Days to deadline, county faces pressure to halt homeless site recommendation

Days to deadline, county faces pressure to halt homeless site recommendation

(Alex Goodlett, Deseret News)


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SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams has until Thursday to recommend a homeless shelter site to the state — but as that day draws nearer, he's facing increasing pressure to halt the process that has outraged South Salt Lake and West Valley City leaders.

During a fifth public forum held at the Salt Lake County Government Complex Monday, McAdams was again surrounded by residents telling him the seven sites he's named as options for a new homeless resource center won't work and will damage their communities.

South Salt Lake resident Travis Massey, father of a 2-year-old daughter and 4-year old son who's lived in South Salt Lake for more than six years, said it's "not possible" to find a fitting site by Thursday's deadline.

"This is a county problem that's being hoisted on the shoulders of South Salt Lake and West Valley," Massey said. "(The county) needs to go back to the drawing board with this. Let the 30th pass and come up with a better plan."

Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley, who initially opposed HB441 — the bill passed this year that provides $10 million in funding for the new homeless shelters and also sets in stone Thursday's deadline — has told McAdams the same thing.

While McAdams has said forgoing the deadline will "jeopardize" state dollars needed to build the new homeless centers and overhaul the state's troubled homeless services model, Thatcher has said the money won't go anywhere, and that McAdams needs to stand up for his constituents.

But House Speaker Greg Hughes said in an interview Monday that McAdams is right to think the state money would be jeopardized if the county misses the deadline.

"It wouldn't be in state statute if it wasn't a very important benchmark," Hughes said.

The speaker said state, county and city leaders have been "circling" the issue for years, until leaders concluded they must break up the populations at the 1,100-bed Rio Grande shelter and distribute them at smaller, scattered sites, with service-focused facilities.

Signs protesting the proposal for new homeless resource centers in South Salt Lake lay on the floor during an open house at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City on Monday, March 27, 2017. Photo: Alex Goodlett, Deseret News
Signs protesting the proposal for new homeless resource centers in South Salt Lake lay on the floor during an open house at the Salt Lake County Government Center in Salt Lake City on Monday, March 27, 2017. Photo: Alex Goodlett, Deseret News

Salt Lake City was set to build four 150-bed shelters after spending months selecting the sites, but the plan changed last month when Hughes, McAdams and Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski announced they would drop two of the most controversial Salt Lake City sites and instead built two 200-bed facilities in Salt Lake City and one up-to-300-bed facility somewhere in Salt Lake County.

When it comes to selecting that new Salt Lake County site, what state leaders don't want, Hughes said, is a "repeat" of last year, when it took months for Salt Lake City to select its sites, with no "hard benchmarks or deadlines."

"It's human carnage down there," Hughes said of the Rio Grande area. "We have children down there. We have people suffering. We have got to move forward. We really do."

This year, Hughes said, was "supposed to be dedicated to getting these sites built."

"We had to have an aggressive timeline. That timeline is to create that sense of urgency, and that timeline is relevant and it needs to be adhered to," the speaker said. "Do I think that it makes it easy? I do not. But remember, it was hard for us to lose ground and go back to not having a site after we had four selected."

In the fiscal year when at least some of the resource centers were supposed to begin construction, the money would go "unspent" if the county misses the deadline, Hughes said, with no legislative mechanism to appropriate it for the new homeless resource centers.

"The money wouldn't disappear," Hughes said, but it would not go to the county, and the entire process would be drawn out again until lawmakers could craft a new bill to create a new funding mechanism.


We're losing time and there are people that are suffering in real time. We've just got to move forward.

–Greg Hughes, Speaker of the House


"We're losing time and there are people that are suffering in real time," Hughes said. "We've just got to move forward."

South Salt Lake Mayor Cherie Wood said she had a meeting with the speaker earlier Monday, where she expressed her concerns about the timeline, to which Hughes had a similar response — that the deadline needs to stay.

Wood said she's still "frustrated" with the process, worrying that the limited timeline will result in a flawed decision.

"Two additional sites were announced just last week, both in South Salt Lake" she said. "My concern is if we went out two or three more weeks, would we actually find a better site?"

South Salt Lake City Councilman Shane Siwik agreed.

"This process has been rushed and flawed all along, and when that happens you're going to get a rushed and flawed result," Siwik said, adding that he's "extremely concerned" about the potential impacts to the area where two additional site options were named last week.

The 3432 S. 900 West site, he said, is within walking distance of a new elementary school the Granite School District is going to build, while the 3380 S. 1000 West site is "just a stone's throw" from the Jordan River.

"I would hope they put the brakes on and re-evaluate," he said, but he added he's "also realistic" and would be surprised if a site wasn't announced this week.

"You get the impression the Legislature just wants this over with," he said. "They just want to put this to bed. And unfortunately in that process, you then pit one municipality against another, and you just don't get good results."

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McAdams said he and the county's site evaluation committee will be taking into consideration all of the public feedback that has been gathered over the past few weeks to make an "informed decision."

"We want the community closest to this facility to not suffer," McAdams said, noting that state and county resources may be available to help offset any negative impacts.

McAdams also said he "understands" Hughes' position, and he knows Thursday's deadline isn't "arbitrary."

"If (Hughes) had tried to pass a bill that didn't have any ability to say this is actually going to happen, I don't know if that bill would have passed," McAdams said. "So I appreciate his leadership. We agreed to that deadline and we made a commitment, and I stick by my commitment."

The county's site evaluation committee is scheduled to deliberate the seven sites Tuesday at 3 p.m. at the Utah State Capitol. McAdams is then expected to use the committee's feedback to make a recommendation to the state's Homeless Coordinating Committee Thursday.

The state committee is then expected to make a final decision April 10.

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