in such a way.
“From my perspective, (it’s) not very respectful to the mayor, putting some timelines on her,” Romero said. “To address homelessness (and other complex issues), you have to have multiple plans. And to put a timeline on her, I felt like that was like a threat, and I didn’t really appreciate it.”
Romero said she has “major concerns” about legislation to possibly force Salt Lake City’s hand hanging over the session before it has even begun. “I do have concerns when it comes to crime, like everyone does, especially along the Jordan River Parkway,” she said “but I think we can look to other best practices instead of just rounding up people.”
Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, also said homelessness and crime is a concern of her constituents — but any solution needs to be a collaboration, not forced upon Salt Lake City leaders. “We want to see this resolved and have a collaborative process to get us there,” she said.
Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, also placed an emphasis on taking a more “holistic” approach to homelessness. He said because the state in recent years has begun requiring more cities and counties to play a part in hosting shelters, “the people in those shelters ought to run through the criminal justice system.”
“I believe in drug court,” Adams said. “I believe there needs to be a motivation to try to get them to change. I believe homelessness is not just finding a home for somebody. You’ve got to have treatment. You’ve got to have services … We need to look at a more holistic basis rather than just doing a shelter.”
However, the debate around enforcing anti-camping laws, drug use and other crimes inevitably leads to a need to confront broader issues with the state’s criminal justice system and its strained capacity in both jails and homeless shelters. They’re issues that state and local officials have been working to address — but progress is slow going.
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State Homeless Coordinator Wayne Niederhauser, a former Utah Senate president, will be focused on drumming up support for the governor’s $18.8 million budget recommendation for homeless services needs over the next year while also continuing the state’s search for a 30-acre “transformative” homeless campus that lawmakers spent $25 million on in 2024.
That campus, envisioned to house up to 1,200 emergency shelter beds, is supposed to help increase the state’s homeless capacity. But Niederhauser said state leaders are still trying to find a property, and that takes time. The Utah Homeless Services Board has set a deadline of Oct. 1, 2025 for that shelter to be built, so it’s unlikely the facility will be up and running until well after the 2025 legislative session.
“We all wish that it was moving along a little faster,” Niederhauser said. “But locating a facility like this isn’t going to happen overnight.”
Niederhauser said Utah’s leaders are “completely aligned” that unsanctioned camping shouldn’t happen. He noted every city in Utah has an anti-camping ordinance, and “it’s the right thing.”
“But we haven’t answered the question yet of where people are going to go in that enforcement,” Niederhauser said. “And that’s the urgency for this additional facility that we’re working on.”
Throughout this debate, homeless advocates will likely discourage lawmakers from equating homelessness with criminality. And anti-camping ordinances can also be challenging to effectively enforce if shelters are full and there aren’t alternatives for people to go.
But to Clancy, it’s not as if “we’re creating these new draconian laws that now need to be followed.”
“What we’re asking and what we’re expecting is that anyone who lives in any ZIP code in the state of Utah should expect as the bare minimum, which is you should be able to walk down the street safely,” Clancy said. “You should be able to live in a neighborhood where people aren’t passed out from drug use or other intoxication in your front yard. We should not have open-air drug markets anywhere, in any ZIP code in the whole state.”
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Clancy said Utahns shouldn’t have to wait for more homeless shelters or jail beds to see cities more consistently enforce their laws. Additionally, while he sees increasing shelter capacity as a “puzzle piece,” Clancy said it should also include increasing capacity for drug treatment and mental health treatment beds.
“If we hitch our wagon to say, ‘Well we’re only going to enforce the law once X, Y, Z (happens),’ we’re never going to catch up,” Clancy said. “It’s got to be a continuing effort. We’ve got to continue the enforcement expectations and continue (efforts to increase) capacity.”
Clancy said he wants to help set “core expectations for communities, for providers, for the state, that we all expect” in order to help increase political will for more future investment. He said his proposals are likely crucial in order to pave the way for more ongoing funding.
“When those expectations are met and identified and measurable, I think that unlocks a lot of funding,” he said. “When people are frustrated … it’s really hard to find the money.”
A focus on drug policy and clawing back parts of JRI
Clancy said his focus on drug policy comes from an effort to address one of the complex factors contributing to Utah’s homelessness problem. He said the state’s fentanyl crisis has reached a “high point.”
“We’re lying to ourselves if we think that the crisis on our street is solely a result of lack of affordable housing,” he said. “A cursory walk through the North Temple, Fairpark, Ballpark (neighborhoods) or Library Square, there are severe challenges that these individuals are going through.”
He believes part of the blame traces back to the state’s justice reinvestment initiative (JRI) adopted about 10 years ago — which was meant to incarcerate only those who pose a threat to the community and keep people suffering from drug addiction from cycling in and out of jail, and instead help them receive treatment.
“With JRI, we decriminalized hard drugs, when it went (down) from a third-degree felony for possession of crack, heroin, meth,” Clancy said, adding that with JRI, lawmakers reduced drug penalties to class A misdemeanors — unless an offender gets a third conviction, then their next would be a third-degree felony.
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“So for example, you might have someone who has five or six arrests for hard drug possession, and they’re still not at the level where it’s going to be charged at a felony level,” Clancy said.
He added that the concept and goal behind JRI “makes a lot of sense,” acknowledging that it “sounds normal to say, ‘Listen, we don’t want to, like, throw the book at someone who is dealing with challenges,’ right?”
But Clancy said he’s spoken to drug treatment providers who say many people who seek drug treatment do it because it’s been mandated by the courts.
“With the changes made with JRI, we took a lot of teeth out of that ability to put the pressure needed on people to get into treatment,” Clancy said.
So, Clancy said he’s planning to propose making a second hard drug conviction be a treatment-mandated felony. “So not going full pre-JRI, but carrying it back a little bit to where we have the necessary pressure needed to motivate people to get into treatment, basically things that we know work,” he said.
A 2020 legislative audit found the state hadn’t achieved “all the goals” of JRI “because the initiative was not fully implemented.”
“Although Utah made changes to its sentencing guidelines, which led to a drop in the state’s prison population, features of JRI designed to provide strong alternatives to incarceration were not implemented,” the audit report stated, noting the state only partially expanded reentry and treatment services.
It also found the number of chronic drug offenders nearly tripled in the state from 270 in 2013 to 770 in 2019.
“Although JRI was supposed to reduce the rate at which people commit new crimes, recidivism has increased since the law took effect,” the audit said. “The high reoffense rate among chronic drug offenders is a special concern raised by some of Utah’s county sheriffs. The sheriffs contend the reduced penalties for drug use has created a disincentive for offenders to stop using drugs and seek treatment.”
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However, the latest JRI update provided by the Utah Commission on Criminal & Juvenile Justice in November states the “number of drug offenders in Utah has significantly decreased over the past six years” after it peaked in 2018, and “drug possession with intent and drug distribution/manufacturing charges both remain at their lowest levels in years.”
“Further investigation is needed to assess whether this significant decrease in drug offenses since FY2018 has been driven by the successful increase in treatment funding and capacity (up to FY2019), or whether there has been a fundamental change in law enforcement practices related to drug offenses (or some combination of these and other factors),” the report states.
Evaluating ‘harm reduction’ programs
Secondly, Clancy said his legislation will re-evaluate “harm reduction” programs, including limiting needle exchange and banning “supervised consumption sites,” also known as “safe injection sites” — though Clancy balks at calling them that because he said no drug injection is “safe.”
“My bill is going to propose that harm reduction is a piece of the puzzle but it’s not the goal,” he said. “You know, handing out the syringes, it might be a tool. But it’s not the goal. … That just reflects a broader commitment that we’re not going to give up. We’re not giving up on our most vulnerable population and say, ‘Well, instead of trying to get you help, we’re just going to create an opportunity where you can come and, you know, inject drugs and then go back out into the community.”
He also said his bill will contemplate limiting needle exchange programs to perhaps a one-for-one rate, rather than allowing up to 10-to-one, for example — though he added he doesn’t have a “strong opinion on what the rate needs to be.” More importantly, he said he wants to see “better data collection” and coordination among agencies to “make sure that it’s part of the broader mission” to reduce drug addiction.
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“The idea is that in harm-reduction programs, we’re going to create more structure around them to make sure they are part of the path to recovery and not just a stand-alone program,” he said. “We want our harm-reduction programs to facilitate connections to build relationships so that when someone’s ready to get help, they’re able to reach out to someone that they trust.”
But that’s a small part compared to what he said will be the “fundamental change” to drug policy that he plans to propose in his bill: create a framework for first responders responding to drug overdoses to be better able to offer and connect people with treatment resources on the spot, “in that moment of crisis.”
“Right now, if a firefighter gets called to an overdose, let’s say they arrive in time, they’re going to have the harm-reduction tools, Narcan or naloxone, to reverse that opioid overdose,” he said. “That’s really good and it saves lives. But a lot of times they’ll just kind of get up, walk away, or, you know, leave the hospital.”
Clancy said his bill won’t “mandate or force” treatment on people “because we still want people to call 911,” but he said his legislation aims to give first responders “have the tools to be able to at least make those connections.”
Additionally, Clancy is also working on a proposal to allow property owners to sue other private property owners that allow dangerous criminal activity. Clancy pointed to reports of “motels that take cash for a couple of nights” and function “essentially as a flop house.” He said he wants Utah to “add some state teeth” to the federal “crackhouse” statute, which makes it a felony to openly rent, use or maintain any place for the purpose of making, distributing or using any controlled substance.”
“We want to give cities and counties tools they need to interdict this really unacceptable behavior in their cities,” he said. “It’s really about these problem places where you have neighbors just terrorized, these houses that become havens for criminal activity, and we need more tools to combat this form of disorder.”
How to make shelters drug-free zones without forcing more people on the streets?
Whether it’s through local conditional use permits or state administrative rules, Utah’s homeless shelters are already supposed to be drug free. But that’s easier said than done.
In 2021, state auditors determined the state’s new homeless resource centers provided better conditions than The Road Home’s now-shuttered downtown shelter, but drugs were still a persistent problem.
“I think we take an overly permission approach in homeless services to drugs,” Clancy said.
“The question we need to ask ourselves is, are our current homeless services a safe place for someone to go who is in recovery? If we can’t answer a resounding yes, then we certainly have work to do.”
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So Clancy wants to take a stab at the issue by mandating in state law, not just administrative rule, that homeless shelters be drug-free zones — and that would mean increased penalties for distribution and maybe possession.
“Covering for someone or looking the other way or taking a permissive approach with someone who has fentanyl in the homeless shelter, we might think we’re doing them a favor by not allowing them to face the consequences of the law,” he said. “But … what about that person’s roommate who has struggled for years to get clean? Now we’re putting them at risk of relapse.”
However, that leads to a debate of what to do with someone if they’re found with drugs. Does that mean they should be evicted? Where would they go? And that could lead to more problems with on-street camping.
Niederhauser said that’s an issue that needs to be debated.
“We’ve got to also address the issue of if we’re kicking people out, where are they going? Are they going to be unsheltered on the street?” Niederhauser said. “That’s an interesting discussion that’s going to be had, I’d assume. But the last thing we want is drugs in the shelters.”
Clancy said Utah must do better to help create a safe, healing environment in shelters, especially for those trying to recover from addiction.
“Yes, we are going to prosecute you with more intent if you are profiting off of the despair of our most vulnerable population,” Clancy said. “You can absolutely expect that.”
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