HELPER — State and local officials have broken ground on two new housing projects for the homeless in rural Utah.

Avalon House in Helper and The Newhouse in Price will provide more than 50 apartments to help tenants — who will pay no more than 30 percent of their income on rent — get job training and reintegrate into society.

The projects will serve Carbon and Emery counties in central Utah. Gordon Walker, director of the state Division of Housing and Community Development, said the state estimates there are at least 70 people who are chronically homeless in the area.

"We can make a significant dent in that number," Walker said.

Chronic homelessness is defined as those who have spent the past year without permanent shelter or who have been without permanent shelter more than four times in a five-year period.

Utah has a goal to end chronic homelessness by 2014.

Walker said it's important to focus on the state's largest cities, but he said it's impossible to eliminate chronic homelessness without also spending time and money in Utah's rural areas.

"Obviously, we're going to look first to the highest populated areas," he said. "But everywhere in the state there are homeless and chronically homeless individuals who we need to reach out to help as well."

The two projects will cost $5 million and should be ready for tenants in six to nine months, Walker said. The Avalon House is a renovation of the former Golden Rule Mission in downtown Helper.