‘Major holes in our system’: How a Utah family’s housing and medical needs are falling through the cracks

Daniel Eastman pulls a wagon loaded with his belongings through the streets of Salt Lake City — hauling everything he owns as he searches for work and a place to stay.

Some nights, he scrapes together enough money for a low-budget hotel. Other times, he tries for space at a shelter. But even that can be difficult without a safe place to leave his possessions.

“There’s risk of stuff being stolen,” Eastman said. “I’m on some medications that are desirable, and I have contraband items, like my chef’s knives. I’ve been doing odd jobs that require them during the day, and there’s not really a place to put them.”

At the same time, Eastman is the full-time caregiver for his wife, Michelle, and their 20-year-old daughter, Amiya — both of whom have complex medical conditions.

Michelle, 63, is bedridden with multiple health issues, including Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rare connective tissue disorder that causes chronic joint dislocations, weekly kidney stones and vision loss from strokes. She also has pulmonary sarcoidosis and requires constant oxygen, Eastman said.

Amiya, 20, was also diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, he said.

The night before meeting with The Salt Lake Tribune, Eastman said he stayed at the Park Inn by Radisson in Salt Lake City.

“It has no deposit or hold on a card, and it’s [the] cheapest in the area,” Eastman said. Once he can get his belongings into a storage unit, he said, a shelter would be the best option.

Until early August, this was Eastman’s daily reality — juggling odd jobs, taking his wife to medical appointments and moving from motels to shelters whenever he could.

But after weeks of living separately, he was able to join his wife and daughter at Ville 1990, a former motel on North Temple that has been converted into supportive housing.

While the Eastmans’ medical needs are specific, their struggle reflects a broader gap in Utah’s housing system for medically vulnerable people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity, experts say.

Their situation is a “perfect illustration of the major holes in our system,” said Van Ashton, medical director for Fourth Street Clinic, which provides health care and support services to people experiencing homelessness.

“If we had universal, single-payer health care, we could take care of problems like this. If there were other supportive systems in place through our state, local and federal government, we could take care of things like this,” he said. “But as it stands with the current system, it’s fractured and there’s holes in the system, and [the Eastmans] fit right in the middle of one of those.”

Weeks in limbo

For about a year, Daniel, Michelle and Amiya were living week to week at an Econo Lodge on North Temple, paying $470 per week for a room.

Cockroaches and rodents were a problem, and Michelle and Amiya needed more stable and sanitary housing, Daniel said.

They were also running out of money, Daniel said.

In June, Daniel scrambled to find somewhere that could take them in on short notice. He contacted shelters, housing programs and every homeless service he could think of, but time and again came up empty-handed, he said.

Eventually, he secured a room for Michelle and Amiya at Ville 1990, but he was turned away until Aug. 5.

Since losing his job at Intermountain Hospital, he’s been without stable employment for close to two years — all while caring for Michelle and Amiya and managing his own health challenges.

Daniel said he constantly is trying to “stay a day ahead” by securing shelter for his family and then finding work to pay for the next night.

“If I get further [than a] day ahead, then that would be more beneficial, because I could then do other things,” he said. “But with doctor visits and a lot of medical issues, a lot of my time is spent dealing with those instead of finding work.”

Daniel said he was doing all he can to keep his family together while also searching for a job and permanent housing. Yet, obstacles kept piling up.

Many shelters turned them away because they insisted on staying together as a family. Others couldn’t provide the level of care needed for Michelle and Amiya’s medical conditions. Some added them to wait lists, but none could offer immediate help, he said.

A system not built for families like theirs

Michelle Flynn, CEO of The Road Home, said Salt Lake County’s emergency shelter system lacks the capacity and infrastructure to support families with complex medical needs. Also, with an ongoing affordable housing shortage, those already in shelters struggle to move out, while others in need have nowhere to turn, she said.

“It’s hard, it’s painful for us to, first of all, not have enough shelter, and have to tell people that we don’t have a place for them to stay night after night,” Flynn said. “But also, it’s becoming harder and harder to help people move out of shelter without affordable places, and without the ability to really connect them to those supports that they need.”

However, for Flynn, the emergency shelter system isn’t the place for a family with severe medical needs, and nor should it be.

“There needs to be more investment and helping people, especially people with these significant vulnerable needs, not have to turn to the emergency shelter system, and we need to grow that,” she said.

Ashton said the only facilities equipped to handle Michelle’s medical needs are skilled nursing homes.

While specialized facilities for unhoused people exist — such as the Inn Between or the Medically Vulnerable People program — they typically serve individuals, not entire families, and they have specific requirements.

The Inn Between, in Salt Lake City, provides hospice and medical care for unsheltered people. The Medically Vulnerable People Program Facility, which opened in 2023 in Sandy, is located in a former Econo Lodge motel on 9000 South near Interstate 15. The facility serves as an interim housing and care program for unhoused seniors with medical conditions or in need of recuperative care.

Daniel said they were turned away from both because Michelle’s condition was too severe.

“Sure, most people fit into the mold that’s available, but there are rare exceptions that aren’t being dealt with at all,” Eastman said, about his belief that there is need for more individualized housing support to ensure people with unique needs don’t fall through the cracks.

“I found lots of resources everywhere, just nothing that can help us at the moment,” Daniel said.

Daniel said his family’s situation began to improve after they were assigned a case manager from Utah’s Volunteers of America Homeless Outreach Program.

Flynn said connecting housing and health care is critical to preventing cases like this.

“I don’t think that the emergency shelter system needs to become the nursing care facility system,” Flynn said. “I think it needs to grow in the area of connecting health care and housing, not on growing more shelter that has more specialty care in it.”

Some organizations like Fourth Street Clinic have attempted to bridge that gap, by providing medical care to unhoused people in shelters — but more still needs to be done, said Amanda Christensen, vice president of VOA’s Homeless Outreach Program in Utah.

Housing assistance is often difficult to access, with limited rental aid available despite high demand, Flynn said.

“These are [the] kind of systems in the community that aren’t meeting the needs of everyone in those systems, and then people can’t get the help they need, and they turn to the emergency shelter system as the solution,” she said.

The lack of stable housing, Flynn added, often worsens health problems and cuts people off from consistent care.

“It’s true across the economic spectrum across the nation — but certainly here in Salt Lake County — where housing just isn’t affordable,” Flynn said. “And the housing that is at the lowest cost, there’s hardly ever vacancies at those.”

Still searching for stability

In the meantime, Eastman continues searching for full-time work and a permanent housing solution that would allow the three of them to live together in an apartment or long-stay hotel.

His goal is to stay in Salt Lake City, close to Michelle’s medical team at the University of Utah Hospital.

Daniel has been helping his daughter, Amiya, find a job while also searching for work himself. Eventually, she plans to take the General Educational Development test.