More Utah areas are offering homeless services. One of the state’s coldest cities was an early adopter.

Logan • Krystina James knows what it’s like to experience homelessness in Cache Valley. She’s lived it.

After fleeing domestic violence, James and her three children found themselves living out of a car and bouncing between hotel rooms. Now, she wants to help others who face similar challenges.

James serves on the board of Logan’s William A. Burnard Warming Center, a facility that tends to a growing homeless population by offering a compassionate support system and warm place to stay in the coldest months.

“I just can’t stress enough how important that is, when you’re at the very bottom of the barrel,” James said. “Something that simple can pull somebody out of the hole, and I think it’s important that the community understands that.”

The warming center opened last year in St. John’s Episcopal Church, located a block from the city’s main drag. The center returned earlier this month in the same space, with the capacity to help upwards of 33 people a night.

Its opening in one of Utah’s coldest cities comes as a wide effort to provide homeless resources outside of Salt Lake County sweeps through the Beehive State.

What the center offers

Those who seek shelter at the warming center are given snacks, a place to lock up their belongings, cold-weather essentials like hand warmers and emergency blankets, and a cot where they can catch some much-needed rest. Their pets are welcome inside, too.

Lindsey Harrelson, the center’s executive director, said she’s worked around the clock for the past month to get things ready for the shelter’s Dec. 4 opening.

“I wanted to be a part,” she said, “of helping the community better understand that homeless people deserve second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh chances.”

Harrelson said when she’s not running day-to-day operations, she’s writing grant proposals and trying to find funding to keep the center going. The shelter is largely paid for by grants and private donations.

The executive director said she’s thankful so much the community supports the center’s mission, whether it’s in concept or by volunteering.

But not everyone, she said, has embraced the shelter.

“I’ve heard that people believe there are no homeless people in Cache Valley,” Harrelson said. “And that brought a chuckle because I noticed homeless people right away when we moved here.”

Hours before the center was set to open for the season, Harrelson and volunteers were assembling cots, arranging tables and refilling buckets of snacks.

Janet Voldness, a retired teacher, was one of those volunteers prepping the center. She helps out by reminding other volunteers of their shifts and working behind the scenes to ensure operations run smoothly.

“It’s a big job,” Voldness said. “Takes a lot of time, but it’s very rewarding, and it’s giving me the opportunity to meet a lot of wonderful, giving, caring people in our community.”

Rising housing costs

The center aims to fill a service gap in an area where homelessness is on the rise.

In past years, the only supplier of homeless resources in the area was the Bear River Association of Governments, which provides social services for Utah’s northernmost counties. The association still offers services in a handful of ways, such as rental assistance and hotel vouchers, but those resources are limited.

When Lucas Martin, the association’s director of human services, started working for the group about eight years ago, the annual point-in-time count — a method for determining how many unsheltered residents live in the area — showed fewer people experiencing homelessness in Cache County than today.

“Looking at the numbers, if we’re talking pre-pandemic, we would serve around 200 homeless individuals annually — around that many would come in and access services,” Martin said. “And last year, we were over 700.”

Across the Beehive State, homelessness is on the rise. A June report from the Utah Office of Homeless Services reported a 10% jump in people newly homeless from 2021 to 2022.

That rise in homelessness corresponds with a spike in housing costs statewide, including in Cache County. An October report from the Cache Valley Association of Realtors shows the median sales price for a Cache County home is more than $390,000. In January 2020, the median sales price was about $261,000.

The state’s rising home costs are compounded by the current housing shortfall. A September report from the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute found the state was short roughly 28,400 housing units in 2022 — and warned that the gap will likely grow.

Expanding homeless services

For years, much of the focus of Utah’s homelessness response has been on efforts in Salt Lake County.

The past legislative session, however, lawmakers looked to expand the availability of resources across the state, forcing Utah, Davis, Weber and Washington counties to create response plans to serve unsheltered Utahns next winter. Because of the size of its population (about 140,000), Cache County is not required to submit such a plan, but that didn’t stop Logan from granting the center its conditional use permit.

Although the warming center in Logan is not part of a mandated winter response, it reflects a shift in how areas away from Utah’s most populous county are meeting needs. This winter, Utah County residents experiencing homelessness will have regular access to warming centers for the first time.

The warming center in Cache County is temporary. Come springtime, those who go to the shelter will need to find somewhere else to stay.

Still, James, the center’s board member, said it’s important to lift up the area’s most vulnerable people now with the same kind of care she wishes she had received when she was at her lowest.

“We just need to have a little bit more compassion,” James said. “We’re trying to help these people better their lives, not further push them in the hole.”

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