What Pittsburgh Needs To Know About Utah's Controversial 'Homeless Campus' Plan (Your City Could Be Better)

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This is your city could be better because it could be.

I'm David Floss.

If you love your city and still complain about it, you're in the right place.

Alley Bayarta does homelessness look different in Salt Lake City than it does in other

cities.

I don't think so.

I mean, I haven't lived in a lot of American cities, but numbers are on the rise.

Wealth gap, climbing up, um, dangerous in the winter when it gets cold here.

It can be even more dangerous in the summer when it gets hot.

I think we all kind of know what the faces of people experiencing homelessness are.

Like we've seen those stats for decades now.

A lot of people who are veterans, a lot of people who have experienced sexual assault,

a lot of people who were recently housed more and more, like just couldn't afford rent

got priced out.

So yeah, it's a growing problem in every city.

Utah is bidding to become the site of one of the most ambitious and controversial public

policy experiments in America.

The state of Utah is planning to build a 16-acre, quote, homeless campus.

I'm not sure who calls it the homeless campus, but we're going to call it the homeless

campus on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, where homeless people with mental illness or

addiction issues, primarily, could be housed and in many cases involuntarily committed.

The homeless campus mega shelter, which could potentially house 1,300 people, which is

about a quarter of Salt Lake's homeless population, is the brainchild of conservative think tanks

aligned with Silicon Valley.

And it's an idea that is very much being embraced by lots of people in the Trump administration.

So I'm David Plott's CEO of CityCast and I'm joined by Alive Arta, the host of CityCast

Salt Lake.

Welcome to your city could be better.

It's good to be here.

I agree that our city could be better.

Yeah, your city could be better.

I mean, I've been to Salt Lake.

It's pretty cool, though.

But tell us a little bit about what this homeless campus would be like, where it would

be built and when it might open.

Yeah, there's so much that we don't know what we know, like you mentioned.

They're aiming for 1,300 beds.

And you called it a campus.

We've heard it called an institution, a mega shelter.

Some folks have referred to it as an internment camp.

The goal is to have this thing open by 2027, which is really ambitious because this is

a really expensive project.

And we're not even certain where all this money is going to come from.

We're looking at $75 million to build this facility and then an additional $34 million

a year to operate.

It's to be built on the west side of our city, which every city has these, right?

The neighborhood where all the, quote, undesirable projects get dumped for us, that's the west

side.

So there's also a level of like people feeling this is just being cited in their backyard

with no public input.

The big thing here that I think people have pointed to is that what this conversation is

doing is dividing perspectives about how we treat homelessness and housing into two

camps.

Historically, it's been a housing first approach, right?

Buckle your seatbelt.

First, we house people and then they're able to be treated for whatever they need in

order to maintain their housing.

This approach is a treatment first approach.

So basically, you get court ordered into a facility.

You are forced to quote unquote, reckon with any mental health issues and then you get

moved into housing.

Now up until now, we've heard very little about what it would mean to move people out

of this facility.

Right now, we just know what it could look like to get people in.

That's $75 million to build.

That's grossly low.

I will bet you more than, I won't bet you $75 million, but I will bet you by the time

the thing gets built, it does not cost $75 million, but that's a side note.

Where are the idea for this come from?

So the idea for this came largely from a group called the Cicero Institute and anybody

who lives in like Austin or San Francisco and is listening is probably familiar with this

think tank.

You called them a conservative think tank.

I think they would disagree.

The founder of the Cicero Institute is Joe Lonsdale, who is the co-founder of Palantir.

David, do you want to describe what Palantir does for the uninitiated?

Well, Palantir is the huge big data company that it contracts with a Pentagon and is responsible

for a lot of the most advanced kinds of surveillance that is being done in the world.

And it mines huge amounts of data in ways that frankly, we don't even know, I mean, it's

all under, mostly under DOD contracts, but it's very secret and it's highly based on surveilling,

gathering lots of bits of information, painting a picture and using that to identify people

and target them for something.

Building a surveillance ecosystem for the US government.

So I think that's related because basically leaders from this think tank gave this presentation

to the Utah Homeless Services Board and they are seen and I think rightly so as sort of

the architects of the idea to build this shelter.

And there were four things in this presentation that raised the hackles, I think, of journalists

in the room and also longtime homeless providers in the room.

So the first thing is this is all based around the idea of involuntary civil commitment,

which already exists in Utah.

I'm guessing this exists in DC, basically the idea that if you believe someone is a threat

to their own safety, you can court order them to 24 hours of like being held and then

after they're the court decides their future.

Does that sound familiar?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And so what this would do, that's different because right now we have civil commitment

in Utah.

There are probably people who are already experiencing homelessness here who have been

civilly committed all over the place.

This would turn civil commitment into a place.

And I think that is like for me, the top line of this project is that's the big change

to how we think about civil commitment.

The other big change to how we think about civil commitment, which is involuntary, is

that, you know, I interviewed someone, Devon Kurtz, who works for this think tank was

involved in putting together these notes and this presentation.

And he said that we need to think about civil commitment in terms of violations of the

social order.

Now that to me is like really different from how we've thought about civil commitment

in the past.

So what does it mean for someone to violate the social order if they're in a park, if

they're on the street?

And I mean, if you read the room on the path of civil liberties, on the militarization

of our streets in this country, like there are a lot of reasons to kind of like, you know,

for your spidey senses to go off at that.

The third piece of this, what's gets me to the Palantir of it all, is that in order

to go to this facility, you would have to get on a registry.

And so, okay, we know that it is already hard when it comes to meeting people where they

are, to talking to them, to getting them into housing, to like, if you come in there hot

and heavy with, we're going to put you on a registry, I don't know why anyone would

submit to that.

And also, why do we need to do that, right?

So that's where I'm like, okay, I need to remember that this is an organization whose

chair is like involved in modern surveillance in the U.S.

So a lot of people, when they hear about this homeless campus, this mega shelter, this

institution, immediately harken back to a time before you were born, to the pre-Ragan

era world where there were massive institutions, many people were involuntarily committed,

and then during the 80s, there was a de-institutionalization, a lot of people who were mentally ill or had,

sometimes had other health or mental issues, psychological issues or addiction issues were

released kind of without any real plan, often onto the streets.

And the kind of modern era of homelessness, many people traced to this time of de-institutionalization.

And I think there was a widespread agreement that these institutions were horrible.

And cruel to people and mistreated people and didn't see people for individuals and didn't

treat the meaningful difficulties that they were having.

And then there was also widespread agreement since then that homelessness as a kind of

experience for people and as an experience for society is also not great.

And the amount of homelessness that occurs in the United States is concerning both for

the people who are experiencing it and also for people who witness it because it's just,

it makes people feel unsafe in their cities.

So how much of what is going on with this sister institute is truly harkening back to this

pre-Ragan era and how much of it is a, do you think, a new idea about what institutionalization can do?

Yeah, I mean, I asked this question of Devon Kurtz who works for the sister institute.

And he spent a lot of time telling me all the reasons that we should be horrified

about the way that we institutionalized people in our nation's dark history.

I don't feel that I fully understand all the ways that this would be different, especially

as we still don't have a really firm sense of the peace where people leave this facility.

Like again, so much of the discussion has been about how to get people into this facility,

presumably through civil commitment, but there hasn't been a lot of conversation

about investing and getting people out, right?

Like is this a three day stay or longer?

Those are the questions that are up in the air.

And I think that's where people really want answers,

maybe before they decide entirely how they feel about this project,

but also your point about like this is only going to cost $75 million.

What about the back half of this whole experiment,

which is getting people housed and, you know, all states, all places could do better

when it comes to mental health.

Right now in Utah, we've got kind of a leadership vacuum on that issue.

So there were two legislative audits that were ordered earlier this year.

They looked at the Department of Corrections, Jails and Prisons,

and they looked at the Department of Health and Human Services.

They are scathing.

Like they point to a situation where right now in our state,

we aren't leading well on mental health in the state-run facilities that we've already got.

And inmates feel abandoned when it comes to their mental health.

There was someone who took their own life in our prison.

Like the system is already flawed and inadequate.

And so are we in the best position to build a new mental health facility?

Like who's going to lead on that practically speaking?

Our record's not good.

That's a really good point that we already are trying this in the state of Utah

and we don't do it very well.

And so it's to add a whole new facility and a whole new method seems risky.

I guess I wonder what homeless experts in Salt Lake City say about

whether it makes sense to kind of bifurcate the population of people who are homeless

into the sort of the economically unhoused people who,

because of the impossibility of affording housing in Salt Lake City and other cities,

find themselves homeless and people who are suffering from significant mental problems

or criminal justice problems that make it hard for them to even participate in society.

And that is it misguided to try to figure out a different solution for that second group

in the way that the Cicero Institute seems to be trying to do?

Yeah.

I do think already those two groups,

like the middle of that Venn diagram is people who are experiencing chronic homelessness.

That's already kind of been broken out and considered.

You've been in news and media for a long time, David.

So do you remember back in, I don't know, maybe 2007,

there were all these headlines that Utah solved homelessness?

Yes.

Which is an ambitious headline.

And you know, one that an editor would definitely green light if there was good data there.

There was even like a story from John Stewart about how Utah solved homelessness.

And that whole experiment, what actually happened there is that the state and the county

and the city all came together.

And they put together a list of the 17 people who were experiencing chronic homelessness.

They basically looked at like, who are these individuals that end up on the street,

time after time year after year.

And they created a system to house them with wraparound services.

And it was massively successful.

It had like an over 90% retention rate that program.

And that's what led to those headlines.

So we've already kind of like desegregated that data.

And we've already tried a program that kind of worked and kept people housed while we

look upstream at some of the bigger or more chronic issues that lead to homelessness.

And those three properties that they created then are still up and running.

And they are still all at capacity.

And we know that our permanent supportive housing programs are really effective.

So I think people in the room for this presentation who have been doing this work for decades

are like, before we move on to some new project, some big development that's going to cost

a ton of money, what if you took $100 million and invested it in permanent supportive housing?

In these systems that we know work, let's try that first for one year.

Right.

Right.

So they built all this permanent supportive housing back in between 2005 and 2015.

It worked.

It was incredibly homeless people housed, but they didn't keep building it.

And every year more people find themselves in that situation for a variety of reasons.

And in fact, consult lake, your population of unhoused grew 18% last year.

So unless you keep adding housing supply for that program, you were just not addressing

the problem.

Yeah.

And I think like, look, if the governor were here, if Devon Kurtz were here, if we were

all in this room together, we would all agree that we want to solve homelessness.

Like, I think we are all bringing that to the table.

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There's a Trump version of this that is pretty heartless and cold and cruel and that's

actually not, like if you listen to Devin Kurtz on City Council Lake, which I recommend

people do, Devin Kurtz, like you may think his solution is wrong.

You may well think that he wants to, he is a misguided idea of how to spend resources.

But there is not malice in what he's trying to do.

Like it is, it is, you know, allays like shaking her head.

Maybe there is malice.

I think there's a genuine public policy difference and you and other people are very skeptical

of this.

But I do think it's a, it doesn't come from a place of cruelty.

It comes from a place of wanting to make cities safer and wanting to improve the lives of

the people who find themselves homeless.

Don't you agree with that?

No, I do.

Concern and frustration, absolutely, which I think is what a lot of people are experiencing.

I nod my head at the malice thing because I think creating a precedent where we involuntarily

civilly commit people for violating the social order, whatever that means, could be dangerous

and could be used for malice in the future.

And those are the kinds of considerations that we have to make now before we're on a

runaway train because another piece of this proposal was removing the disability

law center as the state protection and advocacy agency.

And so it's like there are other things in motion here that I think civil rights lawyers

are really concerned about.

And I don't want to, I really, really, really don't want to minimize that piece of this

proposal because I think it will be when there's a shiny headline about like Utah moving

to cure homelessness with this massive, expensive, huge project and this new idea.

But yeah, I mean to your point, David, like homelessness providers would say, we don't

need a disruptor.

Like we're in the disruptor era, right?

Everybody wants to, everybody's like asking, how can we disrupt this?

Can that make it better, more efficient, et cetera?

We don't necessarily need a disruptor.

We just need more investment, but it's totally fair for people to feel like the situation

hasn't improved since 2007 or whatever and that the system is broken.

And I think part of the reason for that is because it's so massively underfunded.

I think there's an interesting piece of this, which is the Utah piece of it, which is

that Utah, because of the LDS church, I think primarily, has an interesting reputation

as being a place where you're building a human conservative community because the LDS

church is very strong, sort of self-supporting and community supporting qualities to it.

And so that when things are tried in Utah, they get a sort of sheen.

And it wouldn't surprise me that if this ends up being tried in Utah, the fact that it's

Utah gives it a kind of imprimatur of goodness that carries it forward to other states and

it's worth not examined as closely.

Because I do think you guys have this reputation of being sort of a warm-hearted place.

Yeah.

And our governor is better at rhetoric than others.

But I think we've also seen a pivot here, away from warm-heartedness.

An example of that is that Governor Spencer Cox told the feds that we would be eager

to receive a 10,000-bed ICE detention center in the state.

And that comes less than a decade after the state signed a compact and actually sent

a letter to the federal government asking for more immigrants, right?

So there's also this sort of political transition at play a little bit where the state is more

and more keen to be well received by the federal government to sort of like go with their flow.

And it's felt like a pivot for people who live here, which I think is funny because

from a national perspective, we've seen our governor sort of become the face of like,

you know, quote-unquote reason, disagreeing better, et cetera, in the Republican party.

But inside this state, people have felt a real pivot from him in his politics.

So I think we would be remiss not to mention that I do believe our governor, Spencer Cox,

would like to run for president.

And he would love nothing more than to bring the nation this project as a shiny solution

to homelessness and say, look, we solved it in Utah.

We do things better in Utah, let us bring this approach to the rest of the nation.

But fundamentally, this is a national approach that's being brought to us in Utah.

The Cicero Institute is based in Austin, right?

So the messaging on that is, is slick.

That's so interesting.

And also, it also seems to be a state solution that's being brought to the city.

Does the city of Salt Lake want this facility built in Salt Lake?

Or is this something that the state legislature is mandating kind of against the wishes

of the residents of the city?

I think the residents of the city want to see people housed.

And I think that in time of economic crisis as well, I think a lot of people are reckoning

with the fact that when they see someone experiencing homelessness, they're keenly aware

of the fact that that could be their family if they had a medical bill or, or, you know,

so there's also, I think, an emotional piece to this.

Like, people are emotionally reactive to homelessness because it's awful.

And it's a terrible picture.

And it's a terrible product of the society that we've built.

I think people in Salt Lake City would like to see the state looking upstream at solutions,

building more affordable housing, raising the minimum wage.

Like, actually talking about poverty and not trying to disentangle poverty from homelessness

in those conversations, which I think we can demand our elected officials do right now

because they all are running around trying to get a tattoo of the word affordability on their arm.

And so this is like the time to bring them this issue and ask for a real systemic solution.

That said, the city itself, in terms of this project, this campus, is seems kind of poised

to throw up its hands and say, we want the state to solve this problem.

Our mayor has said that she wants more state investment on this issue.

And so this is what they brought.

This is their big idea.

You kind of just answered this already, but I guess what you have this major homelessness problem?

You have a major affordability problem.

But when it comes to people who are skeptical about this homeless campus,

what do they think should be done?

How would they spend the 75 million plus 34 million every year instead?

Would it be on this permanent housing?

Would it be on raising the minimum wage?

Would it be on building more affordable housing?

What do you think the best ideas or most compelling ideas are?

I think that what we hear time and time again is the solution to homelessness is housing.

We need to build housing.

Build housing that has wraparound services, permanent supportive housing, so it's called.

Invest in those projects.

Whether that's renovating motels, whether that's building something new,

like really be laser focused on building this kind of housing.

And then see what happens.

Because we know that the last time we did it, it had kind of a staggering result.

So let's try that again.

And let's continue to invest.

Like fundamentally, this is not going to be a, you put up dollars for a year,

and then you know, you sunset that money forever and we've solved homelessness.

We're just going to have to invest in that ever more.

What steps still have to occur before this campus gets built?

And we got to find the money.

They're even still doing like environmental impact study on the plot of land itself.

But the big thing is going to be finding all these dollars.

And there's also a lot of anxiety that like,

dollars are going to be pulled from other programs to fund this.

And so what does that mean, right?

What programs?

And amidst this whole plan, the states homeless are resigned.

And now we're getting a new homeless czar.

So it's hard to know how everyone feels about this facility.

But the sense is, this is the state's baby.

They are full steam ahead on this project.

There is one institution that could really model this up for them.

And that is the Disability Law Center,

which is the protection and advocacy agency

and could file the kind of lawsuits around involuntary commitment

that could hold up this process.

And a key piece of the Cicero presentation said,

remove this institution as the state's protection and advocacy agency.

So will they do that?

I don't know.

All right, Allie.

What can listeners who aren't necessarily

insulting like take away from this conversation

to make their own city better?

I feel like you're not going to like this

because it's a, I'm going to point to a national thing.

But something I have learned following all of this

is that all roads lead to Medicaid.

David, like, in terms of like how we fund

these kinds of projects in terms of like how we actually get people

connected with resources and off of the streets.

So many people I talk to point to Medicaid,

like all roads lead to Medicaid.

And I think that's the thing that's so interesting

about all of this to me is like some of the same voices

behind this project are also behind cuts to Medicaid.

When it seems like that's the apparatus

that could fund all of this or be a huge resource.

So I just more and more.

I'm like, wow, is Medicaid the most important program

in this country?

It might be.

Okay, let's change gears entirely and go to our second segment,

the word on the street segment.

Yeah.

So Allie, word on the street is that Salt Lake City

has home cafes.

What is a home cafe?

Is that true?

Have you been there?

Can I go?

Yes, I went to one.

So someone opened a home cafe just like down the street for me.

And he, his name is Joe.

He is like a long time barista in Salt Lake City

really respected in the coffee community

and decided to turn his living room into a coffee shop

with approval from his roommate.

And people have been frequenting this place.

So you go on Google Calendar,

you book a 15 to an hour long slot

to go get a gorgeous cup of coffee.

And he calls it like kind of his research and development

cushion like he tries new recipes

and new flavor profiles and whatever.

But it's such a clever idea

and it's really taken off.

And now we're told that there will be a new home cafe

opening in Salt Lake City

and we've got a home non-alcoholic bar

open in Salt Lake City.

That's also someone's living room

and a home, a living room,

vegan barbecue place.

And are those legal?

Yeah, I mean, I guess, right?

You're inviting friends over to have coffee.

But they're paying.

Are they paying? Do they have to pay?

It's a donation.

So you don't have to.

How much did you donate for your coffee?

Well, this is the amazing trick of the donation-based meal

is that I'm always going to pay more

than I would have for the not donation-based meal.

So I mean, anywhere from 10 to 12 dollars.

And do you have the right to sit

when you make your donation?

Yeah, a little coffee, little tables and chairs there.

You can sit down and hang out and have a chat.

And it's inside.

It's inside. It's in the living room.

You're in the living room.

It's like, come on over and have a cup of coffee.

I love this idea, but I'm just wondering if I were Joe's neighbor,

would I love this idea?

I would have thought that there would be significant annoyance

from people who live next door to Joe

or who live in the apartment below Joe,

who are like, what the heck is going on?

That's like a very American thing to be worried about.

And I think it's very fair.

One of the reasons I'm so delighted by the home cafes

is that I feel like it really turns our whole like,

you know, the US is the country

where we build giant bedrooms and tiny living rooms.

Like we love our private space.

And it kind of turns that individualism

on its head a little bit of just inviting people

over and into your home and into your space.

You could also argue that it's a reaction

to the sheer cost of per square foot

of renting space to open a coffee shop or open a bar.

But there is something cool

about just trusting the process.

And like having faith in the idea

that people who come and find you

because they want to try your absolutely bang

and peanut butter latte will behave well.

And so far that experiment has played out.

And I'm like, more of that,

because we've been sat here talking about homelessness

this whole time.

And like, what if we brought that kind of ideology

to more of the issues in our community?

Yeah, I think that's a totally beautiful thought.

I think you're absolutely right

that it relies on a kind of expectation

of communal behavior that you think people will not live up to.

But actually they will live up to it.

Because you've invited them to be their best selves.

You've invited them to be a guest,

to go be a guest in someone's home.

You're a guest in someone's home.

You behave yourself.

You were like gracious.

You're in a way making a private space

causes you to behave much better

than you would if it were a restaurant

and you were engaged in an economic transaction.

Which is like, I paid for that.

I'm going to, you know, that's my seat.

You know, I don't, you didn't honor my reservation.

I was, I was here five minutes late

and you gave away my table.

What's wrong with you?

Like when things are transactional,

people behave much worse than they do

when they feel it is a kind of social relationship.

Yeah, or when they're coming from a place of curiosity

and there's like, there's no expectation.

It kind of puts people a little bit on their heel

in a way that is fun.

Like now I want to open a home cafe

and just to see the kind of people

who would come through the door and how they would act.

And maybe I'll play tricks on them.

That'd be great.

Sounds awesome.

So you described this when I asked you about this

over email as a Salt Lake phenomenon.

Is this a Salt Lake phenomenon?

Is this the thing that like people are like,

oh wow, Salt Lake has this new trend

or is this just a phenomenon

and you just happen to notice it in Salt Lake?

I have no idea.

I've only ever been inside someone's home

like restaurant or to like a home cafe

in other parts of the world.

I've never done it in another US city.

But I'm curious.

I feel like, I mean, reply to this episode.

Let us know if there's a home cafe in your city

because I want to know if this is like a,

I haven't seen the New York Times trend piece, you know,

but maybe it's coming.

Priyanka, our producer,

one of our producers is saying there's a private home

in DC that's trying to become a concert venue.

Oh, now that seems tricky.

Yeah.

Now that.

That's where all I like go to bed 10.

The community building sheds away.

And I'm like, no, I'm not moving in there.

See, all right.

All right.

All right, host of City Castle Lake.

Thanks for coming on your city could be better.

Listen to Allie every weekday on City Castle Lake.

That is all for today's episode of your city.

Could be better.

I'm your host David Plots.

Our producers were Lizzie Goldsmith, Priyanka Tillve,

Allie Viarta, and Emily Needs are music

as by Carl Christensen.

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why not tell your friends, rate the show,

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We'll be back next week with another conversation

about how your city could be better.

Talk to you soon.