Utah’s plan for massive homeless shelter draws heat from advocates, community leaders

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When Gov. Spencer Cox was quoted in The New York Times saying Utah’s proposed partially involuntary homeless shelter is “a statement of who we are as a state,” Rev. Brigette Weier all but balked.

“My Lord,” the minister said. “I pray that is not true.”

Weier was part of a group of homeless services advocates, faith leaders, environmentalists and community members who gathered at a news conference Tuesday to share their concerns about Utah’s planned homeless shelter — concerns they are putting in a letter to legislative leaders.

Weier stood in the front lawn of a Salt Lake City homeowner who is concerned with the project. A few hundred yards behind her, surrounded by green fields, was the city-owned parcel at 2520 N. 2200 West where leaders are planning to construct a 1,300-bed homeless shelter — where one state official has said people could be admitted involuntarily and forced to undergo treatment. State leaders have said they plan to open the facility in 2027.

“I pray that we are better than involuntary incarceration of our beloved siblings who deserve care, dignity and flourishing on their own terms,” Weier said.

Sarah Nielson, the spokesperson for the Utah Office of Homeless Services, declined to comment, but pointed to a web page with information about the project.

In a presentation to the Salt Lake City Council late Tuesday afternoon, Utah homeless coordinator Wayne Niederhauser said his office was looking for more input on what the campus should offer.

“I just want to emphasize that we’ve got a pretty blank blueprint at this point,” he told council members. “... Our vision is that the campus will be a comprehensive hub.”

Later in the meeting, District 6 council member Dan Dugan said he was worried about including both involuntary and voluntary units at the planned facility. Niederhauser replied that he saw the campus offering a holistic combination of shelter options but did not address what the mix of beds could look like.

Members of the coalition speaking at Tuesday’s news conference said that, beyond worries that the facility would be inhumane, they had doubts the shelter would actually help homeless people or prevent homelessness.

Bill Tibbitts, deputy executive director at the nonprofit Crossroads Urban Center, said the shelter was meant to be a “one-size-fits-all model” where everyone will be treated as though they have serious needs.

“This is a problem,” he said, “Because 26% of the people who go to a homeless shelter in Salt Lake County end up leaving within seven days.”

Pastor Dusty Trent at Murray Baptist Church cast doubt on the notion that forcing homeless people to get help will actually benefit them. He said he knows firsthand what it’s like to lose control to addiction. He was able to recover not because people forced him to, but because “people treated [him] like a human being with choices, dignity and the right to say yes or no.”

Northpoint resident Allison Musser said she was concerned about the effect the shelter could have on the surrounding rural area. Northpoint is Salt Lake City’s last remaining agricultural district, which is why she and her husband chose to live in the area. Since then, she said they and others have watched as more and more warehouses, semitrucks and developers have encroached on the community.

Now, Musser said, the hundreds of families in the area also have to worry about the state involuntarily committing people in their neighborhood. There are two elementary schools only a few miles away, she added.

“Asking this community to absorb the largest homelessness facility in Utah is not compassionate policy,” she said. “It’s targeted convenience. … We believe in real solutions, but sacrificing an established neighborhood simply because it’s the path of least resistance is not a solution.”

Later in the day, Niederhauser told council members the state would draw up a security plan for the site and that it needs to be a “secure spot.”

Deeda Seed, a representative for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, said the project will also decimate wetland habitats as they are paved over.

“This area ... is on land included in the shoreline area preservation plan, which is supported by Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County,” she said. “The plan is designed to protect wetlands and mitigate development impacts.”

At the later City Council briefing, Niederhauser said the wetlands in question were “nonjurisdictional,” meaning the state would not need a federal permit to build on the property. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will have the final say on the definition of the wetlands.

Seed said the coalition’s letter was signed by more than 1,400 people and several groups who shared the community leaders’ concerns.

Among them was Jessica Torgerson, who lives just a few miles north of the planned shelter. She said the area has no nearby hospitals and only one small grocery store.

“This is not the way to do it,” she said.