Catholic social issues at Legislature

Friday, Mar. 04, 2016

One of the big lessons from this year’s legislative session is the intricate interconnections among issues.

Consider, for example, HB 436 Housing and Homeless Reform Initiative. The bill provides substantial funding to build two new, smaller homeless shelters to better separate families and women from the single male population at the Road Home. It also provides funding for expanded services, including mental health, for the homeless population.

As Catholic Community Services staff at the Weigand Day Center can attest, a large portion of the homeless individuals they serve suffer from mental health issues. At least some of those individuals might not be homeless if they had access to regular, ongoing treatment. They might be able to find and maintain employment if they had regular, ongoing treatment. They might be stable enough to be welcome tenants if they had regular, ongoing treatment. But they aren’t eligible for Medicaid, so they can’t access regular, ongoing treatment; nor can they hold a job or function as reliable tenants, or get out of the homeless shelter.

Thus, funding for homeless services is only one part of the equation. Medicaid expansion is an additional, critical piece, partly addressed by HB 473 Health Care Revisions, which would provide health insurance for homeless individuals with substance abuse or mental health needs.

Another part of the equation is continued justice reinvestment. A portion of the homeless population come straight from county jails and the state prison. These individuals typically have substance abuse problems and may suffer from mental health issues. Last year’s justice reinvestment reform was passed with the understanding that treatment programs to address these needs were a critical component of the reinvestment initiative’s success, but treatment is underfunded by millions. Providing the funding also requires expanding access to Medicaid to childless adults who currently do not qualify. 

Funding for Medicaid expansion includes a proposed assessment on hospitals. This makes sense because hospitals stand to gain substantially from expansion through a reduction in uninsured people who currently seek emergency room services for non-emergencies.

 Medicaid expansion individuals involved in the criminal justice system also could benefit from savings associated with a repeal of the death penalty. Costs are immediately incurred every time a prosecutor decides to charge a crime as death penalty eligible. These costs include items, such as hiring particular experts, that would not be required if the prosecutor pursued life without parole. The initial costs must be paid, even if the defendant eventually agrees to life without parole to avoid the death penalty.

Every death penalty case in Utah costs at least $1.6 million, most of which is born by counties, which also bear a large percentage of the costs for providing substance abuse and mental health treatment for jail inmates. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, 58 cases have been filed as death penalty eligible since 2010. Only one resulted in a death sentence. The costs incurred when those 58 cases were filed would be far better spent providing treatment to offenders who will be released, decreasing the likelihood of reoffending. The cost savings is one reason to support SB 189 Death Penalty Amendments, though certainly not the only one.

Finally, a number of homeless individuals struggle to find employment not for lack of skills or effort, but because they cannot get past an application process that includes disclosing a felony conviction. One bill, HB 388 State Job Applications Process, would help by “banning the box” for felony convictions on job applications for state jobs. This allows a person to at least get to the interview stage, where he or she can explain the circumstances of the conviction and the employer can make a decision based on facts, not just a check in a box.