Years ago, on a rainy cold day near the end of March, former Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams did something that terrified him. Something he would never forget. He went undercover at a homeless shelter in downtown Salt Lake City.
The goal? To find a new perspective and to experience what it was like to be homeless firsthand.
Only a short time after he got to the shelter, on the bunk below, he saw a man shooting heroin into his arm. A while later, a fight broke out between the men on a bunk nearby. One man got ripped from his bunk and his head slammed into the concrete floor, bleeding everywhere.
This was nothing like McAdams had seen before, and it was more real than he ever could have imagined. The things that he saw shocked him. He had heard the other perspectives; he knew what the voters thought. But he wanted to know the people that would be affected by his choices he made in office.
But as the former mayor laid in his bed in the shelter that night, shoes laced tight and backpack tied to his arm, he felt the key to the mayor’s office in his pocket and realized he would never truly know what it was like to be homeless.
“If I got hurt, if somebody beat me up, I have health insurance. I could go to the hospital and get treated. If I got really cold and couldn’t take it anymore, I could walk away and jump in a car and be in [my] house,” McAdams said. “If I got hungry and couldn’t find a place to eat and the shelters didn’t take me, I could just go back to my office, grab a credit card and I could eat.”
McAdams told this story as part of his speech for the Highland student body on October 10 during advisory. A new student organization called the Ram Fam planned the event. Their goal is to bring in guest speakers to talk to Highland students about lessons they’ve learned and topics that are important to the community.
McAdams was the mayor of Salt Lake County from 2013 to 2019. He also served as a Utah Representative from 2019 to 2021. McAdams is passionate about helping the homeless population of Salt Lake City and helping people get second chances at life.
He gave advice for students about politics and reminded Highland students that everyone has a key to life. He encouraged students to use their keys to make a difference in their community and help bring positive change to the lives of others.
“I looked at [my] key and realized I was the mayor of Salt Lake County, and I could do something about the situation around me,” McAdams said. “I kept this key because it’s a reminder to me that at certain points in my life, I’ve had keys that nobody else holds and these keys have unlocked doors for people who can’t unlock them for themselves.”
