- The Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation announced a $10 million donation for homeless services in Salt Lake City.
- The number of homeless Utahns reached record levels in 2025 with an 18% increase driven by chronic homelessness.
- Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has called for private and municipal support as the state builds a new central homeless campus.
One of Utah’s wealthiest families announced a $10 million donation on Thursday to sustain Salt Lake County homeless resource centers amid record levels of chronic homelessness and a state focus on constructing a new central campus.
The donation from the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation marks a significant philanthropic contribution to homeless services as Gov. Spencer Cox renews calls for investment from private sector and municipal leaders to complement state funds.
Speaking at the Gail Miller Resource Center in Salt Lake City, Gail Miller said the donation represents a continued commitment to the dispersed service center model started in 2019, and a recognition that homelessness cannot be solved by one organization alone.
“It really requires the community united in purpose,” Miller said. “Today’s contribution is a recognition of that shared responsibility.”
The press conference was hosted by Shelter the Homeless, a nonprofit that owns six homeless resource centers in Salt Lake County. It was attended by Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and Sandy Mayor Monica Zoltanski.
Miller made a similar contribution at the founding of the Gail Miller Resource Center, which has capacity to serve around 250 men and women nightly. The facility has no prerequisites for services like a bed, three daily meals, showers, clothing and connection to community resources.
The $10 million announced on Thursday will be used primarily for building improvements at the Gail Miller Resource Center which undergoes “a lot of wear and tear,” according to Josh Romney, the board chair and president of Shelter the Homeless.
Romney’s group hopes Miller’s donation will spark other private investments that can at least match what she has given to create an endowment fund to maintain the buildings in “perpetuity.” But he said ongoing funding from local and state government remains essential.
How many homeless in Utah
Utah’s governor has made the funding of homelessness initiatives his top priority going into the 2026 legislative session after the number of homeless Utahns surged to its highest level ever in 2025, mirroring the national increase of 18% from the year prior.
Nearly 4,600 Utahns were recorded as homeless during the annual count conducted in January. The increase in homelessness was driven by growth in the chronically homeless population — defined as those who have spent at least a year on the streets with a disability, mental illness or drug addiction.
The total number of chronically homeless Utahns increased by 36%, from 906 to 1,233. This sobering news comes as the total number of homeless individuals reaches record levels across the country, increasing by 18% in 2024 to nearly 771,500 people experiencing homelessness on a single night.
On Wednesday, Cox met with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner in Washington, D.C., to discuss Utah’s approach to homelessness in an effort to secure federal grant money for a 1,300-bed campus to be built just north of the Salt Lake City airport.
Under Cox and the incoming state homeless coordinator, state Rep. Tyler Clancy, R-Provo, Utah has pivoted from the housing-first strategy it pioneered and championed from around 2005 to 2020, to turn toward an emphasis on mandatory treatment and public safety.
Instead of pouring millions into long-term, low-barrier-to-entry housing, the Utah Legislature has followed Clancy’s lead in cracking down on drug use in and around shelters, connecting first-responders with mental health resources and expanding a statewide homelessness database.
Cox seeks federal grant
This yearslong shift aligned the state with the priorities of President Donald Trump, who ordered an overhaul of federal homeless funding in July that aimed to amend the grant process to prioritize states that banned urban camping and safe drug injection sites.
But just before Cox met with Trump’s housing secretary on Wednesday, the administration quietly withdrew its newly revised grant program. The surprise shift came without any context, but included a promise that grants would be awarded for the current fiscal year.
The hold on grants for homeless programs, which follows delays in Utah’s application caused by the prolonged government shutdown in November, could become a setback for Cox’s homelessness goals which he suggested could depend, at least partially, on federal funding.
Cox has requested as part of his fiscal year 2027 budget recommendations that lawmakers provide $25 million in one-time funds to help build the state’s “central campus,” which will add to last year’s $25 million that was used mostly to find and purchase land.
This is on top of $20 million in ongoing money that Cox has requested to support the annual costs of running the shelter, which is intended to service homeless “high utilizers,” or repeat criminal offenders who may require involuntary commitment to progress toward recovery.
Cox’s requests will not cover the full costs of the campus, which could cost $75 million to build and $30 million a year to operate. It already costs the state $15-$20 million each year to fund available shelter beds. To make up the difference, Cox is looking to local and private partners.
“We are not picking up the whole tab,” Cox told the Deseret News editorial board last week. “There will be a big piece of this for the municipalities, as well as a big piece of it for the private sector as well, and we have an incredibly generous private sector.”
About results, not money
The rise in homelessness has added to tension between state leaders and the capital city. On Thursday, the mayor of Salt Lake City criticized what she called “underwhelming operational funding year after year” for facilities like the Gail Miller Resource Center.
But the effectiveness of homeless services does not come down to the dollar figure, according to Clancy, who at age 28 is set to take over the state’s Office of Homeless Services in March.
There isn’t a competition between the central campus, and centers like Gail Miller’s, Clancy said. They are both “pieces of the puzzle” and the measure of success will be how, working together, they are able to decrease the number of people becoming and remaining homeless.
“For me, it’s less about where the money comes from, and more about results,” Clancy said. “The homeless resource center operates as the front door of the system, and that’s really why I think this is so critical.”
