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SALT LAKE CITY — It's been three straight days of public meetings jam-packed with residents questioning the city's plan to build four new homeless resource centers — but Thursday night marked a change of attitude.
It was the Ballpark Community's turn to meet with Mayor Jackie Biskupski and other city leaders on Thursday night about the 275 W. High Ave. site, and their meeting was tame compared with other neighborhoods' protests.
Unlike the Sugar House neighborhood meeting Wednesday night, there were no angry outbursts, jeers or even appeals to block the resource center. Instead, Ballpark neighbors mostly wanted to know more about how the plan would work and shared requests to mitigate concerns.
Some even thanked city leaders for their work on the issue.
"We as a community council are ready to roll up our sleeves and help make it a success," said Ballpark Community Council Chairman Bill Davis.
However, Lars Grisley, owner of JM Grisley Machine Tools located near the site along 300 West, most bluntly voiced worries of surrounding business owners. The Ballpark area "already has a crime problem," he said, as he questioned whether the city would be able to handle any additional issues.
"We get broken into every two weeks," Grisley said. "It's just hard to get on board with this and not be negative about it with nothing else to go on other than your word. No offense, but it's tough to believe it."
It was a gentler way to phrase the concern of many others in Sugar House and Central City neighborhoods: How do we know this new model is going to work?
But even as the mayor and other city leaders continue to work to convince neighborhoods the new model will be starkly different from what has plagued the downtown Road Home shelter, a new effort has begun to change the city's plan.
City Councilwoman Lisa Adams is proposing reducing the four homeless sites to three, cutting out the Sugar House site completely.
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"Blindsided." "Betrayed." "Terrified." "Demoralized." Those are just a few words Sugar House neighbors used to describe how they felt when they found out the city planned to build a new homeless resource center in their neighborhood."Simpson (Avenue) has been the only one where there has been massive outpouring, and that's because Simpson is the only one in a residential area," Adams said.
Her proposal comes as Biskupski suggested "it's possible" that the Sugar House site could be reconsidered, but immediately added that no decision has been made.
When asked Thursday night about the possibility of downsizing to three sites instead of four, Biskupski said she didn't see a path forward on that proposal.
"The majority of the council and I are still very firm on our decision to move forward with four sites, the four sites we all selected through a process that helped us evaluate sites and also spread them out," the mayor said. "I feel strongly about sticking to it."
Adams isn't sure if her proposal will gain any traction, but she said she has to try something to help represent her neighborhood. She said when she initially voted in the closed-door meeting with city leaders to select the four sites, she "thought there would be a willingness to at least consider" the Simpson Avenue site.
"I have to represent the voice of my district, and people are just way too uncertain about this," she said.
But City Councilman James Rogers said he doesn't believe a three-site model will sit well with the rest of the council, especially after members pushed to build four 150-bed shelters rather than two 250-bed shelters as proposed by Biskupski. They aimed for smaller centers to decrease their impact on neighborhoods and expand outreach to a broader range of populations.
"I won't support (three sites)," Rogers said. "I don't see it happening."
Rogers worried that any change in the four sites — which city leaders have said are nonnegotiable — might create a domino effect in other neighborhoods that have so far been more accepting.
Even Councilwoman Erin Mendenhall, who has been opposed to the Simpson Avenue site, said she won't support a three-site model. Councilmen Charlie Luke, Derek Kitchen and Andrew Johnston have stated similar opinions.
