Rows of wine bottles are pictured at a Utah Liquor and Wine Store at 300 W. Harris Avenue in Salt Lake City on Nov. 19, 2024. (Katie McKellar / Utah News Dispatch)
It came together fairly last-minute during the final days of the 2024 Utah Legislature, when lawmakers were putting the final touches on the budget. Senate Budget Chair Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, added a new provision into the omnibus alcohol bill for the year, HB548, that established a new program at state liquor stores to ask customers whether they’d like to round up their purchases to donate to a state fund that supports homeless service programs across Utah.
On Tuesday, the Utah Department of Beverage Services officially launched that program in liquor and wine stores across the state.
Now, at checkout, liquor store cashiers will ask customers if they would like to round up their purchase to the nearest dollar. If they agree, their donation will go directly to the Pamela Atkinson Homeless Account, a fund named after a prominent homeless advocate. The state uses the fund to direct donations to a wide variety of homeless programs, according to state officials, including:
- Emergency services like temporary shelters, meal services, day centers and outreach programs.
- Supportive services, including case management to help people move into stable housing
- Housing services, including rapid rehousing programs, transitional housing, rental assistance, case management and security.
- Domestic violence service providers.
“This program offers Utahns a simple way to make a meaningful impact,” Stevenson said in a prepared statement. “By rounding up, we can provide essential resources to those who need them most and make significant strides toward addressing homelessness in our state.”
Why ask for homeless donations in liquor stores?
Earlier this year, when lawmakers budgeted for the new program, the state’s homeless coordinator Wayne Niederhauser told Utah News Dispatch it makes sense to tie alcohol sales and an opportunity to donate to homeless services together in a round-up program. Alcohol, he said, is one of the “biggest contributors” to substance abuse issues that can compound problems for people suffering from homelessness.
Even though not everyone experiencing homelessness suffers from substance abuse or addiction, Tricia Davis, director of the Utah Office of Homeless Services, said “drug addiction and alcohol can be issues in homelessness and chronic homelessness,” so the round up program “seems like a good way for people to give back and help people in need.”
Utah’s state-run liquor stores were also one of the few opportunities for the state to offer a round up program that could create a new ongoing revenue source, and “it just happened to be that this was a good fit for this.”
Though the round-up program will be asking Utah customers to donate small amounts — less than a dollar — each transaction, that can add up. Last year, Utah saw more than $579 million in alcohol sales, according to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Service’s 2023 annual report.
The round up program is a bit of an experiment, however, Davis said. Though state officials estimate it will bring in roughly $2.5 million a year to the Pamela Atkinson fund, she said that depends on how many liquor store customers decide to round up their purchases. It’s possible the program will generate less than the $2.5 million — or more, she said.
“It will be interesting to see what happens with this program, especially around the holidays,” Davis said.
To spread the word about the new program, officials from the Utah Office of Homeless Services and the Department of Alcohol Beverage Services, including Davis, held a media event at one of the state’s liquor and wine stores at 300 W. Harris Avenue in Salt Lake City on Tuesday.
Davis told Utah News Dispatch that state officials were eager to launch the program after the Pamela Atkinson fund’s yearly donations (some of which come from taxpayers opting in on their income tax forms) has been “pretty stagnant” in recent years.
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“So this is an opportunity to have that fund grow,” Davis said, adding, “This is a great account because it’s more flexible funding than a lot of (the state’s) other funding services.”
She added that Utah’s growing homeless system is seeing “a lot of interesting projects” coming to fruition, including a new 50-bed ‘microshelter’ community on state-owned land under freeway overpasses in Salt Lake City. Davis said state officials are also looking at possibly doing more for youth and family homelessness, as well as generally expanding the state homeless system’s capacity.
“All of that is going to take funding,” Davis said.
The biggest endeavor currently underway is a secret search to site a new up to 1,200-bed emergency shelter on a yet-to-be-selected 30-acre property somewhere along the Wasatch Front, which state officials envision will eventually host a “transformative, centralized campus” to house and rehabilitate Utah’s homeless. The 2024 Utah Legislature set aside $25 million in one-time funding for the shelter itself, but more ongoing revenue will likely be needed to maintain and operate the facility into the future.
How Utah’s homeless services needs — and spending — have grown
Through the round up program, Utahns can contribute to services that have faced increased pressures as Utah’s homelessness population — on par with what’s been happening across the nation — has grown amid diminished housing affordability, increasing cost of living, and other issues including increased needs for mental health and substance abuse treatment.
In recent years, Utah’s emergency homeless shelters have been operating at essentially max capacity capacity, people suffering from mental illness have been living in shelters and jails, and “the deficit for deeply affordable housing is at 77,000 units,” according to a January report issued by the Utah Office of Homeless Services.
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Meanwhile, though, state leaders have also dramatically increased the amount of state and federal funds funneled toward homeless services over the past three years as state leaders have taken on a more active role, agreeing that homelessness is a statewide problem, and not just a Salt Lake City problem.
In 2022, Utah appropriated about $35 million in state and federal funds on homeless services, according to the state’s budget website. That amount grew to $70 million in 2023, then to over $167.7 million in 2024 (including $30 million in one-time COVID-19 relief funding, plus about $37.3 million in other federal funds). For fiscal year 2025, state leaders appropriated about $153.7 million in state and federal funds.
The estimated $2.5 million from the new round up program is a “small part of what all of the needs are,” Davis said, “especially as we’re looking at expanding services for individuals experiencing homelessness. We know there are going to need to be ongoing revenue sources to fund operations for some of the projects that we’re looking at in the future.”
Ongoing revenue sources are harder to come by than one-time money during the Legislature’s budgeting process, so even though it’s a comparatively small amount to the state’s larger homeless services budget, Davis said the round up program will still help.
“A little bit will go a long way,” she said. “There’s a huge need.”
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