Trump admin creating an involuntary treatment center in Utah for homelessness

[squistion 2,487]

Concentration camps and involuntary treatment for homeless people and addicts.

What could possibly go wrong?

https://www.commondreams.org/news/utah-homeless-internment-camp

Advocates Warn of ‘Forced Labor’ Camp for Homeless People in Utah Designed to Enforce Trump Order

In an effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s executive order on homelessness, Utah is building a massive facility that housing advocates warn will function as an “internment camp” where the unhoused will be subject to forced labor.

Last month, Utah’s homeless services agencies came to an agreement for the state to acquire a nearly 16-acre parcel of rural land in the Northpoint area of northwest Salt Lake City to construct the first-of-its-kind facility, which is slated to have 1,300 beds.

The genesis of the project began in July, following Trump’s “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” executive order, which threatened to withhold funding from states and cities unless they criminalized homeless people camping on streets and ordered the attorney general to expand the use of involuntary civil commitment for adults experiencing homelessness.

Despite a large body of evidence showing their effectiveness at curbing crime while keeping people off the street, the order also required the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to end its support of “Housing First” policies that provide unhoused people with homes without the requirement of behavioral health treatment or sobriety.

Less than a week after Trump’s homelessness order, Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, as well as the state Senate president and House speaker—both Republicans—sent a letter to the state’s Homeless Services Board, which was created last year following a legislative push by the Cicero Insitute—a far-right think tank that has proposed aggressive measures to criminalize homelessness and which has had major influence over Trump’s crackdown on the homeless during his second term.

In the letter, the leaders agreed with the Trump administration that they “do not support ‘Housing First’ policies that lack accountability.” They directed the Board to “accelerate progress on a transformative, services-based homeless campus that prioritizes recovery, treatment, and long-term outcomes, not just emergency shelter.”

As far back as 2023, Trump has proposed using “large parcels of inexpensive land” to set up “tent cities” or camps for homeless people, coupled with a pledge to use “every tool, lever, and authority” to clear encampments from city streets. On the podcast Invisible People, which focuses on homelessness in America, Eric Tars of the National Homelessness Law Center said Utah’s new facility could be a “pilot program” for that effort around the country.

“Their end goal is not just jail,” Tars said. “They want to put up more of these Alligator Alcatraz sprung structure type facilities,” referring to the ramshackle immigration detention facility constructed in a remote part of Florida’s Everglades earlier this year, where detainees have been cut off from access to their lawyers and are widely reported to suffer from inhumane treatment. 

[...]

 

[Maximum Overkill 2,409]

3 minutes ago, squistion said:

Advocates Warn of ‘Forced Labor’ Camp for Homeless People in Utah Designed to Enforce Trump Order

In an effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s executive order on homelessness, Utah is building a massive facility that housing advocates warn will function as an “internment camp” where the unhoused will be subject to forced labor.

This is a wonderful idea. 

Too bad it's another FAKE NEWS LIE FROM X BOY SQUISSY 

[squistion 2,487]

Not fake news as is alleged in above post.

Link to NYT article which I just found a gift link to from a subscriber.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/us/politics/utah-trump-homeless-campus.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xE8.Tl0v.9AsqLxWd-Cq0&smid=url-share

In Utah, Trump’s Vision for Homelessness Begins to Take Shape

To glimpse the future of homelessness policy in the age of President Trump, consider 16 acres of scrubby pasture on the outskirts of Salt Lake City where the state plans to place as many as 1,300 homeless people in what supporters call a services campus and critics deem a detention camp.

State planners say the site, announced last month after a secretive search, will treat addiction and mental illness and provide a humane alternative to the streets, where afflictions often go untreated and people die at alarming rates.

They also vow stern measures to move homeless people to the remote site and force many of them to undergo treatment, reflecting a nationwide push by some conservatives for a new approach to homelessness, one embraced and promoted by Mr. Trump.

With outdoor sleeping banned, removal to the edge of town may become the only way some homeless Utahns can avoid jail. Planners say the facility will also hold hundreds of mentally ill homeless people under court-ordered civil commitment and the effort will include an “accountability center” for those with addictions.

“An accountability center is involuntary, OK — you’re not coming in and out,” Randy Shumway, chairman of the state Homeless Services Board, said in an interview. Utah will end a harmful “culture of permissiveness,” he said, and guide homeless people “towards human thriving.” 

While the Utah effort began before Mr. Trump’s return to office, it mirrors his pledge to move the homeless from urban cores to “tent cities” with services. And it accelerated after Mr. Trump issued an executive order in July, calling for strict camping bans and expanded power to involuntarily treat homeless people.

Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, quickly praised Mr. Trump’s order and told Utah planners to follow it.

Critics of the new plan say that confining people to a site on the city’s outskirts threatens civil liberties and warn that the promised services may not materialize. The efforts coincide with deep cuts to Medicaid, which could thwart the project’s financing. 

“I’m super anxious about it,” said Jen Plumb, a physician and Democratic state senator who calls the promise of high-quality medical care “pie in the sky.”

Utah already has a severe shortage of psychiatric beds, she noted. The legislature is unlikely to fund hundreds of new beds, she said, and even if it did, there is no work force to staff them.

Without enormous new spending, she said, the center could function less as a treatment facility than “a prison or a warehouse.” 

[...]

[seafoam1 3,404]

Excellent news. This is what I voted for. 

[seafoam1 3,404]

29 minutes ago, Maximum Overkill said:

This is a wonderful idea. 

Too bad it's another FAKE NEWS LIE FROM X BOY SQUISSY 

Oh, a lie? Shlt. 

[Maximum Overkill 2,409]

9 minutes ago, seafoam1 said:

Oh, a lie? Shlt. 

Unfortunately 

[MDC 7,843]

When someone is incarcerated, the jail legally needs to do a full medical and mental health eval within X number of hours and assumes all responsibility for the inmate’s healthcare. That means if someone goes to jail and you figure out they have diabetes, the taxpayer is footing the bill for their care for the duration even if they never saw a doctor before in their lives.

This gets pretty expensive, since a huge % of our prison population are addicted or have disabilities and healthcare issues. It’s also a huge liability. There are thousands of lawsuits all over the country against jails/states whenever an inmate commits suicide or gets hurt in care.

I don’t like encampments either, but the reason cities / states let it go on isn’t because they like it. It costs a fock ton of $ to take care of these people and it’s risky..

This has the potential to be a disaster.

[HellToupee 2,174]

If this is about Donald Trim why did the codger start yet another thread on him

[seafoam1 3,404]

41 minutes ago, Maximum Overkill said:

Unfortunately 

Homeless people need to be forcefully treated.

Some may be really easy. Help them find a job and put them up for a few weeks in a space with a shower then tell them keep working for a living. 

The rest, treat accordingly. 

 

[Maximum Overkill 2,409]

11 minutes ago, MDC said:

This has the potential to be a disaster

If only it was REAL NEWS 

[MDC 7,843]

15 minutes ago, Maximum Overkill said:

If only it was REAL NEWS 

I hope so. If it’s really involuntary it will probably fail hard. If it’s voluntary, I am skeptical junkies and homeless people are going to sign up to take a shuttle to a campus outside town. But I’d like to be proven wrong. 

[Tree of Knowledge 2,103]

Fake News.  It is needed but I doubt they soil a beautiful state like Utah.  An abandoned military base in California, Washington or Oregon would be a better plan.  
 

Alcatraz is on federal land and close to the epicenter of homelessness.  
 

[seafoam1 3,404]

3 minutes ago, Tree of Knowledge said:

Fake News.  It is needed but I doubt they soil a beautiful state like Utah.  An abandoned military base in California, Washington or Oregon would be a better plan.  
 

Alcatraz is on federal land and close to the epicenter of homelessness.  
 

California needs it the most yet they don't want to fix it. They need people to rule..

[TimHauck 3,294]

Hopefully they don’t put Brian Kilmeade in charge 

[Maximum Overkill 2,409]

12 hours ago, MDC said:

I hope so. If it’s really involuntary it will probably fail hard. If it’s voluntary, I am skeptical junkies and homeless people are going to sign up to take a shuttle to a campus outside town. But I’d like to be proven wrong. 

Squissy can't help herself. 

[squistion 2,487]

 

[Fnord 2,496]

File this under "bullshit meant to distract" in the FLOOD THE ZONE strategy. Funding isn't secured, it'll take forever to build, and by that time we'll have a million other things to care more about. While it's a great example of how this admin feels about the American populace, ultimately it's so far out in the future it's meaningless.

If MAGA is to be defeated, we need to keep pounding the current, important, ongoing criminal schemes that resonate with people:

extrajudicial murders being perpetrated by the Dept of War

trampling of 1A and civil rights by ICE and CBP

 executive law breaking, overreach and authoritarianism

cost of living/SNAP/ insurance fiascos and the gov't shutdown

the massive out-in-the-open bribery schemes of the Trump crypto and WH ballroom ventures. 

[HellToupee 2,174]

“Unhoused people”

[Alias Detective 1,459]

19 hours ago, squistion said:

Concentration camps and involuntary treatment for homeless people and addicts.

What could possibly go wrong?

https://www.commondreams.org/news/utah-homeless-internment-camp

Advocates Warn of ‘Forced Labor’ Camp for Homeless People in Utah Designed to Enforce Trump Order

In an effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s executive order on homelessness, Utah is building a massive facility that housing advocates warn will function as an “internment camp” where the unhoused will be subject to forced labor.

Last month, Utah’s homeless services agencies came to an agreement for the state to acquire a nearly 16-acre parcel of rural land in the Northpoint area of northwest Salt Lake City to construct the first-of-its-kind facility, which is slated to have 1,300 beds.

The genesis of the project began in July, following Trump’s “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” executive order, which threatened to withhold funding from states and cities unless they criminalized homeless people camping on streets and ordered the attorney general to expand the use of involuntary civil commitment for adults experiencing homelessness.

Despite a large body of evidence showing their effectiveness at curbing crime while keeping people off the street, the order also required the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to end its support of “Housing First” policies that provide unhoused people with homes without the requirement of behavioral health treatment or sobriety.

Less than a week after Trump’s homelessness order, Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, as well as the state Senate president and House speaker—both Republicans—sent a letter to the state’s Homeless Services Board, which was created last year following a legislative push by the Cicero Insitute—a far-right think tank that has proposed aggressive measures to criminalize homelessness and which has had major influence over Trump’s crackdown on the homeless during his second term.

In the letter, the leaders agreed with the Trump administration that they “do not support ‘Housing First’ policies that lack accountability.” They directed the Board to “accelerate progress on a transformative, services-based homeless campus that prioritizes recovery, treatment, and long-term outcomes, not just emergency shelter.”

As far back as 2023, Trump has proposed using “large parcels of inexpensive land” to set up “tent cities” or camps for homeless people, coupled with a pledge to use “every tool, lever, and authority” to clear encampments from city streets. On the podcast Invisible People, which focuses on homelessness in America, Eric Tars of the National Homelessness Law Center said Utah’s new facility could be a “pilot program” for that effort around the country.

“Their end goal is not just jail,” Tars said. “They want to put up more of these Alligator Alcatraz sprung structure type facilities,” referring to the ramshackle immigration detention facility constructed in a remote part of Florida’s Everglades earlier this year, where detainees have been cut off from access to their lawyers and are widely reported to suffer from inhumane treatment. 

[...]

 

Click on the hyperlink attached to the agreement. Read the article. Then tell me why this is a problem. 
 

I encourage all others to read the agreement hyperlink too.  Idiot.