We talk a lot about getting people off drugs. But what happens after that?
According to Utah Homeless Council board members, not much.
Wayne Niederhauser put it plainly: “The programs are getting them clean and sober. But then they graduate, and they don’t have housing or a job that pays enough to keep them there. So they go back.”
Back to the encampments. Back to the needle. Back to the only community that doesn’t care if they messed up again.
Mo Egan, who was recently appointed a seat on the Utah Homeless Services Board, spent a decade on the streets of San Francisco and now works with The Other Side Village, shared his firsthand experience: “I graduated from six or seven programs. But the way those programs ended for me was failure and relapse.”
The real problem, he and others explained, is the lack of post-treatment support. Most programs can help someone get clean. But few can help them stay that way. Once someone finishes detox or rehab, they’re often sent right back into the environment that triggered their addiction in the first place.
What’s needed, they say, is recovery support: housing, meaningful employment, community, and time. Lots of time. The Other Side Academy runs a two-and-a-half-year program “a behavior boot camp.” designed to rewire thinking and rebuild lives. Anything less, board members argued, is setting people up to fail.
Niederhauser went further: “The programs are working, but the conveyor belt ends at the edge of the street.”
That conveyor belt sends people from emergency shelters and treatment programs back onto the sidewalk—clean, maybe. But jobless. Houseless. Isolated. And surrounded by the very same people, places, and pressures that led them to use in the first place.
Board members discussed an NGO recovery model in Colorado called Second Chance, which aims to change that outcome. Their goal? Make sure people leaving incarceration or rehab land in jobs that pay enough to afford housing. It sounds simple. But it’s rare.
Even those who successfully complete rehab often find themselves back with old peers, who pull them into old habits. According to several board members, the biggest risk factor in relapse isn’t willpower—it’s people. “The biggest criminogenic risk is peers,” SLC Police Chief Redd said. He added,. “If we don’t give them a positive community, they go back to what they know.”
Egan agreed. He emphasized that many people stay clean in jail or rehab, only to relapse within days after release. The reason? No support network. No guidance. No direction. Just a return to the streets, where the drugs are cheap and the dealers are familiar.
Salt Lake leaders are starting to take note. They praised The Other Side Academy for its long-term model and peer accountability. But they also admitted that such programs are rare, underfunded, and hard to scale.
Brandy Grace, another board member, shared a personal story that reinforced the point. Her former husband, battling addiction, cycled through multiple treatment programs. Each time, they hoped it would stick. Each time, he relapsed. Eventually, she moved to Salt Lake City in search of better support systems.
“At the time, I felt like there would be more support available to us here,” she said. “That ongoing support is critical.”
There was also a broader acknowledgment that recovery doesn’t happen in isolation. The people leaving jail or treatment need an environment that fosters dignity and discipline. They need to be part of something that lifts them rather than drags them back into despair.
Egan, reflecting on his time in San Francisco, noted that many people didn’t reject recovery programs because they were unwilling. They rejected them because the programs hadn’t worked for them before. They had been burned by a system that promised change but delivered a revolving door.
“My thought process was all about the buy-in,” Egan said. “Is this real? Are these programs going to actually help me this time?”
That’s why recovery support isn’t just about services. It’s about trust. It’s about time. It’s about proving that the help being offered is worth accepting.
Salt Lake City has some promising models, but leaders agree: they’re not at scale. And until these longer-term, community-based recovery systems receive the attention and funding they deserve, Utah will keep seeing the same people cycling in and out of programs that don’t take them far enough.
If you know where to look, you can find people who made it. People who are working, staying sober, helping others. But too many fall through the cracks. The system pushes them toward detox, but doesn’t walk with them beyond it.
Real change will require investment in long-term housing, employment programs, and community-based support networks. Without those, the cycle of addiction, recovery, relapse, and homelessness will continue and the homeless community will continue to grow.
Randy Shumway Homeless Services Board Chairman summed it up: “We know what we need to do. We just need to do it.”
