After plans fell through to use a building in West Haven as an emergency shelter, Weber County is out of compliance with Utah’s winter homelessness response law. The state’s largest counties are required to have a plan for sheltering people experiencing homelessness from Oct. 15 through April 25, 2025.
Winter response plans were due to the Utah Office of Homeless Services on Aug. 1. Response plans for Washington and Utah counties were approved in September, but Salt Lake and Davis counties also have to tie up loose ends.
Salt Lake County houses the most individuals in emergency shelters, with roughly 6,200 in fiscal year 2022, according to the 2023 Annual Data Report on Homelessness. Weber County was second with just over 2,300.
The Weber-Morgan Local Homeless Council is required to have 132 more beds for the winter, with no additional ones required during a code blue event.
Code blue alerts are issued when temperatures are projected to drop to or below 18 degrees Fahrenheit, including windchill, for at least two hours in a 24-hour period. In that situation, shelters can expand their capacity and expedite their intake procedures to protect more people from the cold.
The number of winter beds needed was determined from past counts of people experiencing homelessness, combined with an analysis of emergency shelter access and data from the Utah Homeless Management Information System.
Two existing shelters, Youth Futures and Lantern House, will provide some winter response beds, but with Oct. 15 approaching, Weber County is still working to secure a location for 100 beds.
Sharon Bolos, Weber County commissioner and chair of the Weber-Morgan Local Homeless Council, said they’re looking at an old Motel 6 in Riverdale as a potential shelter.
“The owner is willing to work with us. We're hoping for some zoning exceptions from the city council in Riverdale.”
Whether that site works out or the council finds a different location, Bolos said the emergency shelter “will be operated by the Lantern House, wherever it's located, so that piece is still intact.”
Although the winter response period starts Oct. 15, Bolos said that deadline is less important than “making sure that it's done as soon as it can be and before we have temperatures that are in the code blue area.”
Wayne Niederhauser, Utah’s state homelessness coordinator, is optimistic that Weber County will find enough beds.
“We've already been working through some logistics at the current shelter, where 32 beds have been identified,” he said. “It will still take a couple of weeks, but we're hopeful that an additional location, or a creative way to create more beds, will happen.”
Meanwhile, Salt Lake County is finalizing a deal to open a shelter with 210 beds on North Temple. This will bring their winter response plan to 982 beds.
“There [are] still some t’s to cross and i’s to dot on that, but it looks like that's going to happen.”
Davis County, on the other hand, is still working to find an additional 16 beds for a code blue event. Because the county elected to create a year-round facility instead of establishing a winter emergency shelter, “they just need to cover code blue beds by statute for this winter,” Niederhauser said. Their plan for a year-round shelter isn’t due until next year.
In the meantime, Davis County has proposed the purchase of a Dignity Bus – an emergency shelter on wheels.
As the weather cools, “we have people that are unsheltered and need a place to go, especially on cold nights,” Nieserhauser said. But finding a place for them to stay is “never easy.”
So as Weber County irons out the details, he said the Utah Office of Homeless Services will “continue to support them.”
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
