State officials promise large-scale involuntary addiction and mental health treatment at Salt Lake City’s edge. Critics see “a prison, or a warehouse.”
Needless to say, people don’t go by choice, can’t leave when they want. Might be a concentration camp instead of a jail, since there’s no legal reason to force somebody into it:
As Mr. Shumway describes it, nearly two-thirds of the 1,300 homeless people potentially sent to the site could be there for involuntary treatment. About 400 beds would be set aside for psychiatric treatment. Another 400 beds would provide substance abuse treatment “as an alternative to jail,” he said, with entry and exit “not voluntary.”
I’m in favor of involuntarily committing people addicted to drugs like fentanyl, methamphetamines, and opioids to get them clean as part of a wider initiative to get them into stable housing and build their support network.
I understand the skepticism of facilities like this and I’m not making any specific comment about the effectiveness or comprehensiveness of this one (but it’s Utah, so I can make assumptions).
That said, there is nothing compassionate about watching people out of their minds on drugs, living on the streets, and falling asleep (at best) in stairwells with needles hanging out of their arms. Progressives cannot have a platform of unrestricted homelessness and drug use like cities like Portland tried a few years ago (and walked back fairly quickly, because it made public areas unusable and unsafe).
But it’s really important to pair it with the housing and support network side of things.
Not familiar with the Portland history, but if they were actually providing health care, drug addicts would go voluntarily. Remission rates are probably a lot higher when you use force to make someone sober.
My understanding is the number of individuals that seek voluntary municipal assistance has been extremely low (like literally double digits of individuals per year). Relapse for individuals addicted to fentanyl is quite high, although deaths have been declining. One grim theory is the most addicted individuals have already died (it was literally like 100,000 deaths per year nationally).