Is Salt Lake City Covering Up Homeless Deaths?

Ty Bellamy’s journey to becoming one of Salt Lake City’s most recognized homeless advocates has been a long and crooked road. In 2021, Bellamy championed a homeless camp called “Camp Last Hope”. This camp was located on abandoned rail lines (at the time) at 900 South and 500 West. The camp provided safety and support for homeless individuals during the winter of 2021. This camp was abated by the Salt Lake City Health Department.

Bellamy says that– unlike this winter– Camp Last Hope  was successful, and “nobody died that winter from the cold.” Bellamy believes that if given the opportunity, she could operate a sanctioned campground that would be far more effective and safe than the millions currently being spent on homelessness in Salt Lake City. Due to a lack of transparency, Ty has developed her own system for obtaining homeless death numbers by having a contact at the city morgue. She says that there have been 15 homeless deaths since December. The city only officially reports five deaths from freezing. Still, she says that Salt Lake City Mayor Mendenhall’s policies are resulting in an increase in deaths among the homeless, due to the increasingly frequent abatements.

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