Take a look inside the Salt Lake Valley’s newest homeless shelter

South Salt Lake • A retrofitted Motel 6 in South Salt Lake will offer refuge to some of Utah’s most vulnerable families as they seek more stable housing.

The Salt Lake Valley’s first homeless shelter of its kind, called the FINCH, is almost set to start hosting residents in a newly converted building at 315 W. 3300 South. It will be the largest noncongregate facility designated for homeless families in the state.

Since 2022, the only regional facility meant for families seeking shelter in Salt Lake County — the Connie Crosby Family Resource Center in Midvale — has operated at or above capacity. That has forced staff of The Road Home, the nonprofit operating that shelter and the new FINCH, to turn away families on cold nights and sweltering days, forcing some to sleep in cars or outdoors.

“We are going to move forward with this and ensure we take all those families that are currently on waiting lists or camping in their cars,” Shelter the Homeless Executive Director Laurie Hopkins said.

“And we’re going to make sure they’re safe and warm,” she said, “in a place that provides services to get them back on their feet.”

Shelter the Homeless and The Road Home collaborated on acquisition and planning for the converted South Salt Lake facility. Hopkins’ organization owns the site, while The Road Home will operate it.

‘This is big time’

Wednesday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony at the facility has been a long time coming. Hopkins first sought support for a new family-focused shelter in 2023. Then, last September, as state leaders looked for places to put a planned 1,200-bed homeless campus, they considered using eminent domain to site it where the county’s Oxbow Jail is located in South Salt Lake.

City leaders hit pause on the approval process for the FINCH as they scrambled to respond to those overtures, resulting in a monthslong delay in the facility’s opening. State officials have stayed mum on the Oxbow plan since, and voters rejected a bond measure last November that would have seen the county decommission the jail and sell the land.

On Wednesday, South Salt Lake Mayor Cherie Wood said her city was well-suited to help homeless Utah families.

“This new shelter demonstrates what’s possible when people come to the table with yes in their heart,” Wood said, “and we figure out hard things.”

The FINCH — an acronym for Family Interim Noncongregate Children Housing — will be able to host up to 85 families. Families will have their own private room that can host four people and one additional infant.

The noncongregate setup in the former motel rooms differs from the Midvale family shelter, which has fewer private, dorm-style sleeping arrangements.

If families have child behavioral concerns, health issues, a newborn needing privacy and safety or other situations, said Mike Young, a crisis services staffer with The Road Home, “this facility is able to provide that more confidential, more intimate shelter setting for them so that they can get back on their feet and put the pieces back together.”

Backers of the new facility say its individual rooms will give kids more stability and a more comfortable environment to ease the traumas of homelessness.

Rooms are outfitted with two bunk beds, a small table with two wooden chairs and a private bathroom. They also have a fridge and a microwave, so families can keep food, especially perishables like fresh fruit, for longer. There’s also space for a crib, if need be.

“While we don’t want anybody unsheltered or living in a place unfit for human habitation,” state homelessness coordinator Wayne Niederhauser said, “we especially don’t want children in that situation.

“Having a noncongregate facility like this,” Niederhauser said, “this is real. This is big time.”

Meals, services — and security

The Road Home will operate a variety of other services for the families staying at the former motel. The nonprofit anticipates serving 146,000 meals in its dining room over the first year, for example. On-site staffers will help families address the root causes of their homelessness and run therapy sessions.

Young also said the Fourth Street Clinic’s mobile bus will swing by the FINCH regularly to provide health care. The school-age kids will be a part of the Granite School District during their time at the shelter, so officials are working out a bus pickup system.

The Road Home will still operate the 300-bed Midvale shelter as “the open door” for families to get assistance, Young said. The nonprofit intends to use the FINCH to house families with more complicated needs that would be better off in private rooms.

Young said the average length of stay for anyone living in a Road Home-operated facility is 90 days. His goal is to get families staying at the FINCH into stable housing in that time frame.

The nonprofit will implement a range of security measures at the new shelter as well, in accordance with new state laws, including adding a metal detector at the front entrance, regular room checks and contracting with a private security company to do patrols.

Young said staff will ramp up the number of families accepted at the facility over the coming weeks, so the nonprofit can hone its processes for managing the site before it’s filled. The first families should start arriving in the next few days.