Basin battling homelessness

VERNAL — There's no one pushing a shopping cart down Main Street, loaded with everything they own. There's no one sleeping in cardboard boxes in alleyways. But they are there, according to Norma Jurado, emergency specialist for the Uintah Basin Association of Governments.

"They" are the Uinta Basin's homeless, and Jurado knows they live among us — forced out of apartments they can no longer afford as rental rates climb and not making enough money to have any hope of buying a home. Jurado had hoped to find a building to use as a temporary shelter, without success. She has applied for emergency funds to be spent on hotel stays for families and individuals who need shelter.

"I get a call and they say, 'My wife, my children, my father-in-law are living in a tent. I have a job, but it's getting cold, and I don't think we can make it for a winter,' " she said.

Jurado said there are families with children living in tents and campers scattered throughout Duchesne and Uintah counties.

She cried for most of the day for the family living in the tent; she had to tell them there was nothing she could do for them.

"I said, 'I could give you $300.' He said he saw a trailer for $475 rent," Jurado said.

There were about five people who came through Jurado's door that same day or who called her on the phone. She had to tell them all there was nothing she could do.

"We are being inundated with people coming into our office, people who have been evicted or displaced . . . We have an urgent need," she said. "Just because we don't see people pushing grocery carts and sleeping in doorways, we don't think we have homelessness."

She recently learned that her request for additional government funding to place homeless residents in hotel rooms has been approved. She asked for $18,000 but won't know how much money will be allocated until she finishes processing the paperwork. One thing she does know is that any funding she obtains will go fast.

Last July she was able to acquire $8,000 for motel stays for the homeless and $10,000 for rental and mortgage assistance. That money was supposed to last for a year.

"It lasted two months," she said, emphasizing how many people need help these days in the Uinta Basin.

A federal government agency, one that could provide her with funds for rental assistance, has told her to "hold on."