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SALT LAKE CITY — Studying and making recommendations about the location of homeless services providers will require a "courageous conversation," but the appointed commission has no preconceived notions about the outcome.
Those were the sentiments of former Salt Lake City Mayor Palmer DePaulis, co-chairman of Salt Lake City's Homeless Services Site Evaluation Commission, which started its work Monday afternoon during a meeting at the Salt Lake Main Library.
The commission has been asked to evaluate and consider the best location for shelters and other homeless services providers in the city. The process will culminate with recommendations to policymaking bodies, including the Salt Lake City Council and Salt Lake County Council.
"Some have said the outcome has already been decided. That's not true. But I wanted to mention just some of the things that have been floating around. Some have said the process won't work and the process is flawed, that it's not compassionate enough. Some have said all of this must move. Some have said, 'No, it shouldn't move.' Some have said, 'We just really need to solve problems that are persistent.' The list goes on and on," DePaulis said.
To find a productive path forward, commission members need to abandon their respective positions, commit to learning about others' best interests and devise solutions "in the best interest of the community," he said.
Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker briefly addressed the commission explaining the genesis of the effort, "persistent problems" experienced by homeless people, business owners and their customers and other visitors to the Pioneer Park area such as crime, rampant narcotic sales and use, panhandling, access to businesses and community uses of Pioneer Park.
One of the primary responsibilities of the commission is to listen to all stakeholders and recommend whether homeless service providers should remain in place or be relocated, he said.
"Those are very tough questions," Becker said.
#road_home
The Road Home, which houses, shelters and provides intensive case management to homeless men, women and families, has experienced exponential growth in service delivery in the past decade, Executive Director Matt Minkevitch said in a presentation to the commission.
The nonprofit agency, headquartered at 210 S. Rio Grande St., has evolved from strictly a sheltering agency into a sheltering and housing provider with the addition of permanent supportive housing units that are project-based such as Palmer Court and apartments scattered about the county.
The Road Home provided $300,000 in rental assistance in 2004, compared with $3 million in 2014.
Its shelters served 2,100 in 2004, compared with 7,082 a decade later. Where there once was a waiting list for the emergency shelter, The Road Home's three shelters serve 1,100 people each night in peak season. A like number of people are in its housing program.
Salt Lake City has made significant progress in addressing chronic homelessness since 2005, largely due the state's "housing first" approach. Rates of chronic homelessness have plummeted 72 percent in the past decade.
After improving the lives of many homeless people "by leaps and bounds" by a concerted effort to increase the inventory of permanent supportive housing in Salt Lake County, Minkevitch said, "Our collective effort has stopped for lack of a better word."
"Deeply affordable housing" is needed to keep people from becoming homeless and to provide people transitioning out of permanent supportive housing a place to live, he said.
"Let's remove those constraints," Minkevitch said.
The commission comprises homeless service providers, elected officials, business representatives, faith communities, law enforcement officials and representatives of homeless services agencies. It is tentatively scheduled to meet six times during 2015, in addition to two meetings during which members of the public can offer their input. Its final recommendations are expected to be delivered in December.
A separate group appointed by Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams is meeting to study services for homeless people to make recommendations how they might be improved.
The two topics go hand-in-hand, Becker said.
"We can't have conversation about services without examining facilities," he said.
Contributing: Nkoyo Iyamba
