Taylor Stevens joined FOX 13 News in January 2024 through E.W. Scripps' Journalism Journey Initiative, a national program that trains print journalists to redeploy their skills in broadcast newsrooms.
The 43-year-old, who has been experiencing homelessness in Salt Lake City for the last year, says he’s often too cold to sleep. The restless nights make it difficult for him to hold down a job that could help him get “back into society.” And his living situation has also impacted visits with his kids.
When state leaders closed The Road Home in Salt Lake City in 2019 to make way for three smaller homeless resource centers spread throughout the valley, some homeless advocates questioned whether the new system would have enough emergency shelter beds — especially amid Utah’s burgeoning housing crisis and booming population growth.
But data shows that, since 2019, people are spending more nights in shelter — not less — as a shortage of deeply affordable housing has made it more difficult to move people off the streets. Those extra beds have been full almost every night, advocates say — demonstrating a high demand among the homeless for a warm place to sleep.
“It used to be an emergency shelter bed, you’d be there for a few days or a few weeks,” Garvin said. “But now we have people who have been in the shelters for eight years. That is not a life that is appropriate for people to be living in. We need to be moving them into housing.” Despite the challenges, Niederhauser notes that the state has successfully moved 8,000 people out of homelessness over the last four years. And for those who can get into them, he says the new resource centers have provided a “much better” experience for Utah’s homeless.
But lawmakers fell far short of that during this year’s legislative session — budgeting around $66 million overall. That money includes $50.7 million for emergency shelter , as well as $4.4 million for homelessness prevention and $11.1 million for behavioral health, according to the governor’s office.
With the budget set, service providers are now working to keep as many of the additional shelter beds that were available this winter open as possible, in an effort to stave off a spike in outdoor camping. “It’s degrading,” she said. “And I think that it chips away at their humanity over time. My experience has been that when people don’t have access to shelter or resources for a long enough period of time, they almost become used to this way of life.”
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