The revolving door is still spinning on Salt Lake City’s Rio Grande Street. Despite the crackdown that has netted nearly 1,400 arrests since August, a lot of people with multiple outstanding warrants for drug offenses, retail theft and other offenses are being arrested and quickly deposited back on the streets.
A Deseret News report last Friday said one man has been booked into jail six times during that time on charges ranging from having an open container of alcohol to disorderly conduct.
From the beginning, it was clear that efforts to clean up the troubled neighborhood around the Road Home homeless shelter would be complicated. Simply adding a few new treatment beds, while helpful, is not enough to unravel what District Attorney Sim Gill characterizes as years of “systematic neglect” to the need for substance and mental health treatment and transitional housing.
Now is the time for patience while law enforcement and health officials begin to get a better handle on the many problems afflicting this neighborhood. However, it’s also a time for politicians to seriously address the needs. By the end of this year, 240 new treatment beds are expected to be in place. That probably will not be enough.
As it is now, limited jail space is being used by the most hardened criminals. The same is true for treatment beds. That makes sense. Ridding the streets of the most dangerous element will make it easier to help those who remain.
But separating the truly homeless from the criminals who prey on them is a tricky matter. Sometimes they are one and the same. Addictions can lead people to commit crimes they otherwise would not do. They can find themselves in a never-ending cycle that involves warrants, arrests and quick releases without having a judge address the warrants.
Often, these people miss court dates because, in their addicted state, they are unable to keep track. That leads to more warrants, and the cycle continues.
Data from the Salt Lake County Jail indicates 1,355 arrests were made in the current sweep as of Thursday. Of those, 1,041 were tied to warrants, and 949 of those were for misdemeanors.
Detractors of the strategy, known as Operation Rio Grande, say the arrests have been a waste of time. That’s not entirely true. In some cases, the mere act of being arrested is a wake-up call that can lead to help.
But the arrests will have been a waste if the jurisdictions involved do not eventually provide help for people who may be committing petty crimes, but who are in desperate need of serious treatment and rehabilitation. They need beds, as well. They likely are the ones with the best chance of turning their lives around and becoming productive once more.
That will require a long-term effort — longer than the expected opening of new homeless shelters in 2019.
No one should underestimate the value of removing hard-core offenders from the Rio Grande area. They were allowed to prey on victims far too long. But the operation cannot be considered a success until the revolving door shuts and everyone who needs help has been granted a chance at serious attention.