I volunteered at the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission a few years back as a spiritual mentor. Every Thursday, I’d meet for lunch with Mike, a resident in their recovery program. The program director had a straightforward request for me: “Show him what normal looks like.” I couldn’t help but laugh—“The only thing normal in my life is a setting on my Maytag dryer!”
Over time, those lunches became meaningful for both of us. We grew together—Mike in his recovery and me in understanding what transformation really looks like.
One day, I asked him a question that had been on my mind: “What should I tell people who ask how to help the homeless?” His answer was eye-opening.
“Wally,” he said, “tell them to stop giving us cash, food, or clothes. They think they're helping, but really, they’re just helping us commit slow suicide. Most of us must hit rock bottom before we’re ready to change. Handouts delay that moment. If people want to help, they should support places like the Rescue Mission—places that can help us rebuild our lives.”
Mike’s words stuck with me. They echo a truth that too many communities overlook, especially here in California. Ignoring fundamental laws around camping, vagrancy, and panhandling while offering handouts might feel compassionate, but in reality, it can be deeply damaging. Compassion without accountability doesn’t heal; it prolongs suffering.
That’s why I applaud Utah voters for recognizing a hard truth: homelessness isn’t a housing problem—it's a social problem—and it’s an inhumane way for anyone to live.
Excellent. Pretty much the same conclusions journalist Michael Shallenberger also reached, after his own deep dive into the issue that he presented in his book San Fransicko. Carrots and sticks are compassionate; enabling and condoning bad choices is not.
The primary cause of unaffordable land & housing and the consequent homelessness is immigration-driven population growth, which Utah & "Libertarians" create & adore.
"Libertarians", greed-over-country developers & "cheap labor" businesses cause the problem then blame it on "nativists" & "nimbies" who don't want to pave every square inch of open space & go Hong Kong density.
Utah wants control of federal land for cronies to profit & pave everything into a high-density rat race state run by control-freak "Democrats" like Calizuela, fka California. Big cities are always run by "Ds", like the states they dominate. Jamming everyone in each other's hair breeds control freaks. Massive multi-story apartment complexes are being built everywhere, enabling "migrants" to dilute & replace current residents.
Utah's a sanctuary state. Long ago, the LDS had its pet RINO Sen. Bob Bennett attach a rider exempting churches from prosecution for sponsoring illegal immigration & hiring invaders. Utah loves migrants & cares so little for current residents that it was the 1st state to give badges & guns to non-citizens to enforce laws against citizens. Members of the Chinese Communist Party & People's Liberation Army are and can become police officers.
"The result? From 2002 through 2015, Utah averaged 1.4 convictions each year per million residents. Only 5 states did better: Oregon (1.0 per year), New Hampshire (1.0), Minnesota (1.2), South Carolina (1.2), and Washington (1.2). Some did far worse: Louisiana (9.3 per year), South Dakota (8.0), North Dakota (7.3), and Kentucky (6.8)."
And the other law Utah changed recently was to eliminate the right to collective bargaining for public employee unions. Seems genius but simply logical.
James B: Yes, most Americans – at least up until the mid-1960s – believed it was a bad idea to allow people who worked directly for taxpayers to unionise, even Democrats such as FDR. Unfortunately, JFK opened that barn door and it remains wide open and is probably the greatest reason for the U.S. ginormous debt level!
And responsible for the current rabid political polarization and astro-turf ginned up class warfare "protests", that we continue to see when this primarily Democrat ox gets gored.
Government employee unions are the primary reason that, no we can't all get along in this country. Too much institutionalized self-interest is now at stake.
Winning elections is ideological for us. Winning elections is existential for them. This is not a level playing field, and the unions directly caused this.
Utah is indeed a wonderful place; I enjoyed living there for 5 years and still have close ties. However, fair or not, comparisons of social structure with California are unhelpful. Utah's population, a little over 3 million, is not only much smaller than California's, 39 million, it is extremely homogeneous: around 60% LDS, the vast majority white. LDS church members tithe; much of this money goes to a robust system of social services.
Gary: Ok, fair enough, but the differences between the states doesn't negate the wisdom of the legislators choosing a different (and more effective) path towards dealing with most of these issues.
I love Utah and try to drive through it when traveling across the country.
Re doling out things to the unhoused -,who in their right mind thinks it’s wise strategy to hand out new hypodermic needles to drug addicts? Enable much, Frisco?
How about SF providing room service drugs and alcohol in one of their hotels turned over to this dependency class? Until conventions started withdrawing their conference reservations in this SF They could not see this coming?
And the other law Utah changed recently was to eliminate the right to collective bargaining for public employee unions. Seems genius but simply logical.
Interesting dichotomy in Utah (like much of the US) in its rural vs. urban population.
This is old info, but Salt Lake City has one of the highest percentages of LGBT folks living there. So much that by percentages, it was the 7th highest in that metric.
Romney was elected senator in 2018, two years after Trump was elected President. Trump endorsed Romney during that election. He even considered him for Sec of State. Romney was infamous for the Ma version of Obamacare when he was governor before Obama imitated his plan.
I believe Romney was "for" the MA health care plan, the same way Reagan closed down all the state care facilities. Their hands were forced. I even thing Romeny might have vetoed the original MA plan and the veto was overridden .
Memory admittedly is fuzzy here, but I remember I was surprised when I heard the fuller story. Just like the old myth about Reagan shutting down the state facilities some how created the current the vagrant problems that still and have grown exist 50 years later.
Another myth that will not die either. So in 50 years , the Democrat super-majority could not come up with a better plan and did not re-open any care facilities even though billions have been poured on failed efforts? Except still blame Republicans. And not ACLU who triggered the lawsuit that forced Reagan's hand under court order to sign the closure agreement. .
Right you are Ms Livingston, but Democrats have a long history of creatively (and successfully) placing blame on others. Think of poor Herbert Hoover; he was president when the country experienced the beginning of the Great Depression. FDR was president for the next twelve years and was responsible for nearly all the years of the Great Depression. Yet, only Hoover gets the historical blame. Slave owners and later their Jim Crow enthusiasts were nearly all Democrats, yet Republicans are the "White Supremacists," etc. With the help of a malleable press and an army of Marxist professors, the falsehoods endure.
One similarity (among many) between Romneycare and Obamacare is they both mandated insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions and prohibited them from charging higher premiums for the coverage. This is why both plans are costing far more more money than the people who conceived them ever thought. This is comparable to buying property insurance after your home burned down.
And now things get even worse, since they are claiming one has all sorts of "pre-existing" conditions because this qualifies them for higher reimbursement rates depending how many customers in medical extremis they have on their rolls.
I look at my chart and I see a walking basket case of "metrics" labeling, according to them. I look at my life and how I live it with virtually zero concerns or limitations, and I see/live a totally different health profile.
But since the "government" is now involved and there is money to be made, they will now stuff us all into their version of their Procrustean bed, whether we fit it or not.
J.Liv, please stop commenting on every post. I grew up in AZ, went to the Mormon church for a year, luckily my parents came to their senses and we stopped going before we were baptized. Utah is a majority Mormon state, this post by Elder Jim is just his opinion. He's lived there for a couple years and he's posting like he's Brigham Young.
Lou: Yup, Salt Lake City (like most urban centers whose inhabitants harbor an unquenchable yen for government goodies) has gone blue. Such a shame. Hard to believe, really, but it does explain a lot.
Yet Pierre Delecto's "conservative" Utah & "Libertarians" want the mass immigration that will turn the state into one big high-density rat-race mega-city, which like Cali will inevitably be run by "Democrats". "Libertarians" helped do it to Cali, then they flee to Utah & do the same thing.
Explains why our next door neighbors just sold their long time Santa Barbara home, and moved to.........Utah.
Good to have a test case study model available to show what policy changes can and do work. Though having a common denominator religious under-pining, like Utah, goes a long way when establishing social cohesion.
Yes, although Utah is very Republican, they are not big Trump fans, mostly to do with morals and morality. They've not taken to him as many other Republican states have. Wyoming, on the other hand is especially MAGA, particularly after its experience with Lynn Cheney's Democrat flip!
Utah - my kinda state! I agree with every one of their laws and their whole operation. If it had ocean frontage and good weather I'd move there in a minute!.
The gun carrying thing here in Georgia raises questions. It was very easy for me to obtain a weapon carry license ... looking like a driver's license. I have a .22 LR Smith & Wesson lightweight compact gun that I could carry, but I don't. I was more interested to see if I could obtain the carry license and to find out how easy it was to obtain. It was very easy, simply fill out forms, fingerprints taken and wait, pay a fee.
I was in Panera Bread one day here in Dalton, GA and two guys sat down at a table next to ours ... they looked like undercover cops. One guy especially looked composed like a cop (a Bosch-type character) and the other guy was being cool and slapping the table to the beat of the music, definitely being an attention getter and creating an annoyance. When the two left, I noticed the table-beater was wearing a gun and holster when he got up to put on his jacket. I think being Mr. Cool was an act, trying to stir up attention and receive a reaction. I ignored him as if he wasn't even there. One medical place I went to stated "No Guns Allowed." I see gun and holsters in restaurants frequently. Someone could start a gunfight in a place.
Speaking of Bosch, there was a guy visiting a local Dalton Italian restaurant a few times that looked like Titus Welliver, the "Bosch" actor. Each time he came with a woman to the restaurant he'd be driving a collectable sports car, possibly something he rented. He and a woman would always sit outside and ate. As some of you might know, Georgia is now becoming the "Hollywood of the South."
I have no doubt what you say about rules, laws and regulations in 2025 Utah is correct and it does serve as a great contrast to the left ideological drift of states such as California. But something tells me I need the late Paul Harvey's "rest of the story" to explain why I'm not hankering to put down some late-in-life new roots in Utah. Memoir writers and converts are the most likely candidates to spin yarns using only half the facts. It could also be argued that Louisiana is more Republican across the board than Utah. But then, both places are throttled with the likes of Senator John Cassidy (LA) and Governor Spencer Cox (UT). Ohio and Florida are vying for the top spot on the America First totem pole. That's the only incline I'm motivated to pursue.
What “Helping” Really Means
I volunteered at the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission a few years back as a spiritual mentor. Every Thursday, I’d meet for lunch with Mike, a resident in their recovery program. The program director had a straightforward request for me: “Show him what normal looks like.” I couldn’t help but laugh—“The only thing normal in my life is a setting on my Maytag dryer!”
Over time, those lunches became meaningful for both of us. We grew together—Mike in his recovery and me in understanding what transformation really looks like.
One day, I asked him a question that had been on my mind: “What should I tell people who ask how to help the homeless?” His answer was eye-opening.
“Wally,” he said, “tell them to stop giving us cash, food, or clothes. They think they're helping, but really, they’re just helping us commit slow suicide. Most of us must hit rock bottom before we’re ready to change. Handouts delay that moment. If people want to help, they should support places like the Rescue Mission—places that can help us rebuild our lives.”
Mike’s words stuck with me. They echo a truth that too many communities overlook, especially here in California. Ignoring fundamental laws around camping, vagrancy, and panhandling while offering handouts might feel compassionate, but in reality, it can be deeply damaging. Compassion without accountability doesn’t heal; it prolongs suffering.
That’s why I applaud Utah voters for recognizing a hard truth: homelessness isn’t a housing problem—it's a social problem—and it’s an inhumane way for anyone to live.
Excellent. Pretty much the same conclusions journalist Michael Shallenberger also reached, after his own deep dive into the issue that he presented in his book San Fransicko. Carrots and sticks are compassionate; enabling and condoning bad choices is not.
Wally in a small Utah Town you would not see HOME-LESS-NESS.
They take care of their own in Utah unlike CALI-LAND.
The primary cause of unaffordable land & housing and the consequent homelessness is immigration-driven population growth, which Utah & "Libertarians" create & adore.
"Libertarians", greed-over-country developers & "cheap labor" businesses cause the problem then blame it on "nativists" & "nimbies" who don't want to pave every square inch of open space & go Hong Kong density.
Utah wants control of federal land for cronies to profit & pave everything into a high-density rat race state run by control-freak "Democrats" like Calizuela, fka California. Big cities are always run by "Ds", like the states they dominate. Jamming everyone in each other's hair breeds control freaks. Massive multi-story apartment complexes are being built everywhere, enabling "migrants" to dilute & replace current residents.
Utah's a sanctuary state. Long ago, the LDS had its pet RINO Sen. Bob Bennett attach a rider exempting churches from prosecution for sponsoring illegal immigration & hiring invaders. Utah loves migrants & cares so little for current residents that it was the 1st state to give badges & guns to non-citizens to enforce laws against citizens. Members of the Chinese Communist Party & People's Liberation Army are and can become police officers.
Wally another metric Utah has one of the lowest Public Corruption prosecutions
per resident. See weblink below>
https://utahdatapoints.com/2017/02/how-corrupt-is-utah/
"The result? From 2002 through 2015, Utah averaged 1.4 convictions each year per million residents. Only 5 states did better: Oregon (1.0 per year), New Hampshire (1.0), Minnesota (1.2), South Carolina (1.2), and Washington (1.2). Some did far worse: Louisiana (9.3 per year), South Dakota (8.0), North Dakota (7.3), and Kentucky (6.8)."
And the other law Utah changed recently was to eliminate the right to collective bargaining for public employee unions. Seems genius but simply logical.
James B: Yes, most Americans – at least up until the mid-1960s – believed it was a bad idea to allow people who worked directly for taxpayers to unionise, even Democrats such as FDR. Unfortunately, JFK opened that barn door and it remains wide open and is probably the greatest reason for the U.S. ginormous debt level!
And responsible for the current rabid political polarization and astro-turf ginned up class warfare "protests", that we continue to see when this primarily Democrat ox gets gored.
Government employee unions are the primary reason that, no we can't all get along in this country. Too much institutionalized self-interest is now at stake.
Winning elections is ideological for us. Winning elections is existential for them. This is not a level playing field, and the unions directly caused this.
Right you are Ms. Livingston; there's way too much money at stake and floating around for "getting along"!
To Your "Government employee unions are the primary reason" for more Corruption in SB weblink below>
"Former Probation Union Leader Sentenced to Prison for Stealing More Than $500,000"
https://www.noozhawk.com/former-probation-union-leader-sentenced-to-prison-for-stealing-more-than-500000/
Any Other SB Former Union or Probation Employees embezzling Millions???
Unions bring in corruption. Every time.
Hello James B here is a lesser-known law of Utah.
What was the first state who passed law to allow illegals drivers licenses?
Utah in 2005. Has to do with Mormon Missionary's and converts coming back to Utah.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/these-are-the-19-states-that-grant-driver-s-licenses-to-undocumented-migrants/ar-AA1wmlen
Opps correction, New Mexico 2003. Has to do with UFO & Aliens.
Utah is indeed a wonderful place; I enjoyed living there for 5 years and still have close ties. However, fair or not, comparisons of social structure with California are unhelpful. Utah's population, a little over 3 million, is not only much smaller than California's, 39 million, it is extremely homogeneous: around 60% LDS, the vast majority white. LDS church members tithe; much of this money goes to a robust system of social services.
Gary: Ok, fair enough, but the differences between the states doesn't negate the wisdom of the legislators choosing a different (and more effective) path towards dealing with most of these issues.
Interesting article, Jim. California could surely benefit from a few of Utah's new laws;
Jim, thanks for a refreshing read.
I love Utah and try to drive through it when traveling across the country.
Re doling out things to the unhoused -,who in their right mind thinks it’s wise strategy to hand out new hypodermic needles to drug addicts? Enable much, Frisco?
How about SF providing room service drugs and alcohol in one of their hotels turned over to this dependency class? Until conventions started withdrawing their conference reservations in this SF They could not see this coming?
Nothing like a squeaky clean city - for Chinese visitors that is.
And the other law Utah changed recently was to eliminate the right to collective bargaining for public employee unions. Seems genius but simply logical.
Interesting dichotomy in Utah (like much of the US) in its rural vs. urban population.
This is old info, but Salt Lake City has one of the highest percentages of LGBT folks living there. So much that by percentages, it was the 7th highest in that metric.
https://www.deseret.com/2015/3/20/20561106/salt-lake-city-has-7th-highest-rate-of-lgbt-population-in-u-s/#:~:text=SALT%20LAKE%20CITY%20%E2%80%94%20Salt%20Lake,capital%20city%20consider%20themselves%20LGBT.
And yet Utah elected Mitt Romney. :)
Salt Lake City and the county it's located in voted for Kamala Harris.
RINOs played a big role in the pre-Trump GOP.
Cheney, the neo-cons, et al.
Romney was elected senator in 2018, two years after Trump was elected President. Trump endorsed Romney during that election. He even considered him for Sec of State. Romney was infamous for the Ma version of Obamacare when he was governor before Obama imitated his plan.
I believe Romney was "for" the MA health care plan, the same way Reagan closed down all the state care facilities. Their hands were forced. I even thing Romeny might have vetoed the original MA plan and the veto was overridden .
Memory admittedly is fuzzy here, but I remember I was surprised when I heard the fuller story. Just like the old myth about Reagan shutting down the state facilities some how created the current the vagrant problems that still and have grown exist 50 years later.
Another myth that will not die either. So in 50 years , the Democrat super-majority could not come up with a better plan and did not re-open any care facilities even though billions have been poured on failed efforts? Except still blame Republicans. And not ACLU who triggered the lawsuit that forced Reagan's hand under court order to sign the closure agreement. .
Right you are Ms Livingston, but Democrats have a long history of creatively (and successfully) placing blame on others. Think of poor Herbert Hoover; he was president when the country experienced the beginning of the Great Depression. FDR was president for the next twelve years and was responsible for nearly all the years of the Great Depression. Yet, only Hoover gets the historical blame. Slave owners and later their Jim Crow enthusiasts were nearly all Democrats, yet Republicans are the "White Supremacists," etc. With the help of a malleable press and an army of Marxist professors, the falsehoods endure.
One similarity (among many) between Romneycare and Obamacare is they both mandated insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions and prohibited them from charging higher premiums for the coverage. This is why both plans are costing far more more money than the people who conceived them ever thought. This is comparable to buying property insurance after your home burned down.
And now things get even worse, since they are claiming one has all sorts of "pre-existing" conditions because this qualifies them for higher reimbursement rates depending how many customers in medical extremis they have on their rolls.
I look at my chart and I see a walking basket case of "metrics" labeling, according to them. I look at my life and how I live it with virtually zero concerns or limitations, and I see/live a totally different health profile.
But since the "government" is now involved and there is money to be made, they will now stuff us all into their version of their Procrustean bed, whether we fit it or not.
J.Liv, please stop commenting on every post. I grew up in AZ, went to the Mormon church for a year, luckily my parents came to their senses and we stopped going before we were baptized. Utah is a majority Mormon state, this post by Elder Jim is just his opinion. He's lived there for a couple years and he's posting like he's Brigham Young.
Lou: Yup, Salt Lake City (like most urban centers whose inhabitants harbor an unquenchable yen for government goodies) has gone blue. Such a shame. Hard to believe, really, but it does explain a lot.
Yet Pierre Delecto's "conservative" Utah & "Libertarians" want the mass immigration that will turn the state into one big high-density rat-race mega-city, which like Cali will inevitably be run by "Democrats". "Libertarians" helped do it to Cali, then they flee to Utah & do the same thing.
The University of Utah is located in Salt Lake City.
Explains why our next door neighbors just sold their long time Santa Barbara home, and moved to.........Utah.
Good to have a test case study model available to show what policy changes can and do work. Though having a common denominator religious under-pining, like Utah, goes a long way when establishing social cohesion.
Don’t forget about Wyoming. Carrying the largest win for trump at 71% whereas Utah sat at 59% and Harris managed to out perform Joe’s 2020 results.
Milan,
Yes, although Utah is very Republican, they are not big Trump fans, mostly to do with morals and morality. They've not taken to him as many other Republican states have. Wyoming, on the other hand is especially MAGA, particularly after its experience with Lynn Cheney's Democrat flip!
It is more Mitt Romney RINO country.
Wow, that’s pretty cool. Maybe Steve Hilton should take a look at this.
The UK is Utah's largest trading partner. Steve would feel right at home.
https://gardner.utah.edu/news/utah-exported-18-2-billion-of-goods-in-2024-supporting-over-70000-jobs/
Truer words were never spoken
Utah - my kinda state! I agree with every one of their laws and their whole operation. If it had ocean frontage and good weather I'd move there in a minute!.
The gun carrying thing here in Georgia raises questions. It was very easy for me to obtain a weapon carry license ... looking like a driver's license. I have a .22 LR Smith & Wesson lightweight compact gun that I could carry, but I don't. I was more interested to see if I could obtain the carry license and to find out how easy it was to obtain. It was very easy, simply fill out forms, fingerprints taken and wait, pay a fee.
I was in Panera Bread one day here in Dalton, GA and two guys sat down at a table next to ours ... they looked like undercover cops. One guy especially looked composed like a cop (a Bosch-type character) and the other guy was being cool and slapping the table to the beat of the music, definitely being an attention getter and creating an annoyance. When the two left, I noticed the table-beater was wearing a gun and holster when he got up to put on his jacket. I think being Mr. Cool was an act, trying to stir up attention and receive a reaction. I ignored him as if he wasn't even there. One medical place I went to stated "No Guns Allowed." I see gun and holsters in restaurants frequently. Someone could start a gunfight in a place.
Speaking of Bosch, there was a guy visiting a local Dalton Italian restaurant a few times that looked like Titus Welliver, the "Bosch" actor. Each time he came with a woman to the restaurant he'd be driving a collectable sports car, possibly something he rented. He and a woman would always sit outside and ate. As some of you might know, Georgia is now becoming the "Hollywood of the South."
I have no doubt what you say about rules, laws and regulations in 2025 Utah is correct and it does serve as a great contrast to the left ideological drift of states such as California. But something tells me I need the late Paul Harvey's "rest of the story" to explain why I'm not hankering to put down some late-in-life new roots in Utah. Memoir writers and converts are the most likely candidates to spin yarns using only half the facts. It could also be argued that Louisiana is more Republican across the board than Utah. But then, both places are throttled with the likes of Senator John Cassidy (LA) and Governor Spencer Cox (UT). Ohio and Florida are vying for the top spot on the America First totem pole. That's the only incline I'm motivated to pursue.
Amen, the gates of Hell were breached long ago with public employee unionization