Utah homeless board approves pursuit of 1,200-bed ‘centralized campus’

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV)— A new “centralized campus” for the homeless could come to the Wasatch frontline.

The Utah Homeless Services board approved the search in early October, and now a site somewhere along the Wasatch Front could house the facility.

The board is seeking an area of ​​at least 30 acres to accommodate the campus that would have up to 1,200 beds and a host of on-site services.

There has been pushback from people when homeless shelters are proposed in their neighborhoods.

Like Barbara Crandall, who said she would move if one was built near her home in North Salt Lake.

“And I’ve lived where I’ve lived for 20 years,” Crandall said last month.

The North Salt Lake City Council agreed with Crandall and rejected the idea.

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“I’m not sure there’s any city that will raise their hand and say, ‘we’re going to take a homeless shelter in our city,'” Ryan Steinbeigle of the Davis County Department of Economic and Community Development said after the council vote. .

The Utah Board of Homeless Services decided that the Office of Homeless Services has until Dec. 15 to find three viable sites for a new “centralized, transformative campus.”

“Having this array of services, housing, health care, mental health supports, job training, food, all of that in one centralized location,” President Randy Shumway said at the meeting.

A board member asked how this would be different from the Road Home shelter downtown that closed a few years ago.

“I’ve been asked this question a lot,” said Utah Homelessness Coordinator Wayne Niederhauser.

Niederhauser said Road Home was never a campus, but rather a central location with very limited services on site.

“It was by no means what we envisioned for a campus,” he said.

The campus is modeled after a place in San Antonio called “Haven for Hope.”

If you are worried about it coming to your neighborhood, said strategist Maura Caraballo during the Take2 podcastpeople should just look at what’s going on there.

“They’ve seen home values ​​increase in the area, they’ve seen crime decrease, you can live successfully in these environments,” he said.

In addition to the December 15 deadline, OHS has until January 15, 2025 to provide a master plan for the campus model.

The goal is to have something built by October 1, 2025.

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