The Diocese of Salt Lake City has been grateful for the coordinated efforts of state and local governments and service providers to improve our response to homelessness. One of the seemingly small but critical outcomes of these efforts has been an emphasis on tearing down stereotypes of a “homeless population” that can be served as a homogenous group.
Through our long history of serving people experiencing homelessness and other crises, we have a deep understanding of the danger of assuming that people who are homeless are criminals, or that people are homeless because they are mentally ill.
Homelessness is complex and individual.