SALT LAKE CITY — Two people were arrested Wednesday as protesters and police clashed over health workers’ efforts to clean up downtown homeless encampments.
The cleanup is part of the Salt Lake County Health Department’s “routine operations” that occur about once a week, according to Nicholas Rupp, the department’s communications manager.
“It’s one of our routine encampment abatements,” he said. “We work to abate and mitigate public health hazards that come from living outdoors.”
That includes human waste, sometimes stored in buckets or bottles, and drug paraphernalia, consisting mostly of discarded needles. He said health workers walk through homeless encampments throughout the county on a regular basis, and they let residents know at least 24 hours in advance that they “need to vacate the area” so they can “remove any debris that’s been abandoned and health hazards.”
He said it’s a difficult but necessary operation because of the health and safety issues that arise when people camp in an urban area for long periods of time.
“We don’t expect this is a solution to our homeless problem,” he said, “but it is something that needs to happen.”
As part of that notification, county workers give the unsheltered people they encounter information about where they can go for various resources, including temporary shelter, places offering food, drug addiction services or information about medical care.
“We want to let them know about all the opportunities that exist,” he said. “We want to make sure people who chose to live outdoors are aware of their options.”
County workers, flanked by police officers, made their way down the west side of 500 West between 200 South and 400 South, an area where people have been camping over the past few months in dozens of tents. Residents of the encampment packed their things, although some areas had been vacated before officials arrived.
As campers tried to gather as much as they could carry, workers made piles of what was left, some of it clearly trash and debris, but some of it useful to an unsheltered person, including blankets, tarps and bicycle parts.
The protesters shouted at police, some calling them inhumane and asking how displacing already unsheltered people was “protecting and serving.” Officers, however, were simply providing security for health department workers charged with cleaning up the encampment as it was vacated, something Rupp said has happened regularly for at least the last 10 years.
The most tense moment came when protesters attempted to block a patrol car from leaving the area, as it appeared the officer had arrested a man living in one of the tents. The man sat in the back seat of the police cruiser wearing a mask, as about a dozen protesters stood in front of the car, and one man stood behind it.
Eventually, police pushed or cajoled protesters out of the path of the car, which turned on its overhead lights and entered the intersection against the traffic light.
The protesters took issue with the cleanup because it forced those camping on the street to abandon property that they couldn’t carry or transport from the area. Several were also upset that officers set up a perimeter and wouldn’t allow anyone but those living in the tents to enter the two-block area.
County officials and police left about 5:30 p.m., and Rupp said officials cleaned up as much as they could before it became too dark. They have other cleanups planned for Thursday in Salt Lake City.
Protesters vowed to show up to help the unsheltered people in whatever way they could and to call out what they said they see as an abuse of governmental power.
After officials left, protesters handed out water and garbage bags to those still packing their belongings on the east side of the street. Among them was a man who identified himself as Geoff, and his partner, who said her name was Shyla.
They said Wednesday’s cleanup is the first time they’ve been forced to relocate since coming to Utah about 14 months ago. Geoff said he came to Utah to live with his brother and get on his feet. He lost his job after contracting COVID-19 in May, and the couple can’t stay together in a shelter, so they choose to live outdoors.
“We’ve been in this spot for about two months,” Geoff said, “and nothing like this has happened before. ... They put notes on some of the tents around here, but not on ours.”
Shyla added that the pandemic has made it much harder to get into a shelter, “even if we wanted to. They’re on lottery right now.”
“If we could stay somewhere together, we’d go there,” she said. “There is nowhere we can stay together.”
They weren’t sure if officials were going to return Wednesday night, but they were going to pack up and leave anyway. Rupp said many will return to the same camping spots after the cleanup is finished.
“It’s not uncommon to have tents back 24 hours after a cleanup,” he said. “But at least we’ve removed the health hazards.”
