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Behavioral Health and Justice Action Plan

Developed with the Leifman Group

Salt Lake County is working with state, cities, community, justice, behavioral health partners, and more to strengthen how our systems respond to people with mental health and substance use needs — with the goals of improving public safety, reducing involvement in the justice system, and enhancing outcomes for individuals with behavioral health needs.

In 2025, Salt Lake County engaged the Leifman Group, national experts in behavioral health and justice system reform, to conduct a comprehensive review of local services and develop actionable recommendations. The resulting action plan is based on extensive stakeholder interviews, document review, and Behavioral Health & Justice Summits with stakeholders.

The report found that Salt Lake County and Utah have significant strengths — including robust treatment capacity, strong partnerships, and leadership commitment — but also identified key challenges to address, including fragmented coordination across agencies, limited data sharing, insufficient deeply affordable and supportive housing, gaps in diversion and care transitions, and no single unified implementation structure. The 25 recommendations lay out ways to address those challenges and build accountability throughout our systems to ensure better outcomes for our community and individuals.

This work builds on years of work by Salt Lake County to improve our human services, homelessness, and criminal justice systems.

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News Related to Behavioral Health and Justice

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Behavioral Health and Justice Recommendations

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The recommendations below are those that are likely to have the greatest impact on public safety, system efficiency, and behavioral health outcomes. Some are short-term and relatively straightforward; others require new resources, legislative changes, or substantial system redesign. They are generally organized along the Sequential Intercept Model, followed by cross-cutting recommendations related to housing, civil processes, and data recommendations, all of which are critical considerations across the intercepts.

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Intercept 0-1: Community, Crisis and Law Enforcement Response
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Intercept 2–3: Arrest, Jail, Courts, and Post-Arrest Diversion
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Assisted Outpatient Treatment and Civil Commitment
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Housing, Risk-Mixing, and Facility Planning
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Data, Analytics, and System Learning
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What It Will Take to Implement These Improvements

  1. Prevent and deflect crises earlier to improve system flow. Strengthen prevention, crisis response, and outreach so people experiencing mental health or substance use crises are connected to treatment and support before situations escalate or lead to arrest or further involvement in the criminal justice system.

  2. Create pathways to treatment instead of cycling individuals through the system. Expand screening, services, housing, and case management to ensure people are held accountable with appropriate treatment and support that reduces repeat involvement in jail, emergency services, and homelessness.

  3. Create cross-system data-sharing protocols that enable coordinated care, strengthen accountability, and use data to improve outcomes and system performance. These systems are complex and involve multiple partners at every level. Create a shared infrastructure and protocols so agencies can coordinate care, track outcomes, and make informed decisions - ensuring people receive consistent support and public resources are used effectively.

Intercept 0-1: Community, Crisis and Law Enforcement Response

A red truck with lights.

Identifying and appropriately responding to trauma and social determinants of health issues early on is an important strategy in preventing future onset and acuity of behavioral health issues. Strategic attention to and engagement with schools, communities, and families decreases the likelihood of future homelessness and criminal justice entanglement.  More specifically, a) working to engage school districts/schools and pediatricians in trauma screenings and trauma informed practices and working on pathways to support children living with trauma; b) preventing substance use by investing in evidence based community, school and family-based strategies to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors; and c) ensuring access to mental health supports for young people. 

Proactively offering callers the option to identify an emergency as a mental health episode will promote more appropriate responses and increase opportunities for deflection to behavioral health services rather than default criminal-justice pathways.

Mobile Crisis Outreach Teams (MCOT) and law enforcement co-responder teams should be available, as appropriate, 24/7 across the valley. Expanding these resources will: 

  • Increase timely access to crisis stabilization 
  • Reduce law-enforcement-only responses 
  • Support deflection from jail and emergency departments 

Conflicting policies and jurisdictional uncertainties about transport to emergency rooms and the receiving center create delay and conflict, especially when MCOT teams are on scene. 

Key steps include: 

  • Resolving policy conflicts among first responders regarding who transports and how 
  • Authorizing MCOT teams to transport when appropriate, consistent with practices in other Utah jurisdictions 
  • Prioritizing non-law-enforcement, non-emergency-vehicle transportation whenever clinically and safely appropriate 

Law enforcement usage of the receiving center is quite low, with significantly less than 50% of admissions coming from police. This represents a significant missed opportunity for stabilization and triage. 

  • A concerted effort should be undertaken to educate relevant law enforcement personnel about the availability and effectiveness of the receiving center. As data about the successes of the receiving center become more established, those results should be promoted among law enforcement agencies. This should be in addition to the education and training provided as part of the recommended expanded CIT initiative. 
  • Replication of the current Huntsman Mental Health Institute (HMHI) receiving center in its entirety may be impractical in the South Valley, but a smaller satellite or adjunct facility should be considered. Law enforcement usage of the existing receiving center is lower than expected, perhaps due in part to logistical challenges and the relative ease of jail transport. A more convenient South Valley option may increase utilization and diversion. 

Early identification of individuals with potential mental health conditions is essential, and interactions with law enforcement can provide early clues about potential mental health disorders. A check box or other mechanism for flagging such concerns could be included on the arrest affidavit, or on the citation if the individual is not booked. A simple behavioral health flag would: 

  • Alert jail and medical staff to possible behavioral health needs 
  • Trigger further screening or assessment 
  • Create a data element that can inform analysis and planning 

While individual municipal law enforcement agencies retain decision-making authority, a single coordinating entity should standardize CIT training and promote fidelity to the Memphis Model. A robust, well-implemented CIT program has been shown to: 

  • Decrease arrests of individuals with behavioral health conditions 
  • Increase appropriate diversion to treatment 
  • Reduce use of force and law-enforcement injury 

Relevant CIT modules should also be regularly provided to: 

  • 911 and 988 call takers 
  • Law enforcement CIT coordinators and supervisors 
  • TRAX and other transit law enforcement 

Experience in Miami-Dade County demonstrates that when officers believe behavioral health services are truly anonymous and independent of their employer, utilization rises dramatically. Centralizing officer behavioral health services with a neutral third party (e.g., court or community entity) can: 

  • Improve officer wellness 
  • Reduce use of force and officer-involved shootings 
  • Decrease unnecessary arrests of individuals with behavioral health conditions 

Any entity perceived as independent of law enforcement could serve this function. 

Dedicated homeless outreach teams—ideally with embedded peers or clinicians—can: 

  • Build trusting relationships with individuals who are unsheltered 
  • Connect people to appropriate services and housing resources 
  • Coordinate with downtown Ambassadors and other outreach providers 
  • Reduce arrests and calls for service related to homelessness 

Intercept 2–3: Arrest, Jail, Courts, and Post-Arrest Diversion

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Once an individual is arrested and becomes a part of a criminal justice trajectory it is essential to endeavor to identify the appropriate system response and potential pathway for that individual, whether that be diversion, and if so to what type of treatment and level of supervision, or to the traditional court process.   

The sooner individuals with behavioral health needs are identified, the more effective diversion and treatment responses are, and the individual’s criminal charge is a woefully insufficient indicator of those needs. Therefore every person booked into the Salt Lake County Jail should be screened for:

  • Mental health disorders
  • Substance use disorders
  • Criminogenic risk
  • Trauma exposure

Validated tools could include:

  • Brief Jail Mental Health Screen
  • TCU-V substance use screen
  • LSI-SV for criminogenic risk
  • PCL-5 for trauma

The jail should also use an appropriate suicidality screen for classification and safety.

Screening results should be used as an early triage tool to:

  • Inform jail classification and housing
  • Identify candidates for diversion and treatment
  • Schedule further assessments (mental health, substance use, trauma, or criminogenic needs)

Implementation details:

  • Ideally, screens are administered by clinicians; in their absence, specially trained jail or County personnel can administer them (none of these tools requires a clinician).
  • Regular checks of inter-rater reliability and implementation fidelity should be conducted. 
  • Results should be shared promptly with: 
    • Jail medical and mental health staff 
    • Prosecution and defense 
    • Jail in-reach personnel and case managers 

Only broad results of the tools should be shared with prosecution and defense (e.g., “strongly recommended for further mental health assessment”); specific responses to individual questions should be treated as protected information to avoid potential use of those responses for incrimination or admissions about illegal conduct.

Eventually a database of arrestee risk-need profiles will be generated, which will enable better forecasting of future resource needs, including jail beds and diversion capacity.

Jail releases occur at all hours, and they constitute a period of heightened risk for suicide, overdose, relapse, and treatment disengagement. For individuals identified as high-need—particularly those with serious mental illness—Salt Lake County should: 

  • Coordinate planned discharge times aligned with service availability 
  • Provide transportation from jail to a day treatment or similar resource 
  • Ensure continuity of medications 
  • Reassess housing and other responsivity needs 
  • Facilitate warm handoffs to community treatment and supervision providers 

Given the County’s complex and somewhat siloed network of behavioral health providers, coordinated case management is critical. 

Key elements: 

  • Contract with a provider (or providers) to respond to individuals flagged through jail screening or assessment as needing significant behavioral health resources. 
  • Leverage and expand jail in-reach program – ensuring that those in for shorter and long periods of time have access to meet with individuals pre-release, build rapport, and begin planning. 
  • Coordinate warm handoffs to and among hospitals, community treatment providers, and supervision, including medication continuity and housing supports. 
  • Provide ongoing and consistent case management for as long as treatment and supervision requirements or needs persist. 

Many of these functions are likely Medicaid-reimbursable. 

Transitions—from shelters, jail, inpatient units, or higher levels of care—are moments of heightened vulnerability. Case managers, peers, and other supports should: 

  • Provide targeted assistance at all major transition points 
  • Pay particular attention to step-downs in treatment intensity and supervision level 
  • Use peers to help sustain engagement and continuity during these transitions 

Information about primary and behavioral health conditions, prescriptions, and needed treatments is not consistently transmitted to case managers, community providers, hospitals, or the jail. 

The County should: 

  • Standardize communication at booking and discharge, as well as at transitions between supervision settings and treatment providers 
  • Integrate these communication expectations into wraparound case management protocols and data-sharing improvements 
  • Integrate communication expectations for coordinated case management into all provider agreements. 

The time between jail release and subsequent appearances, when an individual is often subject to pre-trial release conditions, requires robust supports. A full continuum of supervision and treatment supports needs to be available both to those engaged with County pre-trial services and those who are not. Particularly important is ACT team availability. Medium- to low-risk individuals with high behavioral health needs are well-suited for Assertive Community Treatment (ACT)–level supervision, and eligibility criteria for that level of support should be disseminated to relevant stakeholders. Salt Lake County should: 

  • Inventory available pre-trial supports for misdemeanor and felony level defendants, and develop resources to meet any identified gaps in  
  • Ensure ACT availability for eligible individuals, to including appropriate pre-trial individuals 
  • Increase ACT team capacity to serve this population, if necessary 

Salt Lake County has an existing pre-filing diversion system. The County should build on this foundation by exploring opportunities to divert appropriate cases at other points in the criminal justice process—including at or immediately following arrest. Such an initiative should include:

  • Embedding a prosecutor and defense counsel at the SLCO jail to identify and divert appropriate individuals before they are formally booked into custody  
  • Eligibility determinations based on assessed criminogenic risk and treatment needs, with limited exclusions based on factors such as current charges, criminal history, victim input, program capacity, and public safety considerations  
  • Matching individuals to levels of supervision and treatment consistent with the risk-needs-responsivity model

To support consistency:  

  • The process should be clearly defined and systematized so that line prosecutors can apply it uniformly, and the District Attorney must ensure consistent compliance with program fidelity. 
  • If needed, legislation could define core parameters of the diversion framework. 
  • Prosecutorial discretion should rarely override risk-needs determinations, absent compelling public safety or victim-based concerns. 

As described in Recommendation 23, the original Justice and Accountability Center proposal was well conceived and would fill a gap in the treatment and supervision continuum. A core gap in the system is a transitional location for people being released from Jail, the State Hospital, HMHI, or residential MH and SUD treatment to stay with wrap around supports until long-term housing or the appropriate treatment become available. This ensures people with behavioral health needs are not released back to homelessness while opening capacity in treatment facilities because folks are not staying past medical necessity. For systemic diversion to be effective, that treatment and supervision continuum must be robust and comprehensive. Any updates and revisions to the proposal and any logistics decisions should be finalized promptly so that the needed resource requests can be advanced. 

Justice Courts handle the highest volume of cases involving individuals with behavioral health needs, yet they often have the fewest resources and the least access to comprehensive information. In Salt Lake County, the Justice Court System is highly decentralized, consisting of 16 separate jurisdictions. Additionally, opportunities for prefiling diversion are limited because most cases are directly filed in justice court upon issuance of a citation by law enforcement.  
• To address these challenges, Salt Lake County should pursue a more integrated, system-wide diversion strategy that fully includes Justice Courts. As part of that effort, the Third District Court must be an active participant in information sharing and coordinated diversion planning.  

Salt Lake County should: 

  • Consider a robust post-filing diversion model in justice courts. Currently, most justice court cases begin with a citation issued by law enforcement, which is filed directly with the court without a review by a prosecutor. This practice limits the opportunity for prosecutors to divert appropriate cases before formal court involvement. Absent a wholesale restructuring of the filing system in justice court, a robust post-filing diversion program is the best way to divert appropriate cases once a citation is issued. And, as mentioned in Recommendation 16, having an embedded prosecutor and defense counsel at the SLCO jail will increase the likelihood of diverting appropriate cases as soon as possible after arrest.  
  • Increase pretrial resources for misdemeanor defendants.  
  • Without a complete view of a defendant’s risks, needs, and criminal history, supervision decisions tend to rely too heavily on charge type and indicators of violence or aggravation. Decisions should also incorporate the PSA, validated risk-needs and trauma screenings and assessments, and appropriate consideration of victim input and public safety.  
  • Provide Justice Courts with real time, reliable, user-friendly information regarding treatment resources, eligibility criteria, and service availability, enabling courts to more effectively connect individuals with appropriate services.  
  • Create a targeted pilot for high-volume Justice Courts located along TRAX lines. These courts handle a disproportionate number of minor offenses involving individuals experiencing homelessness and behavioral health conditions and are well suited for piloting enhanced treatment, supervision, and support responses. 

Assisted Outpatient Treatment and Civil Commitment

A person's hands on a bench.

Assisted Outpatient Treatment is a valuable tool for medium- to low-risk individuals with significant behavioral health needs. Recent legislative enactments have improved the criteria for AOT eligibility, but there remain attitudinal and pragmatic obstacles to meaningful levels of usage.  The District Court filing and adjudicative process is not currently a practical or quick enough process. When implemented with fidelity, AOT has been associated with: 

  • Increased treatment engagement 
  • Reductions in non-compliance with supervision requirements 
  • Decreases in criminal behavior 

AOT should be considered: 

  • As an early intervention for families, behavioral health providers, and others when a person may meet the definition in U.C.A. § 26B-5-351(14) 
  • As an alternative to arrest (law enforcement officers are permitted petitioners) 
  • In prosecutorial charging decisions as a diversion option 
  • As a disposition option for criminal charges 
  • As a sentencing alternative 
  • As a response to pre-trial and post-sentence non-compliance by eligible defendants 
  • As a step-down option from inpatient civil commitment or inpatient competency restoration 

Several jurisdictions in other states successfully use AOT at various stages of misdemeanor court involvement. However, Utah Justice Court judges currently lack civil case authority. Options to solve this include: 

  • Legislation granting Justice Court judges jurisdiction to monitor defendants in a civil AOT context; or 
  • A streamlined process for transferring eligible cases to District Court. 

Whatever the mechanism, conversion from criminal proceedings to AOT should be quick and simple for stakeholders to embrace. 

Additional ACT and related community resources will likely be necessary to support expanded AOT use. 

Civil commitment in Utah is often described as “a status, not a placement,” reflecting bed shortages and the prioritization of forensic patients at the Utah State Hospital. This leaves counties to address civil bed shortfalls. 

Key points: 

  • While statutory improvements to civil commitment standards may be helpful, the more pressing challenge is the lack of staffed inpatient beds. 
  • Reducing the number of individuals entering the competency restoration pipeline would free forensic beds and increase civil bed capacity. 
  • In the near term, SLCo’s options are limited to contracting with local private psychiatric and acute mental health providers while broader system reforms take hold. 

If upstream interventions and diversion are successfully implemented, the need for long-term inpatient care should narrow to the most acute individuals. 

Procedurally: 

  • Pink-sheet/civil commitment evaluation petitions are still largely paper-based. 
  • The process should be automated. 
  • Law enforcement should receive training on involuntary examination criteria and documentation to ensure appropriate, timely use of civil commitment tools. 

Housing, Risk-Mixing, and Facility Planning

A group of buildings with balconies.

Diversion, treatment, and effective supervision are undermined when fundamental responsivity needs—especially housing—are unmet. Individuals experiencing homelessness have disproportionately high behavioral health needs, and unsheltered individuals face particularly poor prognoses. While there have been laudable efforts to address some aspects of the housing shortage, sustained investment in the full continuum of housing options and resources is essential to the success of these broader recommendations. 

A sustainable response requires: 

  • A full continuum of housing, from shelters to transitional and supported housing to permanent housing units 
  • Dedicated funding streams for this continuum (e.g., taxes or other earmarked funds as seen in Miami-Dade and other jurisdictions) 
  • Data-informed planning to ensure new housing resources are targeted to actual system needs 
  • Reduced entanglement with the criminal justice system where possible (e.g., avoiding criminalization of public urination that can lead to sex offender registration and long-term housing exclusion) 

Regarding the potential large campus in northwest Salt Lake City, the proposed resource investment provides a unique opportunity to effect significant change. While details are not yet clear, policymakers should consider the following as specifics are filled in: 

  • Risk-mixing is a serious concern. Large congregate settings that co-locate criminogenically low- and high-risk individuals will likely increase recidivism, victimization, and crime. This risk is heightened if individuals are compelled to be there or if the campus is relatively isolated. 
  • Preliminary descriptions suggest the inclusion of involuntary civil commitment beds within a CCBHC-like framework. While CCBHCs are a promising model, they typically do not include locked long term civil beds. Integrating such beds raises complex licensure, staffing, and design issues. 
  • Best practice is to use data to identify specific gaps in the current resources, then design new facilities (including size, function, and population served) to fill identified gaps. Without such analysis, there is a risk of designing a resource that people are connected or compelled to use because it exists—not because it is what they need. 

The cornerstone of the risk-needs-responsivity model is providing targeted responses to the assessed risks and needs of individuals, not to the legacy configuration of available resources.  

Data, Analytics, and System Learning

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Supervision entities are currently siloed with respect to behavioral health needs and treatment requirements. Law enforcement, jail staff, County pre-trial and probation, and Adult Probation and Parole (AP&P) must proactively and promptly share relevant information as individuals move between systems. 

This may require: 

  • A single unique identifier across systems 
  • Memoranda of understanding (MOUs) and/or legislation authorizing data sharing for care coordination and public-safety purposes, including outlining guardrails to ensure data are utilized appropriately and for intended purposes without causing harm for individuals engagement in the criminal justice system. 

The County should first define its target population(s) and then use existing data systems to locate and characterize those individuals.
The original Justice and Accountability Center (JAC) proposal provides an illustrative example of data utilization (given a new mental health/substance use subacute is now opening in early 2026, there may be shifts in population and service model):

  • The key population was originally defined as:
    • Frequent criminal justice contact
    • Unmet behavioral health needs, including substance use and/or other mental health disorders
    • Unsheltered
  • Data from:
    • Offender Management System (OMS) (bookings, including a serious and persistent mental illness [SPMI] flag)
    • Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) (homeless service utilization, chronic homelessness flag)
      were merged to identify individuals with:
    • Frequent bookings
    • SPMI flags
    • Frequent homeless service use and chronic homelessness flags

This merged dataset allowed the County to:

  • Estimate the size of the key population
  • Determine needed facility capacity
  • Identify the types of services most appropriate to address their specific needs

Using data in this way supports:

  • Precision in resource allocation
  • Avoidance of misallocating funds to low-need areas
  • Identification of areas where additional investment is required

Given current and future decisions around jail programming, facility design, and related infrastructure, this type of analysis is both timely and essential. It is equally important to:

  • Involve experts with local knowledge and analytic experience
  • Routinely refresh analyses to reflect changes in drug trends, mental health prevalence, and system utilization 

Most organizations interviewed:

  • Collect individual-level data (demographics, assessments, service dates, service types, key events such as arrests or jail entries)
  • Use these data to produce performance measures and internal statistics

However, it is less common for organizations to:

  • Link service data to outcomes (e.g., improved health, reduced justice involvement)
  • Share data robustly across agencies for coordinated case management or system-level evaluation

Barriers include siloed systems, privacy concerns and potential for associate harm, and the absence of shared infrastructure.

Consequences of limited data sharing:

  • Limited visibility into available services
  • Fragmented service coordination
  • Case managers lack full information about client needs and prior services
  • Difficulty connecting services to outcomes
  • Duplication of services, missed needs, and unnecessary or ineffective interventions
  • Higher costs and poorer outcomes

Lessons from other jurisdictions:

Allegheny County (PA) and others have demonstrated the benefits of cross-system data hubs. Uses have included:

  • Real-time service inventories
  • Predict adverse outcomes for individuals and to use those predictions to inform worker decision-making at the time of child welfare call screening (Allegheny Family Screening Tool)
  • Allow the ability to do outreach and proactively offer supportive services to high-need new parents (Hello Baby),
  • Analyze service outcomes including housing, employment, criminal justice and use the results to improve service effectiveness
  • Housing resource allocation tools

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has documented benefits of data warehouses in:

  • Eligibility and enrollment:
    • Sharing assessments across agencies
    • Pre-populating forms and reducing client burden
    • Providing timely updates to reduce overpayments and recoupment
  • Case management and care coordination:
    • Ensuring caseworkers have comprehensive information
    • Improving contact information accuracy
    • Reducing staff time spent on manual data lookups
    • Supporting integrated services for families with complex needs
  • Program oversight and effectiveness:
    • Providing a fuller picture of service delivery and outcomes
    • Understanding multi-system service utilization
    • Identifying program integrity issues and improving payment accuracy
    • Monitoring outcomes across domains (education, employment, health)

Recommendations for building the SLCo Data Hub:

  1. Implement cross-organization data-sharing protocols and guardrails.
    1. Develop MOUs that:
      1. Address privacy and potential harms
      2. Follow privacy regulations including 42 CFR, HIPAA
      3. Define duties, responsibilities, data safeguards, and data-sharing rules
    2. Create protocols for adding data sources that involvedeveloping trust, shared vision, and legal review
  2. Create a cross-system/cross-organization Data Hub Task Force.
    The task force should include:
    1. A high-level County leader with statewide stature to champion the effort
    2. Representatives from agencies already integrating data (e.g., Office of Homelessness and Criminal Justice Reform working with OMS, HMIS, and Versaterm)
    3. Individuals involved in previous unsuccessful data centralization efforts, to capture lessons learned
    4. IT experts skilled in data systems and current technology
    5. Agency directors authorized to approve data sharing
    6. Service providers who understand what information is needed for effective coordination
    7. Research and evaluation experts (including local universities) to define performance and outcome metrics
  3. Create data-hub-specific legislation.
    1. Mandate use of the data hub and specify participating organizations
    2. Define data-protection requirements, permissible uses, and access controls
    3. Ensure ongoing compliance with privacy regulations, including 42 CFR and HIPAA
  4. Develop a flexible, web-based hub architecture.
    1. Enable upload and integration from diverse existing case management systems and databases
    2. Allow smaller providers without established systems to use the hub directly as a case management or data-entry platform
    3. Ensure secure, role-based access from any location
  5. Include data across multiple systems.
    The data hub should ultimately integrate data from:
    1. Behavioral health
    2. Homelessness services
    3. Child welfare
    4. Intellectual and developmental disability services
    5. Aging services
    6. Police and law enforcement
    7. Corrections, jails, and courts
    8. Public schools and community colleges
    9. Other relevant human services and community providers

Engage with research partners including local universities and other researchers with appropriate expertise to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of all aspects of the new system changes.

The evaluation should encompass:

  1. The process of implementation itself including the stakeholders involved, the activities, challenges and lessons learned at every intercept as well as the development of the data hub, etc. This information can be used to develop a how-to manual for other counties and states to implement their own system change.
  2. Implementation effectiveness: Were the system improvements implemented as intended (e.g., Did new services and number of slots address the actual population in need?); Was a functional and accessible data hub created? Did key partners share necessary data in the new data hub?)? 
  3. System effectiveness – Did the improvements to the system have the intended impact – increased communication and data sharing across partners, better coordination of care, increased public safety (lower recidivism), decreased numbers of houseless individuals, improved behavioral health outcomes. 

The evaluations should begin as early in the implementation process as possible to ensure that all activities are documented and that systems for tracking and collecting data are in place as soon as they are needed (e.g., when new services are being provided). Evaluation results should be used for feedback and continuous system improvement as well as to demonstrate effectiveness to community stakeholders, and to support any need for additional resources.

What It Will Take to Implement These Improvements

A row of buildings.

Successfully implementing these recommendations depends on two foundational system needs: sustained funding and strong cross-agency coordination.

Sustainable funding — especially for housing — is essential. Stable housing is the bedrock that supports diversion, treatment, and recovery. To make lasting progress, Salt Lake County and its partners will need ongoing, dedicated funding streams to expand supportive housing and the services that help people remain stable in the community.

A unified governance structure is equally critical. No single agency can carry out this work alone. Effective implementation requires structured collaboration among cities, the County, the State, providers, courts, and law enforcement — with shared goals and a framework capable of resolving barriers and maintaining momentum.