Salt Lake City’s microshelter will stay open in current location for a few more months

Steven Malia, 60, moved into Salt Lake City’s microshelter community about 3 months ago.

Malia had been staying at St. Vincent’s winter overflow shelter when he heard about the site where he could have his own private space and a bed to sleep in. After securing a referral he moved into the microshelter community, made up of 25 pods with heat and electricity.

In a regular shelter, Malia might be in a room with dozens of other men, but at the new place, he has a small room of his own.

“It’s safe, it’s clean,” Malia said, “you don’t have to worry about drugs being smoked around you.”

There is a curfew, but Malia said he gets a note written for the days when he has to work late at his job taking tickets at the Gateway’s Megaplex Theater.

The temporary microshelter site — initially pitched as Salt Lake City’s first legal camp — was set to close at the end of May.

Instead, the Salt Lake City Council voted to extend a conditional use permit at its current location on a Redevelopment Agency-owned plot at 600 West and 300 South. Malia and other residents will get a few more months of reprieve and the site will stay open through the end of July instead of the end of May.

State will have to find a new site

While some things may need to be tweaked, the microshelter community pilot project has been a success, said state homelessness coordinator Wayne Niederhauser. People who don’t want to sleep in other shelters with dozens of other people in the room have another option to get off the street.

The state is working on relocating the micro shelter site to another temporary location and eventually plans to place it adjacent to a new 600 to 800-bed shelter that will be built in Salt Lake County so that the two facilities can share resources. Niederhauser would not discuss where that new large shelter might go.

“I liked the project,” said Andrew Johnston, director of homeless policy and outreach for the Salt Lake City’s Mayor’s Office. “I think there’s things we would change in the future.”

For example, the current site doesn’t have showers — residents have to go to other nearby resource centers. Switchpoint, a homeless services provider running the camp, brings residents dinner each night and provides snacks. But it’s a barebones operation.

Struggle to find permanent housing

Malia is working to get into affordable housing, but it has been difficult to find anything.

“We wished we had more deeply affordable housing that was in our clientele’s income range,” said Carol Hollowell, the executive director of the Switchpoint. “That’s been the toughest part is to actually find affordable housing for them.”

So far, 141 people have stayed at the microshelter community, Hollowell said. Only 12 people have been placed into permanent supportive housing.

More than 50% of the people staying there earn an income — either through social security, disability benefits or by working. “They just can’t find anywhere to live,” Hollowell said.

Still, for Utah’s unsheltered residents, the pods have been a reprieve.

“The staff are great, they’ve been very helpful,” Malia said. If given the chance to leave for a more stable situation, he’d take in. “If housing becomes available,” Malia said, " I’ll go there.”