In the system, Salt Lake City focuses its actions on areas under its control:

• Community Prevention
• Law Enforcement

Other parts of the system, like mental health and statewide homeless services, fall under other partners’ jurisdictions. Since Salt Lake City is not the designated planning entity for homelessness, the City has participated in developing and supporting the strategies and efforts of entities that receive state and federal funding for homelessness mitigation.

Community Prevention

• Affordable & Deeply Affordable Housing: Housing solutions are key to preventing and helping people transition out of homelessness. Since 2021, Salt Lake City has invested more than $115 million in tax and grant funding to support critical housing initiatives, recognizing that stable, affordable housing combined with the right amount of services is the foundation for long-term solutions to homelessness. The City funds millions in housing every year.

• Homeless Resources: The City supports service providers by funding programs, outreach, case management, and more. Examples include funding free storage for people’s personal belongings and the Microshelter piloted in Salt Lake City. These partnerships connect people to resources to rebuild their lives.

• Services: Diversion programs provide alternatives to incarceration for those in need of treatment. These include our Homeless Outreach Court and the Familiar Faces program in the City Justice Court.

• Outreach: We aim to foster trust between the police department, residents, business owners, and unhoused individuals. The City’s HEART Team organizes monthly resource fairs for residents experiencing homelessness. Multiple teams in the City or funded by the City conduct outreach to unhoused individuals and businesses, including Downtown Ambassadors, Rapid Intervention Team, HEART Team, and Homeless Street Outreach staff.

Law Enforcement

The City is also committed to all residents having access to safe, clean, and inviting public spaces. To learn more about Salt Lake City’s public safety efforts, see https://www.slc.gov/homelessness/public-safety/.

Salt Lake County Government serves several major roles in addressing homelessness: funding essential services like mental health, substance use, and providing support for homeless services; protecting public health; and criminal justice reform.

In 2024, Mayor Jenny Wilson and Salt Lake County introduced the County’s first-ever 5-year action plan to address homelessness, behavioral health challenges, and criminal justice reform in Salt Lake County. This plan outlines a vision for coordinated, systemic improvements.

As part of this plan, the County proposed a $507 million bond to fund a new Justice and Accountability Center (JAC) and improve the County Jail. Although voters did not approve the bond, the County remains committed to solving these complex challenges.

The Salt Lake County Health Department is also charged with protecting public health by enforcing environmental health regulations associated with homelessness. Typically through the Encampment Impact Mitigation (EIM) process, the Health Department addresses public health concerns at unsanctioned encampments. This includes cleaning and removing hazardous materials such as human waste, discarded needles, and abandoned belongings.

In 2024, the state legislature passed state code 35A-16-501, requiring Salt Lake County to bring together a task force of cities to work in partnership with the Salt Lake Valley Coalition to End Homelessness to plan and enact a winter overflow program between October and April each year. The Coalition, in coordination with the State Office of Homeless Services, determines the number of beds needed based on the best available data on shelter utilization from previous winter overflow programs. The participating cities must then work together to determine locations to host those beds.

State Code Title 35A created the State Homeless Services Board which is tasked with planning and executing a statewide strategy to address homelessness. This includes allocating state funding for services and monitoring outcomes of those services. 

In 2021, Governor Spencer Cox created a new position to oversee Utah’s statewide homeless services. Wayne Neiderhauser is Utah’s homeless services coordinator. In his capacity, he leads the Office of Homeless Services within Utah’s Department of Workforce Services. Neiderhauser coordinates with local homeless services boards in aligning state resources and plans with local resources and plans to make homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring. 

In 2023, the State released Statewide Collaboration for Change: Utah’s Plan to Address Homelessness, supported by Mayor Mendenhall and Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, along with other partners and stakeholders.

Several federal agencies are involved in the fight against homelessness. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is the primary federal funder of services for people who are homeless, and their duties include funding emergency shelter, housing programs, and homelessness prevention, as well as gathering data on the scope of the issue through annual Point In Time counts and Housing Inventory counts. As is the case on the local level, though, fighting homelessness on the federal level requires coordination between many different agencies. The US Interagency Council on Homelessness organizes federal policy efforts to prevent and end homelessness across the country.

The Salt Lake Valley Coalition to End Homelessness is the state-designated planning entity for homelessness in the Salt Lake Valley. Its role is to identify local needs and coordinate with the state on the resources needed to address them. The Coalition released its 2023 Strategic Plan, to guide the efforts of the Salt Lake County Continuum of Care through 2026.

The coalition is made up of citizens, government officials and representatives, service providers, advocates, and people with lived experience. The Coalition helps coordinate existing services and plans for new services needed, whether that is new shelter, overflow shelter, or other programs to end homelessness in our community. The Coalition is supported by staff at Salt Lake County.

Providers play a critical role by delivering services to the homeless population in shelter, through permanent supportive housing, rehab, mental healthcare, and through on-street outreach.