SALT LAKE CITY — With less than a week before a site recommendation for a new homeless resource center is due to the state, Salt Lake County's site evaluation committee faces a "daunting" task to help Mayor Ben McAdams make a recommendation.

The 16-member committee — made up of state and local elected officials, homeless service providers and business community representatives — is tasked with providing pros and cons for each location in a report for McAdams to consider before making his recommendation to the state's Homeless Coordinating Committee, due March 30.

But after sitting through Wednesday's three-hour public hearing, where hundreds of South Salt Lake and West Valley residents protested all seven site options, committee members aren't seeing a clear answer.

"It's a daunting task, that the mayor is faced with right now," said committee member Sophia DiCaro, a former House Republican who lives in West Valley. "It's gut-wrenching, to be honest. It's a tough issue. I don't know what the right answer is."

McAdams said the decision won't be easy, but he's looking to the committee for help, with no sites so far rising above any of the others.

"I'm only one person," McAdams said. "We wanted this committee to bring people from a lot of different perspectives to help inform this decision. The more people looking at this with a different set of eyes, the better decision we will make."

But DiCaro — and other committee members — are so far only seeing "a lot of cons" associated with all of the sites.

South Salt Lake's representative, Community and Economic Development Director Mike Florence, said he considers all sites a poor fit since all four have limited access to transit and aren't within walking distance of a grocery store.

West Valley City's representative, Shiloah Gillmore — a resident of more than 15 years — said she hasn't seen "any pros" yet for any of the sites, but she hopes to collaborate with the committee to find an answer.

Committee member Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, also said he doesn't see a preferred site yet, but he "learned a lot by keeping my mouth shut and listening for three straight hours" to residents' concerns Wednesday.

Eliason noted South Salt Lake's limited tax base — of which 34 percent is tax exempt because of the county service facilities it already hosts — and said he had "no idea" so many charter schools are located near the sites in West Valley City.

"Going into this I didn't think it was going to be easy," Eliason said, adding that wherever the resource center is sited, its impacts need to be mitigated.

That's why, Eliason said, he plans to ask House Speaker Greg Hughes to let HB452 — a bill that would provide cities ongoing funds for operation and impacts of a homeless shelter — be heard during a special session this year.

"It's one of my biggest regrets of the session" that the bill didn't pass, Eliason said.

HB452 didn't make it to the House floor during the legislative session earlier this month after it stalled in a House committee on a 4-4 vote.

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Seething West Valley, South Salt Lake residents protest all seven homeless site options

Hundreds of worried and frustrated West Valley City and South Salt Lake residents protested the now seven sites under consideration for a new homeless resource center on Wednesday.

During that committee meeting, Eliason said Salt Lake County would have a difficult time finding a "host city" for a new homeless resource center.

"If (a city) knows it's just going to be a drain on their general fund, in addition to law enforcement issues a city may face, I submit to you: Why would any city even investigate hosting an additional shelter?" he told lawmakers. "Good luck trying to incentivize a city to take this other shelter being contemplated as part of the plan."

That resistance remains apparent in both South Salt Lake and West Valley City mayors, who continued to decry the county's process, though both cities selected representatives to sit on the committee.

South Salt Lake Mayor Cherie Wood said she's confident Florence will represent South Salt Lake's best interests as well as he can — given his limited influence on the committee as a whole — but she's more concerned about the process itself.

Wood said more than anything, "this process needs to stop" and the deadline for recommending a site to the state must be extended.

"We understand Mayor McAdams is in a difficult situation and has a hard decision to make," she said. "It's the process we have a problem with — it's flawed and rushed."

Wood also pointed out that the role of the committee has changed.

Previously, McAdams has said the committee would help rank the sites for recommendation, but now — according to what the mayor told committee members and reporters Wednesday — the committee will now provide a report with "pros and cons" of each site, which McAdams will use to make a site recommendation.

But McAdams said ultimately the recommendation has always rested with him, according to HB441 passed by the Legislature this year. Nonetheless, the mayor said he's looking to the committee to make that choice.

"There's no perfect site," he said. "We see unique challenges with each site we need to think through, so now's the time to start sitting down and sorting through the comments we've received."

McAdams has also stood firm on the March 30 deadline. He has said missing that deadline would "jeopardize" state funding to help build the new homeless resource centers, one, up-to-300-bed facility in the county, and two, 200-bed facilities in Salt Lake City.

Committee member Arlyn Bradshaw, who is also a Salt Lake County councilman who represents both West Valley and South Salt Lake, said he's taking public feedback "very seriously."

"I care about these communities," Bradshaw said."It's very difficult. We are locked within this time frame, and yet there's no obvious answer."

Bradshaw said he knows McAdams has "tried diligently" to find other options, but the seven sites on the table now are the only ones that have panned out under real estate agreements.

The councilman added that it's "unfortunate" that through this process, the overall efforts of the state and county to revamp Utah's homeless service system has been "somewhat lost" amid public outrage.

"This is an attempt to solve the problem. It's real people and real lives we're talking about here," he said. "It's so no community — whether its Rio Grande, South Salt Lake or West Valley City, has to endure those negative impacts because we'll be doing a better job as a community treating the root causes."

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