The politicians leading the two-year transition between a large, centralized homeless shelter in downtown Salt Lake City to a new model in summer 2019 say they’ve been successful in the six months since they launched the effort.
Crime dropped in the Rio Grande neighborhood, they say. Police made 466 felony arrests since Aug. 14, 2017, in the area that they attribute to the effort, and 943 arrests were made for outstanding warrants.
Those arrests, along with the focus and federal aid for substance-abuse treatment beds, represent a good start to the two-year effort and will lead to fewer people in homelessness, the leaders say.