SALT LAKE CITY — Let’s start with the most important point of this column: If you read the top six paragraphs you will be able to help any homeless person you come in contact with along the Wasatch Front in Utah. Live elsewhere? It’s a model of the type of information you need to help those in your community.
First, anyone who is homeless along Utah’s Wasatch Front can call 801-990-9999 to receive help. That means if you speak with someone who is homeless — you see them on the street or you know of someone in dire circumstances — you can call this number and get directed to an emergency place to stay. It will also start the transition process to get our neighbors into more permanent housing and other support they need.
Second, Gail Miller, chairwoman of the Larry H. Miller group of companies and owner of the Utah Jazz, pledged up to $10 million in matching money for every dollar donated to help the homeless. The pledge came in August 2017. As of Saturday, she reports that $8,023,511 has been donated. That means there is $1,976,511 remaining to give. If you give $10, it turns into $20, and $1,000 becomes $2,000. Donations of any size can be made at homelessutah.org.
The money is real help for real people, funding the services housed in Salt Lake’s new resource centers. This money isn’t about providing beds — it’s about providing life-saving help and hopefully change. As Miller put it when announcing the Home4Change matching grant: “We can’t just have a building that sits there. It’s got to have a heart.”
The phone number above is manned from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. What good is that if you come across someone at night? A message directs you (or will soon direct you) to resource centers that will provide emergency temporary shelter. At the shelter those needing help are connected to “case management, housing navigation, employment services, life skills, meals, medical care, personal storage, and connections to other long-term community resources,” as it states on the Shelter the Homeless website: homelessutah.org/resource-centers/
So there it is. A way to help.
But it starts with something else equally important, and that is respect for those people in need of help. And though they do not have a permanent roof over their heads, they do have their own community, daily movements, and a feeling of home wherever they spend their days and nights. In other words, the homeless have a home, it just may not look like yours or mine.
It’s vital to remember that the community transition underway in Salt Lake is a very personal transition for all who we would consider homeless. Those who desire help have been moved to new resource centers. Others may need more time to embrace the change.
Some of these people worship in downtown churches. Some have their favorite spots downtown, socializing with others. Some have their own network of support from friends, watching their belongings. Some provide support and security with a safety-in-numbers approach to survival if they choose not to go into a shelter.
Last week when it was announced the longtime downtown homeless shelter was closing, Deseret News reporter Katie McKellar was on the scene speaking with those dealing with the transition.
As homeless advocate Pamela Atkinson said in Katie’s news report:
“Is everybody happy? No,” Atkinson said. “There are a lot of firm men who were very angry. ... They shared their anger in no uncertain words, but that’s our job to listen.”
Atkinson said many of the men who have refused to go felt as though their “community” downtown was being broken up.
“Many of our homeless friends formed a community. That was their community,” Atkinson said. “That was their family and we were saying to them, ‘So sorry, you have to move. We have to break you up.’ But you can form new communities out at the new resource center.”
Atkinson estimated roughly 70 to 80 people have said “they do not want to go to a center.”
Inside the newsroom, our reporters and editors discuss our reports on the legislative battles for funding, the community impacts of homelessness, as well as the crime elements that prey on the homeless. But we also want to report on the successes that are happening as we chronicle this important change.
Here is where help is available in Salt Lake:
- The 300-bed South Salt Lake Men’s Resource Center, 3380 S. 1000 West.
- The 200-bed mixed gender Gail Miller Resource Center, 242 Paramount Ave, Salt Lake City, 801-328-1894.
- The 200-bed Geraldine E. King Resource Center, 131 E. 700 South, Salt Lake City, 801-893-6678.
- A 300-bed family shelter, 529 9th Ave., Midvale.
The Weigand Center, 437 W. 200 South, Salt Lake City, is now operating as a “warming center” with room up to 100 people. There are no beds, but if the 58 overflow mats for men at nearby St. Vincent de Paul overflow is at capacity, it is open to allow people to come in out of the cold.