Eric used to travel the world photographing wildlife. Now, he walks the streets of Salt Lake City, missing everything he once owned. While undergoing cancer treatment in a VA hospital, he says someone emptied his bank accounts, sold his motor home, and stole his camera gear. Then his ID vanished, too — the last barrier to get into senior housing.
“You get right there to the edge of not being homeless anymore … just damn near putting the key in the door and something happens.”
Eric is far from an isolated case. Over one recent evening, the Utah Stories team walked through Pioneer Park and nearby encampments looking for seniors, people evicted, displaced, or simply out of financial options. It wasn’t hard to find them.
One can judge whether a society is in decline by how it treats its seniors and its children. Rocky Anderson, former mayor, has long called this a moral test. He called current conditions in Salt Lake City “a travesty.” He’s seen officers arrive in freezing weather, sweep people from tents, and confiscate their tents and IDs.
“It is absolutely the most inhumane means of dealing with those most in need in our community.”
Julie is perhaps the clearest image of what gets overlooked. She’s been living outdoors for two years.
“I’m too old to be on the streets and I’m not getting any better,” she told us.
Her daily routine depends on friends who wheel her to meals and bring her back. In shelters, she said, she feels stripped of agency: “They want to put you in… you can’t have friends over. I don’t want to be treated like a three-year-old child anymore.”
Behind the scenes of Salt Lake’s shelters lie policy traps. A terminally ill woman was reportedly given three days’ notice after sticking a tether for her dog into the yard — a violation of property rules. That eviction came even though she was stage 4 cancer, frail, and barely 76 pounds.
“It’s unusually cruel to do to an older woman,” one witness said.
The broad brush with which all homeless populations are painted compounds the problem. Drug use, mental illness, and alcoholism are real challenges, but seniors whose issue is primarily housing stability are caught in the same system. In parks, one corner may host a drug scene; across the way, an older man fights hypothermia. Yet police enforcement treats everyone the same.
Switchpoint, a local nonprofit, tries a different path. Cody, an assistant regional director, says their approach is small steps — safe shelter first, then healing. Micro-shelters provide personal space instead of mass bunking. On intake, guests may hand over contraband to an amnesty box rather than be criminalized. Rules are set, clearly explained, and enforced equally.
“We see the healing be most effective when someone has their own safe space,” Cody said.
Over time, visitors are allowed, then overnight guests if house rules are honored.
Not all facilities work this way. Some allow drug use unchecked, which damages both the client experience and the surrounding neighborhood. Anderson draws the line: he believes accountability must exist, but the rules should be honest, consistent, and humane. When shelters expel someone for drug use, it should come as a last resort, not a default judgment.
Time is running out as winter approaches. The city’s “cold blue” policy only mandates shelter below 17 degrees. If the temperature rises above that, many shelters close. That standard draws sharp criticism.
“If it’s over 17 degrees … you don’t need to worry about them then?” asked Anderson.
He calls for immediate action: churches and public buildings opened as overflow sites, consistent nightly shelters, and expansion of micro-shelters before snow hits the ground.
Beyond emergency fixes, the larger issue is housing policy. Anderson argues for nonprofit, non-market housing models, where revenue covers operations rather than profit margins. Others advocate for tiny-home villages on underused land near transit. One theme runs through both: remove the profit extractors and put control back in local hands.
Numbers underscore the urgency. According to 2025 state data, there was a 42% increase in homeless seniors over age 64, a 36% rise in homeless veterans, and more than 10,000 Utahns newly homeless. Shelter stays are lengthening. Far from brief, homelessness is becoming chronic for many.
There are places of hope. In Tooele, Switchpoint repurposed a school into mixed shelter and housing, with daycare so parents can work. Every new unit counts. But as Cody noted, bottlenecks remain: lack of funding, lack of political will, and a public conversation that still sidesteps dignity.
Petey’s story illustrates transformation. She had an apartment and a job before COVID but lost both. She found herself sleeping under an overpass. One dark morning, a man attempted sexual assault. Another homeless man intercepted. No police were called. Amid that chaos, she found her way to Switchpoint. Today, she works in their kitchen. Her son now has housing and a job. Both are moving forward.
Salt Lake City must recognize that incidents like these are not simply “part of being homeless.” They are a mirror held up to our collective character. Meeting this challenge means expanding micro-shelters and overflow beds, rewriting shelter policies to respect adults as adults, safeguarding people’s property and identities, and building a system centered on recovery and healing.
