Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd is up against what could best be described as an impossible situation. There are too few jail, mental health, and shelter beds to accommodate Salt Lake City’s ever-growing homeless community.
In a recent Utah Homeless Services Board meeting, packed with state and local leaders, Redd presented a series of color-coded heat maps. These maps showed something many downtown residents already knew: when you clear a homeless encampment from one area, it just pops up somewhere else.
The heat maps focused on the Jordan River Trail, where public safety issues prompted officers to intervene. Calls for service dropped in that area after enforcement, but new yellow and red hotspots appeared in Liberty Park, Ballpark, and North Temple. Enforcement brought temporary relief to one neighborhood but displaced the problem to others.
“We can affect public safety with officers. We can decrease crime,” Redd said. “But we’re having a movement of individuals.”
The implications are clear: police can move people, but they can’t make the problem go away because there is no clear long-term solution.
The Summer Surge and Complex Causes
During the summer months, the crisis intensifies. More people take to the streets — some because they lack shelter, others because of addiction, or even social reasons. Redd pointed out that many people congregating downtown are not technically homeless. Some are staying with friends, some have permanent residences, and others live with family. Still, they return to the streets daily to use drugs or to find community and belonging.
“It’s not all homelessness,” Redd explained. “Some of it is drug-related, crime-related, and also people want to belong. Even if it’s a bad group of people, bad influences, they’re going to come down and be on the streets together.”
Salt Lake City is experiencing a collision of homelessness, crime, addiction, and a lack of behavioral health infrastructure. But the current strategy — policing and displacement — isn’t solving the problem. It’s only moving it around.
A Lack of Resources and Long-Term Solutions
The root of the problem is a lack of resources. Officers need somewhere to take people when enforcing camping ordinances or responding to mental health crises. While shelters like The Road Home and organizations such as Shelter the Homeless are working with police to offer solutions, those resources are limited. And despite keeping open all winter-overflow shelters at a huge expense to city and state taxpayers, all shelter beds are full. This leaves officers with few alternatives.
Redd stressed that his officers are not just issuing citations and moving on. He wants enforcement to be grounded in empathy and compassion, even while upholding the law.
“We want our officers to enforce the law, but in a way that shows dignity, compassion, and empathy for these individuals. They’re in tough spots. They have addictions, they have mental illness, they don’t have places to go.”
When asked how to make real progress, Redd emphasized collaboration between law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and the social services sector. Without long-term intervention, the cycle will continue.
“These drug addictions are horrible, and these people are not choosing to come off the streets,” Redd said. “Unless there’s a disruption and they’re off the streets and away from their friends and away from the drugs for a time… then we can bring treatment and resources.”
A Small Step, and Big Challenges Ahead
Salt Lake County recently allocated 50 jail beds to focus on high-utilizer individuals — people who cycle repeatedly through the system. Legal defenders are assessing these individuals for treatment needs while they’re incarcerated. It’s a step in the right direction, but 50 beds isn’t nearly enough.
Even when enforcement works on paper, it carries unintended consequences. As officers saturate one area, people disperse into surrounding neighborhoods. When public complaints surge elsewhere, those areas demand police attention, stretching resources thin and undermining progress.
“We’re going to have challenges as we get into the summer months because more and more people are coming to the streets. We’re going to have more burglaries and thefts and residential thefts potentially,” Redd warned. “But we can decrease calls for service — it’s just going to move people.”
The Need for Broader Solutions
Mayor Erin Mendenhall offered cautious optimism. Overall crime in Salt Lake is down — 5% year to date, and 16% below the three-year average. But she agreed that the current funding model isn’t working.
“It does not make sense in our city,” she said, referring to the state’s shelter funding tied to specific locations.
Until there are enough shelter beds, treatment options, and supportive housing units, officers remain stuck playing whack-a-mole with tents. And each time the map changes, the real cost is borne by the people forced to start over on a different sidewalk, a different park, or a different part of town.
