- New Salt Lake City data shows that 77% of those arrested more than four times last year were homeless.
- The top 25% most-arrested individuals accounted for $51 million in police, court and medical costs.
- The top crimes for those with the highest criminal recidivism were drug possession and trespassing.
The Utah Office of Homeless Services released new data on Tuesday revealing the overlap between chronic homelessness and criminal recidivism, providing support for Gov. Spencer Cox’s push to fund more targeted interventions for homeless Utahns.
The data shows that chronic homelessness is a law enforcement nightmare that cannot be solved by law enforcement alone.
Utah has pivoted on homeless policy over the past three years, breaking from the “housing first” approach it once epitomized while moving toward a balance between strict law enforcement and increased coordination among care providers.
Under new homeless coordinator Tyler Clancy, the office is focused on treating the issues underlying homelessness to help those who have been on the street for more than a year exit the system, instead of cycling through arrests and instability.
This is exactly what has been happening for much of Utah’s chronically homeless population, Clancy’s office found.
Over the past few weeks, Clancy’s assistant director of external operations, Nathan Meinzer, has pored over data from nine of Utah’s largest cities to create a state dataset that identifies what share of the state’s top arrested individuals are homeless.
On Tuesday, Meinzer presented the data for Salt Lake City, where the majority of Utah’s homeless population lives, to the state Homeless Services Board.
From April 2024 to April 2025, 77% of the 1,021 individuals arrested four or more times by the Salt Lake City Police Department were homeless. Almost half of them had been homeless for at least five years — stuck in the chronic homeless category which reached record levels in 2025.
After comparing arrest data with information about who interacted with Utah’s homeless services system for an extended period of time, Meinzer learned a majority of Utah’s chronically homeless, which numbered 1,233 last year, are “high utilizers” — the top 25% of most-arrested individuals.
What is a ‘high utilizer’?
“I’m asking that question, ‘Who is a high utilizer?’ The answer is, it’s an individual that’s cycling through services, whether shelter services, arrests, medical services,” Meinzer told the Deseret News. “They’re folks that are experiencing crisis, and how can we help them get the tools to exit that cycle?”
High utilizers, representing the top 25% of most-arrested individuals, cost the state $51 million a year in shelter, police, court and medical expenses. More than $16 million were caused by the top 25% of high utilizers, who have an average of 11 annual arrests and 7½ years on the street.
These 255 “super high utilizers” had nearly 10,000 criminal charges, 2% for violent crime, 7% for property crime, 30% for criminal trespass and 33% for drug possession. Around 84% of those with the highest rates of recidivism were homeless. Just 13% of the arrests led to jail time.
During Thursday’s board meeting, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall praised Clancy’s team for analyzing the data and attempting to move beyond an overly simplistic focus on low-barrier housing or police presence. If anything, Mendenhall said the data underestimates the cost of high utilizers.
Since Clancy left the state Legislature for his new role in March, the office has rolled out Project BRIDGE to connect those leaving the state’s expanded winter shelter system directly to mental health providers, drug treatment centers and behavioral health clinics.
The office also partnered with the Switchpoint microshelter system in Salt Lake City to dedicate beds to high utilizers. The office plans to continue tailoring Utah’s existing system to meet high utilizer needs using the impressive $45.6 million approved by lawmakers this year.
By making bipartisan progress on a problem as difficult as chronic homelessness, Clancy said Utah leaders are proving that they are not avoiding the difficult conversations that need to be had to reform Utah’s police, court and homeless systems to keep people from falling through the cracks.
“It’s easy to look away sometimes because it’s layers and layers of complexity,” Clancy said. “I would just say in terms of hope and some positivity, as I’ve sat down with Gov. Cox, he’s not looking away. As I’ve been across the table from Mayor Mendenhall and (Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson,) they’re not looking away.”
Correction: The number of criminal charges filed between April 2024 and 2025 by the Salt Lake Police Department against those with 11 or more arrests totaled nearly 10,000, not 1,000.