The mayor who, secretly, lived among the homeless and drug addicts

U.S. Nilgun Salim
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Choosing a place for the new homeless center was a decision that sparked the dissatisfaction of many, so the mayor of Salt Lake City thought to live among the needy ones for a while, in order to understand the situation a little bit better.

Mayor Ben McAdams kept the strategy away from the press, and in March, on a Friday, he went to the less developed parts of the city without money or identity papers. He only spoke about this after the local press found out about everything.

Dressed in simple clothes, he spent three days and two nights among street people and drug addicts.

The mayor said the experience was “shocking” and found innumerable problems in many social services performed by the authorities.

He discovered the blatant use of drugs right in one his employee’s bedroom, witnessing just as he injected himself into the arm. At the same time, throughout the night, he felt an odor of what appeared to be marijuana.

In addition, he was the witness of numerous violent scenes, especially that one time when he saw two men fighting and almost got killed.

The mayor also revealed that during this time he did not feel safe, and so he understood why some of the homeless people prefer to stay in the streets even in bad weather.

Homeless people advised him not to disarm and sleep with his luggage under his head so he would not lose it.

“Someone told me not to use the bath during the night because it’s dangerous”, he added, pointing out that it was most likely a sexual reference.

Another thing that struck him was that exposed to these facts are children, some of them sick or with dealing with drug trafficking from early ages.

In addition, he took steps to prevent the facts he witnessed from repeating and to improve the services provided by the mayor’s office.

The mayor also said that he did not reveal to anyone what he had done because he wanted to avoid his gesture be called “a cheap act” of bravado.