Lucas W Rydalch

ENGL 2010

Professor Bickmore

25 March 2019

A Groundbreaking Opinion: Homelessness

In May of 2018, state and local leaders joined together to have a groundbreaking for new

Geraldine E. King Resource Center at the corner of State Street and 700 South. This wasn’t just

the announcement of this single homeless shelter, but also the other two homeless shelters to

begin construction that spring. These new shelters were being built to help resolve the

homeless situation that has been lingering over Salt Lake City, but do these shelters really

resolve the issue or do they just spread the issue out to other communities surrounding the

greater Salt Lake City area? Was this new push to resolve homelessness or was it a way to

push the homeless out of an area with plans to be developed.

 Before the groundbreaking of the new homeless shelters, the state of Utah announced

Operation Rio Grande. Operation Rio Grande started in August of 2017 and was broken up into

three phases. (See the infographic above) These phases were meant to help cure the issue, but

many believe that these efforts haven’t helped much. In an article written by the Deseret News,

it discusses some statistics taken from a poll that was conducted nearly a year from the date

that Operation Rio Grande began. It found that “45 percent of 203 city residents who

participated in the poll say the homeless and panhandling situation in Salt Lake City is "about

the same" as when the state, city, and county began the effort to root out crime in the Rio

Grande neighborhood.” (McKellar) While trying to totally solve the homeless issue in Salt Lake

in a year isn’t very realistic, it does make me wonder what really were the intentions of our state

and local leaders regarding the issue?

Near the Rio Grande station, the location of the Operation Rio Grande headquarters,

there is a place that was once a popular destination for Utah residents. This place is the

Gateway Mall and it has been struggling for quite some time. Some blame its struggles on the

homeless issue, and this is where I start speculating what really were the intentions of our local

leaders. A new player in real estate, Vestar, came into town in 2016 willing to invest 30 million

dollars to help revive the once-booming area of commerce. Vestar has a plan in place to make

the Gateway a popular hotspot for millennials to gravitate towards and plans to include

amenities that cater to this generation. This new development could bring a lot of money to the

city and the state. So I ask, was Operation Rio Grande really an operation to help the homeless

community or was it an operation to help put more money into the pockets of our state and local

government and also the purchasers of the property? Do our government leaders really have

our best interest at the center of their politics, or is it their own selfish interests that get in the

way?
 I would agree that the efforts put forward have the potential to do a lot of good for the

City of Salt Lake and the State of Utah, but sometimes we have to ask the tough questions to

understand the real intentions of our leaders. However, questions must not only be questions.

Our questions should be a catalyst for a spring for action to help solve some of our most

important issues. So ask yourself, was this an effort to help the homeless or was it an effort to

put some money into some already over-inflated pockets?

 Sources Cited

Dentzer, Bill. “Construction Starts on Utah's First New Homeless Shelter - a Resource Center

for Women in Salt Lake City.” ​The Salt Lake Tribune​, The Salt Lake Tribune, 7 May

2018,​www.sltrib.com/news/2018/05/07/construction-starts-on-utahs-first-new-homeless-

shelter-a-resource-center-for-women-in-salt-lake-city/​.

“Operation Rio Grande.” ​Operation Rio Grande,​ Utah.gov, 2018, ​operationriogrande.utah.gov/​.

McKellar, Katie. “Poll: Nearly Half of Salt Lake City Residents Think Homeless Issues Haven't

Improved.” ​DeseretNews.com,​ Deseret News, 26 Sept. 2018,

www.deseretnews.com/article/900033687/poll-nearly-half-of-salt-lake-city-residents-think

-homeless-issues-havent-improved.html​.

Oliphant, Aisley. “The Gateway Re-Imagined: A New Owner Promises to Restore Vibrancy to

the Drooping Property.” ​Utah Business,​ 4 June 2018,

www.utahbusiness.com/gateway-re-imagined-new-owner-promises-restore-vibrancy-dro

oping-property/.