A lot has changed in Utah’s homeless services system since the end of the 2025 legislative session.
The number of homeless Utahns grew once again last year. State officials announced the site of a planned campus set to hold at least 1,300 beds and more services — and opened the floor to feedback on how it should operate. And the man overseeing it all, former homelessness coordinator Wayne Niederhauser, stepped down last month.
The massive campus is likely to feature prominently during the upcoming session. Republican Gov. Spencer Cox has asked lawmakers to spend $25 million to support the facility’s construction. If only that appropriation is approved, and after lawmakers previously allocated about $25 million on the project, the state will remain about $25 million-plus short of the estimated $75 million necessary to build the campus.
Cox has also asked for $20 million in ongoing funding to target “high-utilizers,” or people who cycle through homeless services but struggle to get back on their feet. He also wants to send $5 million in capital funds to The Other Side Village.
The campus’s location — and ideas on including involuntary treatment beds there — has proven to be controversial.
At a public legislative preview on Jan. 6, a group of Democratic lawmakers took aim at the facility. House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, called it an “internment camp.” Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, said she would file a bill that would end operations at the campus if it did not meet certain safety standards and another that would offer property tax relief to residents who live near the site.
Salt Lake City Democratic Sen. Jen Plumb, a physician, said she planned to run a bill that would place one behavioral health expert and another physical health specialist on the Utah Homeless Services Board.