Main Issues
Protect Taxpayers
The proposal to consolidate homelessness services into a single campus must be carefully scrutinized, as it will place a substantial financial burden on taxpayers. The state does not have a clear, sustainable funding plan to ensure the campus can operate effectively for years without relying on unpredictable sources of income.
Protect Homeless People
This is the wrong place and the wrong approach to helping homeless people. Instead we should continue to improve and invest in things that data show work: housing first, permanent supportive housing, and smaller scaled shelters serving specific populations of homeless people.
The solution to ending homelessness is housing, not giant concentrated groups of homeless people, placed in an ad-hoc shelter in a mosquito infested wetland which is a 55 minute walk away from a bus stop.
Protect Community
Northpoint is not an empty field — it is a long-established residential and agricultural community with approximately 60 homes and generations of families who live and work alongside farmland, livestock, and open space. This proposal would permanently damage the last agricultural district in Salt Lake City and unfairly burden one neighborhood with a statewide issue.
Protect Wetlands
This proposal will cause further damage to imperiled Great Salt Lake wetlands. Great Salt Lake wetlands are under tremendous development pressure, and in particular, south shore wetlands that this proposed mega shelter would pave over.
