We are dismayed that the County and State would consider placing a 300-bed homeless shelter in our community for three reasons:

• Our small city already supports more than our fair share of facilities for homeless individuals and other social services, including Grace Mary Manor, which provides 88 beds for chronically homeless individuals; Salt Lake County’s Metro Jail Oxbow Jail, and Division of Youth Services; the state’s Juvenile Justice Center; and the Christmas Box House for abused children in state custody.

• Simple math demonstrates that South Salt Lake doesn’t have the financial resources to support a facility of this kind.  We have a population of 24,000 (compared to 133,000 in West Valley and 180,000 in Salt Lake City.)  And we have the lowest median income in the County - $37,000 median household income compared to $52,000 at West Valley and $63,000 County wide.  The proposed homeless resource center, along with most of the other social service-related facilities already located in South Salt Lake, will be tax-exempt, although the City will still be obligated to provide them with services, including police and fire protection. This puts an added burden on the City’s taxpayers and unreasonably stretches our resources. 

• The two sites proposed in South Salt Lake are not ideal for either our community or the homeless population. The Main Street site is two blocks away from an elementary school, a junior high and a Head Start school.  And the 3300 South site has no services nearby to support the homeless population – no grocery store, no convenient transit access, no jobs, no health services, etc. And it is just two blocks from the Metro Jail – which releases inmates into the community each day.  

We will keep you looped into this issue as it develops, and might shoot you an email or phone call when we need to mobilize the community to tell lawmakers and members of the committee why these sites are wrong for South Salt Lake.