Utah Homeless Board approves search for new, 1,200-bed homeless shelter site

The Utah Homeless Board has asked the state to locate three viable locations with a minimum of 30 neighboring acres for a new, 1,200-bed, low-barrier emergency shelter.

The proposal was added to the Utah Homeless Board agenda a few hours before the board's meeting on Wednesday and passed, unanimously.

The Utah Legislature allocated $25 million in its 2023 session for a new 600- to 800-bed emergency homeless shelter. The board's motion on Wednesday signaled movement toward an expansion of that plan, to create a "transformative, centralized campus model along the Wasatch Front."

The three locations would be presented to the board by the Utah Office of Homeless Services by Dec. 15 of this year. Once a location has been approved by the board, a master plan must be presented by Jan. 15, 2025. The plan must outline the continued roles and responsibilities of the existing resource centers.

The state's former largest emergency shelter, the Road Home, sheltered up to 1,100 individuals and was shut down in 2019, in favor of a "dispersed" shelter model, starting with three shelters whose capacity was capped at around 700 beds. Following the shelter's closure, many expressed concerns that the shelters wouldn't meet the need.

That concern proved true, as Salt Lake County scrambles each winter to create a Winter Response Plan to supply overflow beds, State Homeless Coordinator Wayne Neiderhauser referenced on Wednesday.

"We are short, especially in the winter, a significant amount of beds to get people into a safe place. The last thing we want for individuals is for them to try to camp along the Jordan River or on streets or in other public places. We'd rather them to be in a safe, sheltered situation, and we need additional shelter beds. This has become very apparent and actually proven over the last couple of winters that we need probably 800 to 1,200 additional beds in Salt Lake County alone," Neiderhauser told the board.

"The bottom line here is we need additional beds. We need a place, some property where we can put those, put a facility up and we're looking at sprung structures and those types of things, so we can do it quickly. But we want to get a facility up, especially before the 2025-26 winter, so that we don't have to cobble together 800-900 beds — it's expensive, more expensive to do it that way," he continued.

The proposal prompted questions from board members on the difference between a campus and a dispersed shelter model.

"Maybe we could have some further explanation of how this is very different from the former campus that had existed downtown because I think there's an important distinction to make there," asked board member Arlyn Bradshaw.

"The Road Home downtown was a centralized place, but it was in no way what we're envisioning for a campus which is a more transformative vision with the resources and services there on the campus, rather than scattered around the resource centers that we have today," responded Neiderhauser. "This is in no way going back to the Rio Grande. It's a lot different than what the Rio Grande was, mainly because of having the additional land necessary to have other facilities, other programs available at a central site."

Potential locations were not restricted to Salt Lake County but could be along the Wasatch Front.

“The thing that I want to keep in mind is the impact on that municipality, wherever this lands, having that many beds in a single location. Again, we may not view this as a state board of those city boundaries, but wherever that lands, they are going to feel that impact and I think that we need to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to support that municipality with funding,” said Midvale Mayor Marcus Stevenson, appointed board member.