Utah Catholics, through Catholic Community Services, have long served people experiencing homelessness. CCS has provided access to comprehensive resources and meals to our homeless friends for decades, in recognition of our Gospel call to serve the needy. Recently, CCS also began operating one of the three new homeless resource centers, a place designed to better serve Utah’s homeless population.
The services CCS provides are grounded in an understanding of the dignity of the human person and the priority each of us must give to those most in need. Thankfully, state, county and city governments, service providers, community advocates and many others have joined together in recent years to revamp the full spectrum of services to people experiencing homelessness. These combined efforts are making real impacts on individuals and families, but are, unfortunately, still not well understood by the public at large, and sometimes actively opposed by well-meaning individuals who lack good information.
The Homeless Resources Centers (HRCs) are one of the primary aspects of the new system that seems to be confusing the public at large. Providing comprehensive services in several smaller resource centers is much more effective for moving people out of homelessness permanently than housing people in one massive shelter with few services.
The move to the smaller centers, however, is not as simple as just moving bodies from one space to another.
The role of the HRCs is to find appropriate housing for homeless individuals and address the barriers they have to accessing and maintaining stable housing. To work, the HRCs need not only good case managers who can help a person or family get mental health care or find sober living or employment that offers a livable wage, they also need housing units.
Thus, Catholics concerned about the success of the HRCs should join diocesan efforts to encourage continued investments in not just affordable housing, but deeply affordable housing as well as permanent supportive housing, sober living units, and other housing options that aren’t the most profitable for developers but are certainly the most impactful on reducing homelessness.
It also takes time to move people who have experienced substantial trauma from a shelter to a new setting. Loud criticisms have been heard regarding the failure to close the downtown shelter in July, as originally scheduled. Multiple issues led to delays, some avoidable, some not. However, no one should complain about delays required to ensure that guests at the shelter are able to move successfully into a resource center or other, more permanent, housing. Helping a woman who has been abused in her family and on the street feel safe and secure in a new placement is worth the time and effort. Forcing her to move before she can mentally and emotionally handle such a move in order to meet a deadline would be unconscionable.
Similarly, opening the new centers is about as difficult as opening any new business. Unexpected problems arise daily, some of which can be addressed quickly, some of which require more time to ensure the safety of guests. Working through the unexpected helps all service providers see where the gaps are so we can better inform funders and policy-makers about priorities for their efforts as well. Catholics can advocate for funders and policy-makers to make data-driven, trauma-informed decisions, rather than simply reacting to the negative voices.
Finally, we must all remember that no resource center, service provider or even state can completely end homelessness. Some states try to hide the issue through laws that criminalize homelessness rather than address the causes. Catholics must be advocates against laws that punish people experiencing homelessness or address the causes through little more than incarceration. Homelessness is an experience, not a character trait, and is best addressed through compassion and collaboration with the individual, not punishment.
Jean Hill is director of the Diocese of Salt Lake City’s Office of Life, Justice and Peace. She can be reached at jean.hill@dioslc.org.
Stay Connected With Us