Homeless Davis County students will get temporary shelter with newly planned residential center

Layton • In a deserted lot behind Layton High School sits an abandoned office building, its main entrance swallowed by overgrown bushes that line the sidewalk.

The structure was once home to a construction modeling company. But in a year, a two-story, up to 10,000-square-foot building will stand in its place — one that will give Davis School District students dealing with housing insecurity a temporary place to stay.

More than 12,400 Davis School District students were classified as economically disadvantaged during the 2022-2023 school year, according to data from the Utah State Board of Education. Of the district’s students, 1,303 were classified as homeless.

The Davis Education Foundation is expected to break ground on the district’s first-ever teen residential center this fall, an expansion of the teen drop-in center system that the nonprofit and the school district began in 2021.

Currently, the foundation operates teen drop-in centers attached to six Davis schools for students who don’t have consistent access to resources such as a space to shower or do laundry. The centers also offer a food pantry, hygiene products and personalized help from family service workers.

Last year, more than 2,100 students used the district’s five drop-in centers, Davis Education Foundation Executive Director Jodi Lunt said, with those students making over 16,000 visits. The latest was added this year.

The drop-in centers do not have the capacity to house students, but that’s where the new residential center will come in.

“The question was asked within the community of, ‘Where are these young people sleeping?’” Lunt said, adding that usually, the answers vary, from “in the streets, or in the backs of different areas in our community, to motel rooms, campsites, couch surfing … or multi-housing situations.”

How will the residential center work?

The foundation is hoping to have the residential center up and runninig at the start of the next school year, Lunt said. It will offer 16 beds for district students in need.

But there are eligibility requirements that students will need to meet before using it.

This includes attendance in school; maintaining passing grades; setting and progressing academic, extracurricular and personal goals; keeping a job or participating in extracurriculars; and on-site case management review.

“It’s not a drop-in shelter, where youth can come off the street and plop for a day or two and then exit,” Lunt said. “It’s an invitation to placement of a youth who has expended all resources and needs an opportunity to succeed.”

The funding for the physical plot of land came from a couple in the community — Jill and Rod Bergman — Lunt said, who approached the district after spurring the question of where housing-insecure students sleep.

“They came forward and said, ‘We’ll buy the land if you get a place put in there,’” Lunt said.

However, it won’t be run or funded by the district, Lunt said, but rather leased out to nonprofit Switchpoint — a homeless shelter based in St. George — which will operate the facility.

The money for construction and operations will come from “public/private partnership, individual and corporate donors and grant funding,” according to the Davis Education Foundation website.

At a September meeting, Davis Board of Education members awarded the construction bid to North Ridge Construction for almost $3.7 million.

‘Plenty of students who are facing needs’

Students dealing with housing insecurity is “not a new problem,” said Jenica Whitworth, teen center coordinator for the Davis School District. But the drop-in centers along with the newly planned residential center are new solutions.

“If you looked in other school districts, other schools, there was always the teacher that was purchasing food, or pencils, or backpacks out of their own pocket,” Whitworth said. “So our hope in doing this was also to relieve school counselors and school teachers, because we know their workloads are so heavy and they’re dealing with so much.”

The 1,303 Davis students who were considered homeless last school year lacked a “fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence,” according to how The McKinney-Vento Homeless Act defines youth homelessness.

That includes students living in shared housing; living in hotels, motels, public spaces, bus stations or similar locations; living in emergency or transitional shelters or awaiting foster placement; and unaccompanied youth.

About 1 in 3 Utah students are considered economically disadvantaged, said Andrea Brandley, senior education analyst with the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

“Davis School District is one of our larger school districts,” she said. “They’re going to have plenty of students who are facing needs.”

The education foundation is still collecting longterm data, but Lunt said last school year, 89% of the students that the drop-in centers served graduated high school. Before the drop-in centers, she said that number was less than 62%.

Whitworth recalled a credit-deficient student who scheduled consistent time at a drop-in center, and said those interactions led to the student being able to “walk across the stage at the end of year for graduation.”

“If you build it, they will come. If you’re building something they don’t need, they won’t come,” Lunt said of the future residential space and existing drop-in centers, which she said provide more than academic help.

At Layton High School’s center for example, it’s fully stocked with goods including toothbrushes, toothpaste, laundry detergent, laundry machines, lockers and feminine hygiene products. The items, and the food inside its in-house food pantry, is all provided by the Davis County community.

The centers also include private spaces, where students can make phone calls, or have one-on-one meetings with others.

Some may feel that it’s not a school district’s or an educator’s responsibility to provide services such as these to students, Whitworth acknowledged.

But, she said, “If not us, then who?”

“We’re in the business of educating students,” Whitworth said. “The people that I supervise, I remind them what barriers do [students] have to education … We’re in the business of keeping kids in class and in school, and overcoming those barriers.”