© Chad Kirkland for the GuardianRio Grande Street, the epicenter of homelessness in Salt Lake City.
The streets around Salt Lake City's downtown emergency shelter have long been home to hundreds of homeless people. In recent weeks, though,
nearly all seem to have vanished following a police operation. Local residents are mystified as to where they've gone.
The Salt Lake City police chief, Mike Brown, said he had visited parks and the Jordan river, which threads its way to the Great Salt Lake and has homeless camps dotted along its banks, but he hadn't seen an influx from downtown. Sgt Brandon Shearer has been up in a police helicopter looking for camps and seemed equally perplexed when asked where the people had gone. "I don't know," he said. "That's a good question."
Advocates, for their part, fear a humanitarian crisis is brewing.
The unfolding drama is all the more remarkable considering that several years ago, national media reports published claims by Utah that it had "won the war" on homelessness there, at least when it came to housing those who had been outside the longest. Jon Stewart ran a laudatory piece titled "The homeless homed". But the picture wasn't quite that simple.
Comment: The loneliness epidemic, as its come to be known, is now being recognized for the problem that it is. And is one of many symptoms that suggest a major breakdown in societal health, particularly in the West.