Being homeless during Utah winters is no picnic
As the temperature drops and winter sets in, some vulnerable individuals weigh especially heavily on the minds of those who frequently reach out to meet short-term needs of the homeless population along the Wasatch Front..
“There’s a guy, Miguel, that we check on a lot,” said Nathan Kizerian, vice-president of the nonprofit Unsheltered Utah. “He’s 71 years old, in a wheelchair, and worked his entire life shearing sheep on a farm.”
Loni Newby, secretary for Unsheltered Utah, shares a similar soft spot for Miguel – one of many homeless people she and Kizerian have met through their outreach efforts in Salt Lake City and Ogden. At one point she replaced his wet sleeping bag.
“His big request was a plate of rice and beans,” Newby said. She and Kizerian work with a crew that delivers hot meals, clothing, coats, shoes, etc. at least three Sundays eachp month.
Basic needs often go unfilled for people living on the streets. But it goes without saying that some circumstances – especially cold and wet weather – can be life-threatening.
False impressions
Wayne Niederhauser, a former state Senate president, stepped into his new role as state Homlessness Services Coordinator this April. While tasked with taking the broad view, Niederhauser – a real estate developer by profession – felt compelled to fully immerse himself in an issue he frankly knew little about.
“When I took on this position, I knew I was strong in the policy portion of this and navigating government, especially the Legislature,” Nierhauser said. “But I recognized a pretty significant weakness in understanding the ins and outs, the ups and downs of homeless services.”
So Niederhauser commenced a tour of the state and its service providers — from Logan to St. George to Tooele.
“I’ve been to all kinds of providers, been to their facilities, looked at what’s going on. I’ve been on outreach on the streets with police at night,” Niederhauser said in a November interview. “And I do outreach with a community of people who are experiencing homelessness every Friday night.”
From that personal education, Niederhauser – a Republican – discovered that the “misunderstandings that I had and the general population has is a pretty big gap. I’ve had to repent, so to speak and say wow, I didn’t know that was the case. I had a misconception there.”
Niederhauser said it’s not hard to find a fellow Utahn who says “they just need to get a job, that’ll solve the problem.”
Niederhauser distinguished between situational homelessness – which is temporary and usually due to a job loss or financial setback – and chronic homelessness, which is much harder to solve.
The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) defines chronic homelessness as people who have been repeatedly homeless for at least a year – or 12 months spread over three years – while experiencing a physical disability, serious mental illness and/or substance use disorder that makes it difficult to find and maintain housing.
Niederhauser said he had his eyes opened to the roots of chronic homelessness.
“It’s about the behavioral and mental health challenges they have which are informed by intergenerational poverty, domestic abuse, trafficking, and drug use that’s pervasive,” Niederhauser said.
While stable housing likely won’t overcome those challenges – it serves as a start.
On a designated night each year a “Point In Time” count of both sheltered and unsheltered homeless people is gathered in cities and states nationwide. This snapshot of homelessness then gets submitted to HUD.
Data from Utah’s 2021 Annual Report on Homelessness showed this year’s single-night count as 3,565 individuals total: 2,410 sheltered and 1,155 unsheltered.
Of those sheltered, 947 were adults with mental illness, 642 qualified as chronically homeless, 637 battled substance abuse disorders and 557 were domestic violence survivors. That breakdown is not available for the unsheltered count.
No room at the inn
The Salt Lake Valley currently has four resource centers initially designed to house, manage and move homeless residents through to treatment and housing situations that would meet their individual needs. Unfortunately, that system is clogged.
“If that was working in a healthy way, we wouldn’t need winter (overflow) shelter because people would be moving through that system fairly quickly to what comes (next),” Niederhauser said. “But they’re not, so we’ve got this bottleneck with resource centers running at 90 to 100 percent capacity.”
Niederhauser pointed to a lack of housing opportunities – along with being able to get people into the appropriate treatment – as the main impediments causing the clog..
“It’s more of a housing situation than anything,” Niederhauser said. “They won’t be able to work on other issues in their lives until they get into a stable housing situation.”
In mid-November, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall reluctantly announced the use of a Ramada Inn on North Temple as a winter overflow shelter to bring people in from the cold. She had hoped neighboring cities would step up with facilities that could help share the burden largely borne by Utah’s capital city.
A snowstorm blanketed the Wasatch Front Dec. 9. By phone the day before, Jean Hill – co-chair of the Salt Lake Valley Coalition to End Homelessness – said the Ramada Inn had not yet been able to open its doors to the homeless population.
“That is a function of a couple of things. We haven’t got complete approval from the city yet and also we don’t have enough staff,” Hill said. “That’s a huge problem for all of our providers right now, and we can’t open until we have the staff that the city required we have.”
Once operational, Hill estimated the cost of that shelter at about $2 million, which would come from a combination of sources, including federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, private donors and state, county and city dollars.
The Ramada Inn can house up to 250 individuals through the winter, Hill said.
Big dreams, tiny homes
This spring, Mayor Mendenhall announced that Salt Lake City had partnered with The Other Side Academy to build a tiny home village on the city’s west side capable of housing over 400 homeless individuals.
At the time, Mendenhall called it a huge step forward, and pledged that they’d move “at light-speed here, given the scope and urgency of the challenge.”
Camille Winnie, director of Community Outreach for The Other Side Academy, said Friday (December 10) that the project is awaiting a rezone by the Salt Lake City Council, along with some environmental cleanup that will also need to take place before construction begins.
“That should happen early next year,” Winnie said. Then phase one can begin, which involves approximately 60 homes and an estimated $7.5 million price tag.
About $3 million in funding has already been secured, mostly through private fundraising, Winnie said..
“And we’re applying for some of the ARPA funds for affordable housing,” she added. “Other than that, everything else will be philanthropic. We won’t be taking government funding beyond ARPA funds used for housing.”
The final site plan for the entire village is not yet complete, Winnie said.
Makeshift encampments
Tent cities have sprouted periodically in Ogden and Salt Lake City, but now those sites quickly get dismantled by police and public health officials.
Jeff Rose, a University of Utah Parks, Recreation & Tourism professor and part of the U’s Global Change and Sustainability Center, researched environmental and social justice concerns in homeless camps along the Jordan River.
By phone, Rose suggested that decentralized, sanctioned campsites that have access to running water, bathrooms and trash receptacles could work during the state’s warmer months.
“I don’t see this as a silver bullet, but it might be able to address some people’s needs,” Rose said.
But as he studied sanctioned encampments in other cities, Rose said they tended to be very centralized, organized, regulated and controlled.
“And that starts to get toward some of the conditions people are trying to get away from in the shelters,” Rose said. “One thing we see is that our shelters are perceived as unsafe, unavailable, too controlling. That’s why folks are residing in parks or other public spaces.”
Rose concluded that unsheltered people are much like the rest of the population, in that they have hopes, dreams, setbacks and failures. Some of them already have jobs. But in key ways their lives are fundamentally different.
“The phrase I use is functional but fragile,” Rose said. “Some of these folks are very smart, capable and committed, but small setbacks can be incredibly destabilizing … they need consistent access to healthcare, quality food, and other essential services.”
First things first
Wendy Garvin launched Unsheltered Utah at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Since then, donations have continued to pour in from people eager to help this vulnerable population.
Christine Stenquist, president of Unsheltered Utah, feels a strong kinship with this sector of society.
“There’s so much power in meeting people where they are, telling them they are worthy – and watching them grow,” Stenquist said, noting a myriad of reasons why people end up on the streets.
And she’s convinced there’s no way to take them further until basic needs get filled.
“I’m so tired of bumping into politicians who say they just need a job,” Stenquist said. “You’re overstepping a bunch of rungs in life that aren’t being met … If they don’t have food and shelter like everyone else, how can they feel safety?”
Meeting people where they’re at – and building them up – is what the organization does, Stenquist said. As she sees it, “That’s the best way to help.”
Newby said the nonprofit “knows we can’t do everything.”
“There are programs in place that are fantastic,” Newby said. “All we’re doing is trying to connect people to the right resources.”
In addition to food, sleeping bags, coats and the like, Newby said their assistance also extends to making sure people have transportation to get to an appointment or some way to charge their phones.
“People don’t sleep at night if they’re on the street,” Newby said. That’s when the biggest risk happens … you’re just vulnerable.”
Coming to grips
Six months into his role coordinating Utah’s homelessness programs, NIederhauser feels he has a better grasp on the real issues associated with both situational and chronic homelessness. And he’s convinced there is no one-size-fits-all solution for those who keep returning to the streets.
“I believe we have to address each individual situation because each is different. And that means an individual plan for every person,” Niederhauser said. “We can’t broad brush this and say if we do this, everybody is going to be helped by it.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox recently unveiled his proposed budget for the coming year, which includes $228 million for affordable housing – of which $128 million is federal Covid-19 relief funds that would target very low-income households.
The Governor’s budget now goes to state Legislators who will decide its fate in the upcoming general session that starts Jan. 18, 2022.
