There have been several recent news stories on the soon-to-be-opened 1000 West Men’s Homeless Resource Center and the conditional use permit that is required by South Salt Lake to operate the facility in our city. This is a complicated issue and I’d like to set the record straight regarding our city’s position.
First of all, South Salt Lake is committed to working in good faith with Shelter the Homeless to ensure the 1000 West Men’s Homeless Resource Center is a safe facility for the men who live there as well as for our residents. We are also committed to doing this in a timely manner so the Resource Center can open its doors this fall. In fact, South Salt Lake will issue a certificate of occupancy for the shelter as soon as construction is complete.
The conditional use permit (CUP) — which goes to our Planning Commission in mid-August — is important in that it defines how the center will operate in our community. A CUP is a municipality’s regulatory vehicle used for developments of all kinds and designed to mitigate for impacts – such as traffic, noise, environmental impacts, etc.
Our primary condition of the CUP is that there are no weapons or drugs allowed in the facility. Despite media reports, we are not prohibiting men from entering the shelter. Rather, we are following a Shelter the Homeless plan for screening men when they arrive and, if in need of detox and/or drug addiction services, they should be transferred to the appropriate facilities within the broader continuum of care.
We’ve seen the designs and plans for the 1000 West facility. The center does not offer detox or mental health services from either a staffing or facilities standpoint.
We also ask that visitors are screened for weapons. This should not be an issue, as Shelter the Homeless has stated numerous times that visitors will have bags checked and will go through a metal detector. This is even stated on an educational video produced by Shelter the Homeless.
We understand there are financial pressures associated with accommodating these conditions. But we also believe that success for the 300 “low-needs” men ready to transition to stable housing depends on running a safe and efficient facility. These conditions may come at a cost — but not one as great as failure.
Finally, there have been suggestions that the South Salt Lake CUP be drafted as identical to the Salt Lake City CUP. There are two problems with this. First, the three shelters house different populations, with different operators, in different neighborhoods, with greatly varying transportation and resource availability. A CUP is designed to mitigate for specific impacts.
The second reason our CUP has different requirements is that it was written after the state audit of the Road Home – the operator that will be running the 1000 West facility. The findings of that audit were very serious – and included drug dealing, weapons and general lawlessness. We would be naïve to think we could avoid those problems with a wink and a handshake. The CUP is our city’s tool for ensuring success of the shelter in our community.
Someone asked me the other day what success of the shelter would look like for me. My hope is that Shelter the Homeless operates a resource center so well-functioning that our city doesn’t need public safety support from the state. Success means that men are arriving ready to change their lives and services are effective enough to move them into stable housing well in advance of the 90-day stay.
My hope is that lives are being changed and that our community supports that change.
South Salt Lake Mayor Cherie Wood
Cherie Wood is the mayor of South Salt Lake.