Salt Lake City’s need for homeless shelter beds isn’t going away anytime soon, so members of the City Council are keeping a slate of temporary winter beds around through the summer.
Members of the Salt Lake City Council passed separate ordinances Tuesday — all unanimous, with the exception of Council Member Alejandro Puy, who was absent for the votes — that allowed for four homeless resource centers to continue operating with expanded capacity.
Each winter, homeless shelters are allowed by state law to expand their total beds, but those guidelines end around April, said Andrew Johnston, Director of Homeless Policy and Outreach for the mayor’s office. He told council members during a Tuesday work session that other shelters operate with conditional use permits that only allow for a specified number of beds.
“With the increased need in that shelter option, and the identification that the state has some funding but needs local authorization to allow providers to have expanded access to shelter beds during the summertime, we have the opportunity in the city to do temporary land use resolutions to allow those providers to continue services over the summer,” Johnston said.
Council Member Darin Mano said during the work session that he supports the ordinances, adding that he would also support making a permanent land use designation for the shelters.
The resolutions would allow four shelters — the Geraldine E. King Resource Center, the Gail Miller Resource Center, the Youth Homeless Resource Center and the St. Vincent de Paul Center — to increase their summertime shelter capacities for six months each.
St. Vincent de Paul Center, located downtown at 437 W. 200 South, typically operates as a dining hall in the winter, Johnston said, but a conditional use permit allows them to have overnight shelter space in the winter as well. The ordinance passed Tuesday allows the center to continue operating as a shelter effective immediately and into October.
The King and Miller resource centers — located at 131 E. 700 South in Central City and 242 Paramount Avenue in Ballpark, respectively — both typically operate in the summer with capacities of 200 people each and are authorized to add 50 beds at each location during the winter. Ordinances passed Tuesday allow both sites to continue with their 250-bed capacities. The ordinances take effect on May 1.
Johnston said the Youth Homeless Resource Center, located at 888 S. 400 West in Granary, is currently upgrading its building as part of a conditional use permit, which allowed the facility to upgrade its bed count from 30 to 50. The permit for the center would end in mid-June, Johnston said. The ordinance would take effect when the old permit would expire, and it would allow the center to continue operating with 50 beds.
The council passed the four ordinances with little discussion at both the work session and the formal meeting. Council members made no mention Tuesday of the city’s ongoing public safety plan, nor did they discuss the impending decision of where to put a new emergency shelter.
In recent months, Salt Lake City has estimated it is short between 1,000 and 1,600 emergency shelter beds for its homeless population.
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