Back in the 1980s, most Utah parents worried about things like bad grades, skipping church, teenage drinking, or hanging around the wrong crowd. Very few parents walked through downtown Salt Lake City wondering whether their child might someday end up schizophrenic from methamphetamine, homeless, screaming at invisible people near a bus stop, or dead from an overdose on a sidewalk outside an elementary school.
Today, those fears no longer feel unrealistic.
Anyone who spends enough time downtown has seen it: people wandering through traffic talking to themselves, addicts folded over on sidewalks, tents near parks, or human beings so mentally unraveled they barely appear connected to reality anymore. Most people feel some mixture of discomfort, fear, anger, pity, or confusion when they see it. Then they go home and ask themselves the question:…