Utah’s long-planned homeless campus has finally found a home of its own.
The location, a Salt Lake City-owned parcel at 2520 N. 2200 West, is an odd shape, contains half an acre of wetlands, spans 16 acres of the 30-plus officials wanted, and poses some risk of buildings sinking in the event of an earthquake.
But for Utah homelessness coordinator Wayne Niederhauser — whose office considered dozens of properties over nearly a year, among them old landfills and even larger wetlands — it’s the best possible place for the proposed 1,300-bed campus.
“Ideally, I would want a piece of property that didn’t have any of those problems, but there isn’t one,” Niederhauser said. “So, this has come as close as any property out there to meeting all those due diligence requirements that we have.”
The main push for the shelter has been the simple need for more emergency beds for people experiencing homelessness, a population of Utahns that continues to swell.
The campus model, however, will also allow the state and nonprofit service providers to more easily connect those staying there with additional support, officials have said.
Under an agreement with City Hall, the state will buy the parcel at market rate after additional due diligence is complete, according to Andrew Wittenberg, spokesperson for Mayor Erin Mendenhall. Utah officials triggered the negotiations with a standard, and amiable, threat to exercise eminent domain. The agreement does not have to go before the Salt Lake City Council for approval.
With a location nailed down, Niederhauser and others can focus on how the new model will work for the people using it. The state plans to begin operating it in 2027.
What will it cost?
The Utah Legislature has already appropriated about $23 million to the land acquisition and construction of the campus. Niederhauser, however, estimates the full cost of getting the campus up and running will total $75 million, leaving his Office of Homeless Services with a gap of $50 million-plus to plug. He indicated that officials would look to raise additional state funds as well as money from Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City. Philanthropic contributions could also be used to fill the hole.
Once the shelter is built, Niederhauser said, it will take at least $34 million a year to run. He said staffers were working to get that funding earmarked in Gov. Spencer Cox’s forthcoming budget proposal. Historically, legislators have underfunded Cox’s requests for spending on homelessness, much to the chagrin of service providers.
What shelter will it have?
As planning for construction gets underway, officials aim to build three types of temporary shelters at the campus. Niederhauser said they look to add individual, private spaces known as microshelters to the property (a village of these tiny pods already exists in Utah’s capital). The campus would also feature a traditional congregate area and another that has small, cubicle-type spaces for people.
While the property will be run by a single nongovernment provider, there will also be office spaces for other organizations to give support, like health care and case management, to those sleeping on-site.
How will people get to the campus?
Ever since the Utah Homeless Services Board requested Niederhauser pursue a campus model in October 2024, advocates have expressed concern about transportation to and from a site outside of the Salt Lake Valley’s main stem. No transit runs along 2200 West, and the nearest bus stop sits 1.7 miles away at Redwood Road and the Jordan River Trail.
A frequent, enhanced shuttle service will be offered to those staying at the shelter so they can get to jobs or appointments elsewhere, Niederhauser said. Officials also say the campus will offer much of what those staying there will need in hopes of giving them a reason to stay on-site.
How will existing resource centers be used?
When the state shuttered its last large homeless shelter, the one downtown near the Rio Grande Depot, officials believed a scattered-site model of smaller, more manageable shelters would be the most effective system. The homeless resource centers, as they were named, remain.
Niederhauser intends to continue using them as shelters, but they may be tweaked to serve different subpopulations of homeless Utahns, like families or women, because the state has such an acute need for more emergency beds.
“We’ll have the best of both worlds,” Niederhauser said of keeping the centers in the fold. “We can capitalize on having a central site plus scattered sites, and I just feel that the system will work better because we have both.”
Note to readers • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.