A plan to cure the homeless overdose epidemic

SALT LAKE CITY — Before he found God, Dixie Nennis lived in a homeless haze of alcohol and arrests.

But, from Nennis' point of view, most of his friends living on the street had it worse.

They were stuck on "the blues" — synthetic opioids like fentanyl — a trap that many are unable to escape with their life.

In 2023, the No. 1 cause of death for people experiencing homelessness in Utah was drug overdose, accounting for 35% of the 216 deaths recorded that year.

The problem is growing statewide. There were 606 drug overdose deaths in Utah during 2023 — the highest number ever.

Nearly half of these involved fentanyl, which is much cheaper and more potent than prescription opioids or heroin.

While they are not identical, drug addiction and chronic homelessness often go hand in hand.

About 65% of those housed at the new homeless microshelter in west Salt Lake City entered the program with opioid addiction, according to Cody Egbert, a director at Switchpoint Community Resource Center, where Nennis now works preparing meals.

Nennis said that what made the difference for him was police officers who took the time to connect him with the resources he ultimately turned to when he hit rock bottom and found hope in his faith.

"Now I'm working part time, making food for the homeless like me," Nennis said. "It's God's grace."

For one Utah lawmaker, these data points suggest that before public policy can reverse the spike in chronic homelessness — which has doubled since 2019 — the walls between public health and public safety must be torn down.

Linking first responders to resources

On Wednesday, State Rep. Tyler Clancy, R-Provo, presented HB199, the second of two comprehensive homelessness bills that he is spearheading this legislative session, to the House Health and Human Services Committee, where it advanced to a floor vote with unanimous support.

The aim of the bill, according to Clancy, who works as an investigator at the Provo Police Department, is to show legislators on both sides of the aisle how much law enforcement and life-saving resources can and must overlap to address homelessness.

"It's almost like the 75 blind mice in the House of Representatives because some of us see this as a public health crisis and others see it as a public safety crisis," Clancy told committee members. "And I think HB199 takes an honest approach at trying to cut it down the middle."

Clancy's bill would require counties to provide a detailed list of addiction treatment and mental health providers to first responders, including police, firefighters and social workers, every year.

First responders who reverse an overdose would be encouraged to refer the individual who experienced the overdose to these services immediately and would be allowed to connect the individual with the organizations on the spot.

"If we're doing 1,000 opioid overdose reversals every single year and we can blanket these individuals with these services we believe it can move the needle in the right direction," Clancy said.

The bill would also permit opioid treatment programs to operate mobile units, bringing opioid recovery drugs, like buprenorphine, methadone, or naltrexone, to treat substance abuse and withdrawal on the streets.

HB199 aligns with Clancy's insistence that policies aiming to provide a pathway to recovery must also prioritize public safety.

The bill would:

• Expand the definition of public nuisance to include unlawful gun fire and fumes from any controlled substance.
• Strengthen the rights of action surrounding high-nuisance areas, or "problem properties," to include court orders to increase security personnel, improve video surveillance, enhance lighting in common areas and enforce evictions.
• Create the criminal offense of maintenance of a drug-involved premise which would make the maintenance of a facility for the purpose of drug use or distribution, including the operation of a supervised drug consumption site, a 2nd-degree felony.
• Prohibit syringe exchange programs from operating within 100 feet of schools, churches, libraries and parks while requiring such programs to facilitate access to treatment options.

During Wednesday's hearing, first responders spoke in favor of the provisions providing them with more treatment resources and more avenues to address high-crime areas.

Proponents of "harm reduction" programs, like syringe exchanges, spoke against the bill, saying that restrictions on mobile syringe exchange would make it harder to keep used needles out of public spaces and refer homeless individuals to services.

Order and compassion

HB199 is part of a larger initiative being led by Clancy to move Utah away from a "housing-first" approach as the state makes plans to build an ambitious "transformative campus" for the chronically homeless to work toward long-term recovery.

During the first week of the legislative session, Clancy introduced a bill, that would require homeless shelters to maintain a zero-drug policy, while also implementing the Know-by-Name caseworker program into the state's homelessness data.

This method of pairing enhanced law enforcement with more personalized outreach appears to be gaining traction.

On Thursday, Clancy's resolution asking federal agencies to allow states to administer housing assistance programs with a focus on sobriety and mental health needs passed the House with unanimous approval.

But the shift in state homeless policy has created some friction between Capitol Hill and Utah's capital city.

In December, Gov. Spencer Cox, Utah Senate President Stuart Adams and Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz penned a strongly worded letter to Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall demanding that the city find solutions to "eliminate crime and restore public safety" or have the Legislature step in.

One month later, Mendenhall unveiled a bold public safety plan of 27 recommendations for the city to increase police officer presence downtown, "aggressively" tackle gang activity and "expedite" the development of temporary emergency shelter space on city-owned property.

Read the full article at Deseret.com.

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