I visited the Saint Vincent de Paul homeless center on Rio Grande Street last April. The purpose of my visit was to update my knowledge about the homeless situation. Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County are in the midst of trying to decide where to build three new homeless centers and spend $22 million of the taxpayers’ money.
I had volunteered at the St Vincent de Paul soup kitchen for nine years and thought I knew the demographics of the homeless. And after visiting with the Saint Vincent de Paul director, my knowledge of the homeless demographics was confirmed.
When I was volunteering, the number of homeless in the area was about 2,000. According to the director of the center, they are now serving a lot younger crowd but the number of homeless is the same. When I first started volunteering the population of Salt Lake County was 910,000, Today it’s approximately 1,015,000. The per capita number of homeless is decreasing.
The Salt Lake Tribune banner headline on Aug. 25 was “Operation Rio Grande bill: $67 million.” This is a three-year project, which means if you divide the number of homeless into the cost of the operation you get $33,500 for each and every homeless person being spent in three years.
The only rational reason I can come up with is that the myriad of services for the homeless in the area want the silver and gold of the taxpayers' hard-earned dollar. Note: I realize that part of the $33,500 is going to go to law enforcement and possibly could be justified.
Rahm Emanuel, the present mayor of Chicago, once quipped, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is that it’s an opportunity to do things you could not do before.” Our fearless political leaders of Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City have been well-schooled in Mayor Emanuel’s philosophies.
House Speaker Greg Hughes, from Draper, seems to be the champion of the project. He has a dandy idea. “He envisions a perimeter fence around The Road Home shelter that would extend east, across a closed-down Rio Grande Street, to facilities owned by Catholic Community Services,” the Tribune said. For the kind of money we taxpayers are paying to help the homeless, I sure hope he has budgeted for concertina wire along the top of fence.
As far as I can tell, the only things missing in the budget is free haircuts for the homeless. I think that giving the manicures, pedicures and massages is going a little too far. I am still debating whether or not we should give the homeless gift cards to the finest dining places in The Gateway.
I do not have to apologize very often because I am always right. But an apology is due to the commercial real estate developers in and about the south part of 500 West. I thought they were the movers and shakers who are trying to relocate the homeless to some other neighborhood so they could build fancy things in the Rio Grande area. Obviously, I was wrong.
And finally, in another column in The Salt Lake Tribune on Aug. 30 by Robert Gehrke titled “Biskupski Jeopardizes Rio Grande Progress,” the author said, “I just might have found a solution for a difficulty that has been agonizing me for a number of months. I could never understand why Jim Winter resigned as sheriff of Salt Lake County to take a position heading up the Moab Police Department.”
In Gehrke’s column, past Sheriff Winder said that there was a great need to provide human services and enforce the law in regard to the homeless.
“This is not a new idea. Former Sheriff Winder proposed it back in April and, while Winder’s roll-out left much to be desired, McAdams and Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill pushed for its enactment,” the column said. No wonder Winder left for Moab to finish out his golden years.
“There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.” - Mahatma Gandhi
Robert Pembroke is chairman of Pembroke’s Inc. and considers himself on a permanent sabbatical. He can be reached at pembroke894@gmail.com.