Home for chronically homeless drawing fire

WEST VALLEY CITY — Jason Jones doesn't like the idea of his 5-year-old walking past an apartment project for formerly homeless people every day on the "safe route" to and from school.

It isn't that homeless people don't need a place to live, Jones says, it's just that he and about 1,100 other people think it should be somewhere else — somewhere that isn't in the middle of foot traffic to three nearby schools.

That's why Jones and more than 1,100 people signed a petition asking the Salt Lake County Housing Authority to move the Kelly Benson Apartments away from 3120 S. 3600 West, but the group, which started its own Web site, www.saveourkidsutah.com, might be fighting a losing battle.

The $8 million Kelly Benson apartment project for chronically homeless people over the age of 55 has already broken ground on 3600 West. According to Kerry Bate, executive director of the Salt Lake County Housing Authority, the organization has received about $5 million in federal funds toward building the project at that exact location — and only that location.

"It can't be moved," Bate said. "We could abandon it and start over. ... (but) there is no guarantee that anywhere we go would not stir up the same thing."

Jones, a founding member of www.saveourkidsutah.com, disagrees with Bate. Jones and other members of the residents' group have taken their petition to the West Valley City Council and the Salt Lake County Council and have enlisted the support of the Granite School District in encouraging the housing authority to move the project.

The residents' group has picketed and protested the project's progression ever since they learned that the facility would no longer be just an elderly housing development, about three days before the Kelly Benson project groundbreaking.

Last week, the County Council encouraged the housing authority to pause construction for a few weeks while the residents' concerns are resolved, and the housing authority has complied. While Jones says he appreciates the housing authority's cooperation, he is alarmed that more has not been done to stop the project.

"This project feels incredibly rushed," Jones said. "The sad reality is that if spotted owls or wetlands were discovered on the property, a court would order an emergency injunction to stop construction until the proper impact studies had been completed. Don't our children merit at least as much consideration and protection as animal habitat? ... Money can be replaced; children cannot."