https://wendy664.substack.com/p/trumps-homeless-confinement-strategy
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Utah’s 1,300-bed complex advances under federal incentives favoring institutionalization and compelled treatment. The campus will establish the first model, with similar facilities to follow across the United States.
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Art credit: Maurycy Gottlieb, Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur, 1878, oil on canvas. Gottlieb portrayed the Polish Jewish communal life that authoritarian persecution would later destroy.
On July 24, 2026, the National Homelessness Law Center issued a national warning. The organization called Trump’s executive order a blueprint for dismantling federal homelessness policy. The center’s report identified Utah’s proposed detention campus as an early implementation of that policy. Residents refusing placement could face removal or arrest. Others could enter secure treatment and lose departure rights without criminal convictions.
Utah expects initial campus operations in 2027. State officials selected the site in September 2025, after a largely confidential search. The 15.85-acre property stands at 2520 North 2200 West in Salt Lake City. Officials plan approximately 1,300 beds inside one centralized complex.
Governor Spencer Cox supports the encampment amid rising homelessness and limited shelter capacity. State officials promise treatment, employment assistance, and criminal justice services. Supporters present the homeless settlement as a route toward recovery and personal responsibility. Critics, however, describe a government institution organized around supervision and behavioral compliance.
Randy Shumway, former chair of the Utah Homeless Services Board, called for extensive involuntary treatment capacity. He recommended reserving 300 to 400 beds for court-ordered mental health treatment. Shumway also proposed secure substance-use programs for people diverted from criminal prosecution. Moreover, Trump’s federal framework eliminates public space as an alternative for people rejecting institutional placement.
President Trump’s executive order rewards jurisdictions that enforce camping bans and clear current encampments. Federal policy also encourages expanded civil commitment. Consequently, refusal would not preserve a genuinely voluntary shelter choice.
Shumway called the proposed institution an “accountability center.” State materials connect shelter eligibility to employment expectations and lawful conduct. The materials also require residents to remain drug-free. Available records do not establish campus-wide compulsory unpaid labor. Still, shelter becomes coercive when refusal triggers removal, arrest, or institutional placement.
Civil-rights organizations intensified opposition in January 2026. The ACLU of Utah joined a national campaign against federal funding. Organizers warned that compulsory treatment could govern more than half the proposed beds.
Utah lawmakers considered safeguards through Senate Bill 239. The measure required security planning, transportation provisions, and an ombudsman process. Nevertheless, the Senate allowed the protection bill to fail on March 6, 2026.
The failure removed proposed safeguards without stopping campus development. Utah officials will control treatment refusal and departure rights. Public records also leave compensation and work requirements unresolved. Residents, therefore, lack campus-specific statutory protections before operations begin.
Trump’s July 2025 executive order established the broader federal framework supporting Utah’s project. The order favors institutional treatment over Housing First and encourages expanded civil commitment. Federal agencies may prioritize jurisdictions enforcing public-camping bans or treatment mandates. States and municipalities, however, will for now retain control over local systems.
The National Homelessness Law Center reports that this movement already extends beyond Utah. More than 350 cities and 14 states adopted measures criminalizing homelessness after Grants Pass. Louisiana enacted legislation permitting compelled treatment under defined circumstances. The law also allows unpaid labor in some cases.
Meanwhile, other jurisdictions have built fenced camps or increased arrests for public sleeping. Some cities have also established restrictive service zones. Together, those programs advance a shared federal policy direction.
Utah remains the largest publicly identified campus associated with that national shift. The federal government has not announced a fixed number of identical facilities. Yet federal incentives can produce comparable institutions through separate state programs. Utah, therefore, supplies a model encampment that other jurisdictions can reproduce without direct federal construction.
Because such models can expand incrementally, historical records reveal risks created by vague language and restricted departure rights. The Łódź Ghetto provides one historical example of official language governing confined populations. German authorities established the ghetto in occupied Poland during February 1940. That April, police sealed approximately 160,000 Jews behind barbed wire and prohibited unauthorized departure.
Some Jewish families viewed separation as protection from hostility beyond the ghettos. Thomas Keneally writes that Kraków Jews anticipated the ghetto with guarded relief. They expected Jewish self-government, protection from street attacks, and safety among familiar neighbors.
Older residents associated ghettos with scholarship, communal institutions, Jewish songs, and Zionist discussion. However, those expectations reflected familiarity, not knowledge of the policies that followed. Elie Wiesel described temporary safety in Night, although Wiesel’s account concerned Sighet.
Because familiar neighbors and Jewish institutions remained nearby, separation briefly reduced exposure to hostile stares. Many residents also believed confinement would continue until the war ended. Likewise, a USHMM record documents Kraków relatives entering voluntarily because they felt safer.
Nazi officials never publicly described ghettos as preparation for mass murder. Instead, administrators used bureaucratic language for administration, public order, and economic usefulness. Yet such explanations concealed racial persecution and expanding government control.
Meanwhile, administrators established ghetto factories by May 1940. Jewish residents produced military uniforms and textiles through forced labor. Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski promoted productivity as protection from deportation.
Employment sometimes delayed removal; however, labor never secured meaningful freedom. Deportations to the Chełmno killing center began in January 1942. By July, 74 workshops served German interests. Most residents worked while surviving on meager rations.
Utah’s proposal differs in purpose and severity. Utah has imposed neither racial segregation nor genocidal objectives. The narrower comparison concerns confinement presented as protection and liberty conditioned on compliance.
However, Utah has not published rules governing departure or treatment refusal. That omission leaves administrators substantial authority over placement, conduct, shelter access, and departure. Residents could challenge those decisions only after officials restrict movement or deny shelter.
Without independent review, administrative authority could operate before any meaningful appeal. Policy revisions could convert treatment recommendations into requirements or redefine conduct as grounds for removal. Camping bans could then prevent expelled residents from returning to public spaces.
Utah could still establish voluntary programs with enforceable protections. Officials must define departure rights, treatment refusal, compensation, work requirements, transportation, and independent appeals. Those safeguards should precede admission.
How a Post-Trump Government Could End the Homeless Campus Model
A successor president could revoke Trump’s July 24, 2025, executive order and restore Housing First and community care. However, Utah could continue operating the campus with state funding. Federal action alone would not close the facility.
Utah controls the property, while existing grant agreements govern termination and appeals. Therefore, lawmakers would need to withhold funding, prohibit involuntary placement, or bar compulsory work. Lawmakers could also convert the site into voluntary shelter, medical respite, or permanent housing.
Courts could block unlawful detention under O’Connor v. Donaldson. Residents could seek injunctions or habeas relief when officials unlawfully restrict departure. The ADA also prohibits unnecessary institutionalization and requires integrated services.
Meanwhile, Utah should halt involuntary admissions and review existing placements. Officials should secure housing, benefits, medication, transportation, and community care before discharge. Otherwise, abrupt closure could recreate homelessness and invite further litigation.
Utah should, therefore, convert the campus into voluntary housing rather than demolish the property. Conversion would preserve essential services without granting administrators coercive control. Without statutory limits, supervised compliance could steadily narrow residents’ practical rights.
Historically, authoritarian regimes often expanded confinement programs beyond their stated purposes. Accordingly, Nazi authorities first imprisoned political opponents, including people they branded communists. Nazi authorities later targeted Jews, Roma, gay men, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and disabled people through detention, labor, and mass murder.
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Sources
National Homelessness Law Center, “One Year Later, Trump’s Executive Order Has Made Homelessness Worse,” July 24, 2026.
https://homelesslaw.org/statement07232026/ Utah Office of Homeless Services, “State Announces Site for Transformative Homeless Services Campus,” September 3, 2025.
https://jobs.utah.gov/department/press/2025/090325. html Utah News Dispatch, “Utah Homeless Board Proposes Initial Framework to Respond to Trump’s Executive Order,” October 2, 2025.
https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2025/10/02/utah-homeless- board-proposes-initial- framework-to-respond-to- trumps-executive-order/ Utah Legislature, Senate Bill 239, “State Homeless Campus Amendments,” 2026 General Session.
https://legiscan.com/UT/bill/SB0239/2026 National Homelessness Law Center, “Two Years Since the Grants Pass Ruling,” June 26, 2026.
https://homelesslaw.org/06252026statement/ The White House, “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” July 24, 2025.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/ ending-crime-and-disorder-on- americas-streets/ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Łódź.”
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lodz Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s List, originally published as Schindler’s Ark, 1982, Chapter 8.
Elie Wiesel, Night, translated by Marion Wiesel. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “The Holocaust in Sighet.”
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/sighet United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Prewar Photograph of an Extended Jewish Family in Kraków.”
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1158383
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