SALT LAKE CITY — For Mark Rinehart, riding his bike on the Jordan River Trail is not always the pleasant escape it should be.
“I passed a couple of guys who were practicing throwing knives into a tree next to the trail, and that made me a little nervous,” he said. “There was once a man that had set up a tent right on the trail underneath the 45th South overpass, making it impossible to get around, so I essentially had to ride my bike through his living room between him and his tent where he was sleeping.”
Rinehart can’t always see the people hiding under the bridges, behind bushes and trees, until they come out of nowhere, he said.
“I'd like to see a solution that is fair to everyone, merciful to the people who need help, but I'd also like to feel a little safer when I use the trail,” said Rinehart. “I don't know where else they have to go, but there's definitely a competition for the trail between the recreational users and the homeless encampments.”
Salt Lake City’s Homeless Engagement Team has received complaints and is aware of the homelessness and drug use on the trail. Policy and program manager Michelle Hoon says with winter coming, they hope to get more people off the trail and into a warm bed.
“This is definitely a big area of concern,” she said. “It's something that we focus a lot of attention on both with our Rapid Intervention Team with cleanups from the County Health Department and also with our Outreach Team."
Hoon says the millions of dollars Gov. Spencer Cox seeks to fund emergency shelter needs could make outreach more effective.
“The hardest thing with outreach, and even with enforcement, is having a place for people to go right now,” she said. “Even with the overflow capacity that we have, our shelters are still running probably at about 99 percent.”
Salt Lake County has been organizing river cleanups to clear out trash that builds up on the trail from encampments.
“The police department has been out, and they have been trying to put more boots on the ground and kind of just have a stronger presence in this corridor to try to disrupt some of the negative behavior that we have seen increase,” said Hoon.
