Affording a home in an increasingly expensive Utah can be a tall task. Building housing for people who are struggling isn’t a walk in the park, either.
Residents who say Not In My Backyard — an attitude known as NIMBYism — have presented an obstacle to affordable development for years, both in Utah and across the country.
“NIMBYism we deal with all the time at the city level, not just with homeless shelters or low-income housing,” St. George Mayor Jimmie Hughes said. “If we're going to put a grocery store somewhere where it hasn't been, people get really upset.”
Yet, a large new housing development geared toward people experiencing homelessness just opened at a highly visible location in southwest Utah’s largest city.
Perched on a clifftop overlooking downtown, the Switchpoint Red Hills project features 110 furnished apartments — 50 in a renovated motel and 60 in a new building; both painted sparkling white and surrounded by palm trees. It offers residents an exercise room, a dog run and covered parking.
“Look at this place,” Hughes said, motioning across the property. “I would live here, right? So, why would you not want this in your backyard?”
The project meets a critical need for a fast-growing area. The median rent for a studio or two-bedroom apartment in Washington County more than doubled from 2015 to 2025. The county median sales price for a home is now $540,000, according to the latest data from the Utah Association of Realtors.
Red Hills tenants must make no more than 30% of the local median income, Switchpoint CEO Carol Hollowell said, and all 110 units immediately filled up when the project opened in August.
“That's a big deal for us, in the size of community that we have,” she said. “But when we still get waiting lists, we know that we could fill another 250 units right now.”
The project’s prime location was a key reason why Switchpoint decided to build there, she said. It offered a rare opportunity to house people right where they need it.
“It’s walkability to restaurants, work, the bus routes — it's all within their reach,” Hollowell said. “If we stick people out of town limits and into the desert, it makes it really hard for them to access resources that they really need.”
This particular development didn’t face much NIMBY pushback, Hollowell said. It replaced an older motel with frequent problems and police incidents. But she’s heard those arguments before, especially closer to residential neighborhoods with schools and parks.
Her organization, which provides housing and homelessness services statewide, has also been turned away by NIMBY attitudes in some northern Utah communities.
“There's other cities that have not given us the support that St. George City has,” she said. “The issue becomes, ‘Well, we didn't want homelessness here anyways, and as soon as you built it, they will come.’”
Easing those concerns comes down to educating residents. Homelessness exists in every type of city, she said, whether you see it or not. So, offering people a path toward stability and dignity helps lift the community as a whole.
“Then they're going to turn around and be a contributing member of society,” Hughes said. “It's not a new concept, and it's not something earth-shattering, but it works.”
The Red Hills development focuses on housing seniors and veterans because of a “silver tsunami” that Switchpoint has seen in the local homeless population in recent years.
When rent goes up, older Utahns who get a small monthly check from Social Security, disability benefits or a military pension often can’t pay it. They may be kicked out of the home they’ve lived in for decades and forced to move in with family or into a storage unit or vehicle.
“We’ve become more of a resort-type city, where housing has become incredibly, incredibly expensive,” Hughes said. “So, we have a population of elderly people that maybe are on a fixed income that are getting priced out of their homes.”
The Red Hills project avoided NIMBYism traps, at least partially, because Switchpoint spent years building trust with the community and St. George leaders, he said.
Hughes was a founding board member when Switchpoint began in 2014. Since then, the city police department has worked collaboratively with the organization to connect people to its services.
The city also chipped in financially. The Red Hills project cost $25 million, and St. George contributed around $2 million, including some cash from a federal grant and some in the form of waived fees.
When elected officials have skin in the game, Hughes said, they’re more likely to want to make sure a project succeeds. His advice to other cities would be to think of homelessness as a situation they can help with, rather than a problem.
“Be willing to take a chance, and then look at what's worked,” Hughes said. “Facts are our friends, so when you can see something that has worked, grab onto that and go for it.”
As the cost of living continues to rise, Hollowell knows there’s still plenty of need. Switchpoint’s primary shelter in St. George holds 156 people, and Utah’s 2026 point-in-time count reported 323 people experiencing homelessness in Washington County.
“We don't want people camping in the desert with no air conditioning and water. We don't want people living in storage units here. We want them to be able to pay their own rent,” Hollowell said. “So, for us, if we could do another 250 units in another year, we would do it in a heartbeat.”
While she declined to share details about future projects, she said there are more in the works.
