“Instead of addressing the fundamental housing problems we face, the city and county have routinely used public funding to cruelly destroy peoples’ homes and possessions, putting their lives in further jeopardy,” writes Katharine S. Walter.
As housing prices rise, our most urgent priority must be the true meaning of public health: protecting the health and humanity of our most vulnerable community members.On June 5, a state Department of Public Safety helicopter flew low over Salt Lake City towards a steep hillside above Victory Road, where many unhoused people had fled to escape the city’s ruthless sweeps, the forced displacement of encampments.
Nine days later, during the helicopter sweep, Matt told me his blood pressure monitor was taken along with many of his other belongings. The so-called “service” day was part of a shameful and dangerous pattern of government-sponsored harassment of Salt Lake City’s unhoused community. The health department employee told me that June 5 was the 18th time the city had swept the same area since 2011, including a 2019 sweep that also used a helicopter.
The co-option of public health language to justify policies that harm people of color and the poor is an old strategy. A wide body ofshows that sweeps are not effective in moving people into housing. Instead, sweeps undermine health, break up communities that provide essential care for each other and rob people of their belongings — including medicines, food and shelter.
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