SALT LAKE CITY — Making an urban campsite for the homeless in downtown Salt Lake City is not an invitation to allow drug addicts to continue their illegal activity in a different location, Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder said Thursday.

"This idea we’re creating a KOA that will be like Burning Man is outrageous,” he said.

Saying that he wants to implement a plan with real solutions for the homeless issues and not let the problem continue to "manage itself," Winder defended and expanded on his proposed 21-point plan on how to deal with the homeless problem in the Rio Grande neighborhood during a press conference Thursday.

"I would consider the current situation a crisis, and I think everyone in our community would agree with that,” he said.

In order to deal with that, Winder said "exceptional steps" needed to be taken, even if some of his proposals come across as "harsh."

"It’s time to stop the merry-go-round. That is what this plan seeks to begin to do,” Winder said. "The fact of the matter is we want some action taken.”

The portion of the sheriff's plan that has received the most attention has been to quickly reduce the Road Home capacity from 1,100 to 200 in just two months, and to establish a temporary "urban campsite" on 100 South and 600 West.

Winder believes residents in places like Draper, South Salt Lake and West Valley, City where new homeless resource shelters are being proposed, aren't opposed to helping those who truly need those services. What they don't want are the other drug, loitering and prostitution issues that currently come hand-in-hand with the downtown shelter.

"If we don’t do something to resolve the issues down there, there isn’t a community in this county that will openly accept what is really a reasonable and legitimate service for indigent citizens in our community,” he said.

For those who argue that the new homeless resource shelters will be managed differently, Winder said there needs to be a plan to manage all shelters the same way, including the Road Home.

"If we’re not going to go there again, why are we going there now?” he said.

Among the changes Winder is proposing is a screening process for those who stay at the homeless shelter. The Road Home has a "no barrier" model, meaning beds are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

"I will tell you I think it is a disaster,” he said of that model of managing.

Under Winder's proposal, there would be checks before people are allowed to stay at the shelter, such as searches and criminal background checks.

Winder said the current camping ordinance in the city also needs to be clarified.

"This one drives me crazy," the sheriff said, because there is no clear definition about what constitutes camping in public, and many can be seen camping on downtown streets. "Either people can camp on the street or they cannot."

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Sheriff proposes "urban campsite" to curb homeless problem

Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder has drafted a 21-point plan to tackle homelessness this year, including a plan to shrink the downtown shelter's capacity from 1,100 to 200 in two months and establish an "urban campsite" on 100 South and 600 West.

Winder's proposal also calls for positioning of police patrol cars with license plate readers in the Rio Grande neighborhood, and allowing officers to pull over cars that have previously been associated with drug sales or prostitution. The sheriff admitted that he may get pushback from civil liberty watchdog groups.

His response: "We are trying to take back an area of the city. We’re not playing games.”

Another portion of Winder's plan encourages panhandlers to register and prove they are in need — or possibly creating an online way for panhandlers to receive money from the public after they've been verified as having a need. Currently, homeless people in Salt Lake City have many of the services they need to survive provided to them, he said, adding that the only reason some panhandle is for drug money.

"We are, as a community, promoting drug activity and continued homelessness,” he said. "If we don’t curb the revenues, we won’t curb the problem."

Winder notes his plan will not solve the drug problem.

"The goal is to take back a square mile of an urban center, which is what I think everyone wants done,” he said.

The sheriff was originally approached two years ago to come up with an idea to fix the homeless situation. He has resubmitted his updated plan several times since then, but he says it has fallen on deaf ears.

Two weeks ago, however, the Pioneer Park Coalition invited him to a meeting to talk about his ideas. The coalition — a group of downtown business owners and developers — endorsed the sheriff's plan this week.

However, the Downtown Alliance — another Salt Lake City business group — wouldn't give it a full stamp of approval.

The Pioneer Park Coalition wanted the sheriff's proposal in writing. Winder said he did that, and he believes someone then leaked it to the media, which is why his plan has made headlines this week. Whether it actually goes anywhere, however, is unknown. Winder said Thursday there is no current plan to implement any of his ideas. They are simply his proposals about how to resolve the problems.

Winder said his plan is multifaceted and would require many groups working together to make it work. He offered that he might include temporarily increasing the number of beds available at the Salt Lake County Jail to allow for more arrests. He also said he would like federal departments, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and even immigration officials, to be involved.

"People have had it. If we’re going to sit and around and say, ‘Why doesn’t somebody do something,’ then they better do it. And they better do it with the intention of solving the problem and not just creating a revolving door here. There’s enough blame to go around for what’s going on in the downtown area. We are advocating solutions,” he said.

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