Group fights for low-income housing

Worried that Salt Lake City might tear down housing for some very low-income residents and replace it with trendier digs, housing advocates are making a political push to keep the status quo.

This week, a massive group including former Mayor Palmer DePaulis, several Salt Lake County Council members, Catholic Community Services and others sent a letter to Mayor Rocky Anderson and the City Council outlining their concerns.

At issue are several Single Room Occupancy (SRO) housing units that the city's Redevelopment Agency owns along State Street near 250 South.

Some at City Hall, including Anderson, would like to see that housing project turned over to a developer who could create some chic boutique housing in the heart of downtown. Such housing would be just what city leaders have been wanting to help revitalize the area.

City leaders, and dozens of the people who have advised them about reinvigorating downtown, have stressed the need for more market-rate housing in the city's core.

While tempted to develop city leaders have committed not to demolish the SRO housing until a suitable replacement could be found somewhere in the city.

"I'm committed, and I think the RDA Board is committed to making sure that those types of units are available," RDA Board Chair Eric Jergensen said.

Some city leaders have suggest the city snatch up an old hotel along North Temple and use it to replace the State Street dorms.

But that plan is being met with stiff resistance. In the letter the group of low-income housing advocates maintain the State Street site should be kept as permanent very low-income housing.

"We strongly urge you to take action to preserve the remaining SRO housing in the city including the Regis, Windsor and Cambridge Hotels, which stand together on south State Street," the letter read. "Such preservation should be long term, cost efficient and responsibly managed for the sake of the residents and the general community."

Low-income housing advocate Tim Funk says any alternative to the State Street properties will cost the city more money than it would cost to keep the SROs downtown. Also, any new project will likely need federal money to make it happen. Those federal housing subsidies mean the new project would have to include criminal and credit background checks on its tenants. That would eliminate the majority of those poorest of the poor currently living at the State Street properties.

"Everything they've talked about as replacement housing would have a federal public dollar attached to it," Funk said.

The City Council will not make a decision on what to do with the properties for several months. Tonight the council will consider several options it could take in fixing up the State Street dorms in the short term. Housing advocates plan to be on hand to express their concerns.

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E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com