From Deseret News archives:
Rocky wants homeless block vetted
Rumors, speculation and even specific details of the Salt Lake Chamber's proposed homeless block have been quietly dividing the city, Anderson maintains, and only a public vetting of the plan can quell the contention.
After meeting with proponents and opponents of the Chamber plan Wednesday, Anderson has created a special community meeting Monday, Oct. 25, at 5 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 451 S. State St., where all interested parties and the public can gain and give information about the proposal and related concerns.
"This has been a very divisive issue," Anderson said. "Both the proposal and the process . . . everyone will be better serviced by an open and inclusive dialogue particularly because I think we all fundamentally want the same thing."
The chamber's plan was first introduced on Sept. 2 as Zions Bank President Scott Anderson and Mark Howell, Wells Fargo president of middle market business, detailed their idea to homeless providers, including the Road Home, Catholic Community Services and the Fourth Street Clinic.
Under the concept, Catholic Community Services, the Road Home and the Fourth Street Clinic would be relocated to one of two sites a few blocks south of their current digs near 500 South and 400 West or on 700 South near 700 West, according to a report from Road Home executive director Matt Minkevitch.
At this new block-big campus, the three providers, possibly other homeless services, and 75 units of "first step" transitional housing would be built. The current site of the Road Home and Catholic Community Services would then be turned into 150 units of mixed-income housing and retail space. Some income generated by this development would then go to help fund homeless services, according to the report.
The estimated cost of the plan is $48.3 million — paid for by a litany of sources, including taxpayer funds like Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency dollars and federal and state housing funds. And some have questioned whether the non-public funding can realistically be obtained.
Much has been speculated about the motive behind the proposal, which would clear homeless providers out of their expensive addresses near The Gateway shopping mall to less costly areas of town.
"There is a healthy suspicion among some of us, and I can only speak for us at Crossroads, that this is part of an effort to relocate services away from The Gateway," said Glenn Bailey, executive director of the Crossroads Urban Center. "There certainly is pressure on those facilities given the development of the area."
