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.

Kayak Court

Kayak Court is a collaborative outreach effort that brings court services to individuals living along the Jordan River on the third Friday of the month (May-Oct). This effort is centered around the values of public service, compassion, safety, cooperation, adaptability, and access to justice. In order to break down barriers to court services, while adhering to a trauma informed lens, outreach staff are sent out via boats and bikes, followed by Attorney’s, Judicial Assistants, and a Judge. 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 in hopes of meeting 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. Below offers some suggestions for how to get involved.

• Lunch is served at both Resource Fairs and Kayak Court. Volunteers are always needed to provide lunch. 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 services 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 would like to get involved, you can email HEARTall@slcgov.com or call 801-535-7689.

Park Rangers

Park Rangers support positive use of Salt Lake City parks and natural areas by building relationships in our communities, providing educational services, and assisting visitors with quality customer service. You can learn more about the Park Ranger program by visiting the Park Ranger website.

Ambassadors

The Downtown Street Ambassadors work tirelessly to ensure everyone is welcome and safe downtown. They are on the streets daily helping people find their way, assisting businesses, and referring people in need to qualified service providers. You can learn more about eh Downtown Ambassadors 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 SLCPD in situations that would require law enforcement to intervene.

Where do these teams operate?

Park Ranger locations can be found on this map.

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

The SLC Mobile app is available for Android and iOS and is a free, real time civic engagement platform that allows the public to conveniently communicate non-emergency civic issues directly to city government from their smart devices. Download this app to report community issues or problems: potholes, graffiti, damaged street signs, crime tips, illegal dumping, spills and illicit discharges, zoning issues, weeds, construction concerns, and more. You can also report online at www.myslc.gov.

The image below is a guide to SLC’s response/referral process for people experiencing homelessness.