Plans are beginning to take shape for the 1,300-bed homeless campus that the state wants to build in the northern part of Salt Lake City. But with initial construction estimates in the ballpark of $75 million, the question of funding looms large.
One solution put forth? Utah’s opioid settlement funds.
The state won approximately $597 million from lawsuits over the opioid epidemic. Roughly half is allocated to the state, and the rest is distributed among the counties.
Devon Kurtz, public safety policy director for the Cicero Institute, called this money a “once-in-a-generation” sum that, if invested properly, could have long-term impacts within the community.
“This kind of facility should be open to the broader public, not just the homeless,” he said. “However, because we have not made these investments in the capacity of these systems, the people we’re seeing on the street are those who have fallen through the current system.”
Kurtz suggested in a Nov. 20 meeting with the Utah Homeless Services Board this fund could serve as a possible piggybank.
Among other stakeholders, the state asked the Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank and an evident supporter of President Donald Trump’s approach to homelessness, to speak on Utah’s plans for the campus.
Kurtz, the lead researcher for the project, said his findings showed that scattering funds to multiple nonprofits doesn’t yield long-term results to reduce homelessness.
“What we would like to see is that these funds are used for a handful of very ambitious projects — one, two, maybe three projects — that cost a lot of money, which the state would otherwise perhaps feel nervous about funding through general funds,” he said.
Not everyone is on board, including some who work in drug abuse outreach. MacKenzie Bray, executive director of the Salt Lake City Harm Reduction Project, said the opioid settlement money needs to be used as intended.
“It’s meant to reduce the harms of the opioid and overdose epidemic,” she said.
In her view, the proposal to use the funds lacked detail for exactly what it would be used for.
“I have big concerns about it not being used for drug treatment or drug prevention.”
Bray, who lost her brother to opioid addiction, has been critical of how the state and some counties have spent portions of the fund. Items such as law enforcement equipment and, in one case, an animal shelter for people going to rehab have received funding.
She does not want this money misused if it does end up contributing to the homeless campus.
“If there’s clinical evidence for it, if it’s supported in the literature, then I’m all for it,” she said. “But if it’s used for funding a cafeteria or something like that, that’s one where it’s like, no, that’s not the place.”
Much of the focus during the latest Utah Homeless Services Board meeting centered around themes included in President Trump's executive order on public safety and homelessness, like camping bans and expanding involuntary commitment of people. Several stakeholders made suggestions that petty offenders with the worst mental health or drug abuse problems be forced to take a 30-day minimum stay at the campus.
If money from the settlement were used for this aspect of the project, Bray said it would be a “slap in the face” for drug abuse outreach organizations. She said not everyone with mental health issues is a victim of opioid abuse, and inflicting further harm, such as arrests of drug abusers, in her opinion, is not what the settlement was intended for.
Still, there is some overlap. The vision may differ, but both Bray and Kurtz agree there is a place for the settlement fund in this homeless campus.
“So if they’re planning with this campus, maybe methadone vans are stationed there and can go out into the community to get people treatment,” Bray suggested.
“I think that is an excellent use of funds.”
When asked during his monthly press conference if he supported the idea of using opioid settlement funds for the homeless campus, Gov. Spencer Cox gave few details, but said he was determined to see this project through.
“So many people who are suffering from homelessness now are people who had knee surgery and got addicted because they were overprescribed, and now they’ve lost everything,” he told reporters. “So, yeah, we want those funds to be used in a way that actually helps get people back on their feet, and we’ll work with the Legislature to make that happen.”
Stakeholders now anxiously await the state’s budget to see how much will actually be allocated to the project.
