Salt Lake City’s Homeless Engagement And Response Team coordinates the city’s response to homelessness in the city. Their work typically involves outreach services, responding to public requests for service, administering grants and cleaning.

Rapid Intervention is a protocol designed to resolve small encampments through a coordinated outreach and clean up effort. A limited number of smaller encampments are referred to a professional outreach team that tries to resolve the camp through services, with a clean up scheduled once the outreach period concludes. The Rapid Intervention team, which consists of city workers, also services areas of the city that see frequent encampments or congregations of people experiencing homelessness.

The Homeless Engagement And Response Team reviews all concerns regarding encampments that come into the City and coordinates the next step needed to resolve that camp, whether that be outreach, clean up, or some combination of the two. 

Encampment Impact Mitigations (EIM) are cleaning events that take place at sites where people experiencing unsheltered homelessness congregate for an extended period of time. These are carried out in areas that include environmental public health concerns, and are done in cooperation with Salt Lake County Health Department, as mandated by laws maintaining public health and safety in Salt Lake County.

Homeless Outreach Court

Homeless Outreach Court brings court services to individuals experiencing homelessness, in supportive housing, sober living, treatment centers, and other community locations. Defense attorneys provide on-site legal assistance. This effort is centered around the values of public service, compassion, safety, cooperation, adaptability, and access to justice. These teams address minor infractions that can hinder an individual’s ability to acquire housing and access other necessary services.

Homeless Resource Fairs

Salt Lake City hosts Homeless Resource Fairs on the second Friday of each month (January-November) as a means of connecting individuals experiencing homelessness with needed resources and services. The resource fairs move to different locations each month to meet people where they are. Some of the services they provide are: legal assistance, employment opportunities, and health services.

Get Involved

There are multiple ways to get involved in the City’s outreach efforts. Suggestions for how to get involved:

• Volunteers are always needed to provide lunch at Resource Fairs and Homeless Outreach Court. This can be as simple as a sack lunch or as elaborate as providing a cookout with hot dogs and hamburgers.
• It takes a lot of effort to set up Resource Fairs. Volunteers are needed to help the City team set up and take down canopies, tables, chairs, and signs.
• At Resource Fairs, there are an average of 15 service providers in attendance. This large number can be hard to navigate. Volunteers are needed to help individuals attending the event navigate through the variety of providers in attendance and to seek feedback on how we can make these events more beneficial.
• If you have questions about the volunteer opportunities or want to get involved, email HEARTall@slcgov.com or call 801-535-7689.

If you have questions about the volunteer opportunities or would like to get involved, you can email HEARTall@slcgov.com or call 801-535-7689.

Park Rangers

Park Rangers support the positive use of Salt Lake City parks and natural areas by providing educational services, assisting visitors with quality customer service, patrolling, and even doing park maintenance. You can learn more about the Park Ranger program by visiting the Park Ranger website.

Downtown Ambassadors

The Downtown Street Ambassadors are easy to spot in their yellow shirts and tirelessly walk the downtown area to ensure everyone is welcome and safe. They are on the streets daily, helping people find their way, assisting businesses, and referring people in need to qualified service providers. Businesses in the downtown service area can request the Ambassador team’s assistance by calling (801) 541-6662.

You can learn more about the program by visiting their website.

Can Park Rangers and Ambassadors enforce our laws?

While these teams are not law enforcement, they provide much-needed eyes and ears on the ground in parts of the city that need extra support. They focus on education and voluntary compliance with City ordinances, and they have strong connections with the Salt Lake City Police Department in situations that would require law enforcement to intervene.

Where do these teams operate?

Park Ranger locations can be found on this map.

Ambassadors currently work in the downtown Central Business District, Rio Grande, North Temple, Ballpark, and Central City neighborhoods.

It’s important that the City is responsive to residents and businesses impacted by homelessness.

Report non-emergency community issues directly to city government from your smart devices or computer by downloading the mySLC app from the Apple store or Google Play or visiting myslc.gov. Issues or problems that can be reported for service requests include: 

• Report abandoned personal belongings
• Report encampment
• Report hazard: needles or human biowaste
• Shopping cart recovery