Goldman Sachs Employees
Main Street Homeless Advocacy Is Hurting Local Businesses By Richard Markosian
D
owntown Salt Lake City: Main Street — Three homeless men sit in the former business entrance to the Off-Broadway Theater and distribute rations of spice or possibly weed. In broad daylight on the busy thoroughfare, they roll joints and watch the passers-by. Around the corner, acrid plumes of blue smoke fill the air. The SLCPD, like most metro Police departments, have essentially decriminalized the distribution and use of less than one ounce of marijuana. Just a few feet away, “Downtown Ambassadors” are telling a homeless woman named DJ, from Brooklyn, that she can’t get a hotel voucher for the night because they have been put on hold by the city. The homeless resource centers are full, but there will
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likely be an “overflow center” coming soon. Three other homeless men are milling about on Main Street. One man is deep in thought as he applies acrylic paint to his canvas propped up against the former TP Gallery. Another man is hauling around his possessions in a shopping cart; another is ranting to an invisible person. This small section where City Weekly, TP Gallery, Coffee Garden and Eborn Books were located has been empty for two years. Today, the businesses and the area are blighted and have become a homeless enclave. A man is camping on the sidewalk. He says he is only safe thanks to his pitbull. “I have nowhere else to go,” he says. His friend, who attempted to camp in the park, recently froze
