This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski and the City Council will announce the sites of four planned new homeless shelters Tuesday at 1 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall.
The shelters will house 150 people each and also will act as resource centers to serve homeless clients.
The purchase of four sites is the culmination of two years of meetings, debates and deliberations about how better to serve homeless people from all over Utah who end up in Salt Lake City seeking services.
The Salt Lake City Mayor's Commission on Site Selection, along with Salt Lake County's Collective Impact initiative, devised a plan for two 300-bed shelters. But the City Council insisted that the shelters be no larger than 150 beds each to minimize impacts on surrounding neighborhoods.
There were no public hearings surrounding the selection of the locations. Council members said elected officials considered it their duty to make the hard choices and avoid pitting neighborhood against neighborhood.
The Utah Legislature earlier this year allocated $9.2 million for the project. Advocates hope similar funding will be forthcoming in 2017 and 2018.
It remains unclear when the shelters would be completed, but officials say it will be at least two years.
Christopher Smart