An infamous stretch of Rio Grande Street will be closed to vehicular traffic Friday.
Days after Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski and House Speaker Greg Hughes publicly debated the immediate future of the road fronting the 210 S. Rio Grande St. shelter, they joined at City Hall to announce Thursday that Rio Grande Street will be off-limits to vehicles from 200 South to the south end of Catholic Community Services’ homeless facilities and The Road Home shelter.
Hughes had called for total closure, but celebrated a step in that direction after earlier this week accusing Biskupski of not being a team player in the $67 million, two-year effort to reduce lawlessness at the western edge of downtown Salt Lake City.
Biskupski said constitutional concerns led her to call for a broader public conversation, which will occur through a city survey and a community forum next Wednesday. She might then lease the property to the state for a longer term, pending approval from the City Council and state legislative action that would allow the city to lease the property without eventually relinquishing ownership.
Nearly three weeks old, Operation Rio Grande is meant to reduce lawlessness near the downtown homeless shelter by arresting drug offenders and providing them with treatment and work.
The timeline coincides with the planned opening of three new, smaller shelters and the closure of the 1,100-bed Rio Grande St. shelter in July 2019 — and Hughes believes Operation Rio Grande is critical to reducing the need for homeless services, given that the shelter system’s capacity will shrink by 400 beds.
The early days of the operation have been marked by a huge increase in law enforcement presence, clearing out corners where drugs were sold as brazenly as the tomatoes at the nearby Farmers Market.
September is expected to bring six behavioral treatment beds to support the effort, and officials have said up to 240 new beds could come online by the end of 2017 if the federal government grants Utah’s request for a Medicaid expansion waiver.
The vision for Rio Grande Street hasn’t been clearly articulated, though Hughes has said he would like to erect a fence around the shelter and create an enclosed courtyard that would provide a “safe space” for those seeking services.
Officials have also spoken in vague terms about a state ID card that would be issued to homeless service clients and might become a condition of receiving service.
Thursday, Hughes said the literal barrier to services would be offset by the effect of reducing the criminal element that is preying upon the homeless, and which might now be scaring away people who otherwise would stay in the shelter.
He doesn’t expect that people will camp in the enclosure, he said, because ”We think we’ll have service providers with capacity for people in need.”
The Salt Lake Tribune will update this story.