The Utah Capitol is pictured with downtown Salt Lake City behind it on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
The 2025 Utah Legislature is starting off with a bit of tension between Salt Lake City and state leaders on what comes next after state leaders demanded Mayor Erin Mendenhall improve “public safety” in her city — or else the Legislature could step in.
While Democrats urged Republican legislative leaders to be collaborative and also remember Salt Lake City can’t stand alone on this issue, the governor and top Republican legislative leaders expressed a willingness to partner with Salt Lake City, but were also noncommittal on whether they’ll answer all of Mendenhall’s requests for stable, ongoing funding for the state’s homeless system, mental and behavioral health services and affordable housing.
Last week, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall unveiled a complex “public safety plan.” It was her answer to a call from Utah’s top Republican leaders — Gov. Spencer Cox, House Speaker Mike Schultz and Senate President Stuart Adams — who sent her a letter Dec. 13 expressing frustrations with “disorder” in Salt Lake City and calling the Salt Lake City Police Department “ineffective.”
Along with promising to “crack down” on drugs and gun offenses in Utah’s capital, Mendenhall also issued a call to action of her own for other cities and state leaders: make “system-wide” improvements to not just the state’s homeless network, but also the Salt Lake County jail and the larger criminal justice system.
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Mendenhall warned that for her plan to succeed, state leaders can’t treat it as an “a la carte menu,” and pick and choose what they like. She said it has to be implemented holistically — and she asked for more funding.
Among her biggest “short-term actions” Mendenhall included in her plan is calling on the Legislature to “identify and allocate a stable, dedicated funding source for homeless services, mental and behavioral health, and affordable housing during the 2025 legislative session.”
“Several ideas for funding streams have been discussed in past years, including an alcohol or tobacco tax, a real estate transaction fee, an increase to the local option sales tax, and a boarded and vacant building tax,” her plan states.
Lack of increased state funding for all of these issues has been a sticking point for years. Advocates have said it’s created a bottleneck to move people out of emergency homeless shelters and into permanent supportive housing or other services to better address their needs.
She also called on the Legislature to “consider requiring all counties to provide some ratio of emergency shelter and housing services in proportion to their population, projected growth, and number of cost-burdened or housing insecure household units.”
As an “immediate action” to create more “space” for shelter beds, Mendenhall urged lawmakers to partner with Salt Lake City and others to “expedite creation of shelter beds” by creating a “temporary emergency shelter” while state leaders continue their secret search for a 30-acre property meant to house up to 1,200 new shelter beds as part of a “transformative, centralized campus.”
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The Utah Homeless Services Board has given State Homeless Coordinator Wayne Niederhuaser and other state officials until Oct. 25 for that 1,200-bed shelter to be built, so Niederhauser has said it’s likely the facility won’t be up and running until well after the 2025 legislative session.
In the meantime, Mendenhall’s plan says that Salt Lake City would “allow the use of a city-owned property for a campus facility for up to 24 months if capital and operational costs can be allocated by the state and philanthropic partners” while the state builds the permanent campus.
It’s not yet known which Salt Lake City-owned property Mendenhall would offer up for that temporary shelter.
Will Republican state leaders answer Mendenhall’s call to action?
As the 2025 Utah Legislature convened for its first of 45 days on Tuesday, Utah News Dispatch asked the governor, the Senate president and other Senate leaders whether they’d be answering Mendenhall’s funding requests outlined in her plan.
They gave noncommittal answers, though Cox indicated he’s supportive of trying.
“We’ll see. We’ll see what the final budget numbers look like for sure, but it is something we have to be serious about,” Cox told Utah News Dispatch in an interview. “She’s not wrong … that we do need those other pieces to make it all work.”
But the governor doesn’t control the purse strings. The Legislature does. And the state budget usually isn’t finalized until after final revenue projections — which give lawmakers a more holistic picture of how much revenue they have to allocate for the coming budget year — are released in mid-February. They then have only a matter of weeks to finalize the budget before the session ends March 7.
Cox, however, indicated there’s willingness to work with Mendenhall.
“I know the speaker, the president, we’re all very grateful for the plan that she’s put forward. The execution is going to be critical, and we’re all going to have to execute together,” Cox said. “So I think you’ll see us working together over the session and beyond.”
Pressed on Mendenhall’s call for a dedicated funding source for a wide range of services, Cox said he’s “called for that for a long time.” Last month, Niederhauser, Cox’s appointed state homeless coordinator, told Utah News Dispatch “everybody still agrees that we need that,” but “it’s going to be difficult to get passed through a Legislature. What is it? How much is it going to be?”
Niederhuaser said, at the time, that his focus will be getting one-time money, while a dedicated funding stream would be a longer term issue that would be hashed out perhaps another year.
“So we’ll continue to work on that, but until that actually happens, we’re going to be seeking appropriations to fill the gaps that we have.”
Niederhauser said this session he’s focused on drumming up support for the governor’s $18.8 million budget recommendation for homeless services needs over the next year. Niederhauser said included in that would be $13 million for homeless shelter beds “to get us through winter next year and into the summer.”
“We’re going to need additional (money) for next year,” Niederhauser said. “If or when we get to the point of having another facility, it will replace winter response. So we’ll be able to have $13 million to operate a facility through the winter into next budget year.”
Niederhauser said the governor’s office request would fund additional shelter beds — temporary or permanent — depending on what comes to fruition.
“Our request would get us through either winter response in Salt Lake County, or another facility,” Niederhauser said. “Our request will fund that. If a facility doesn’t exist at that point, it will be (for) winter response. If a facility exists at that point, it is our winter response plan.”
He added: “Those funds, we feel like, will be sufficient to get us through the 2026 fiscal year.”
However, that would be a one-time appropriation and is separate from the discussion for a dedicated funding source. That’s a more difficult conversation and one that wasn’t necessarily something Niederhauser expected could be hashed out during the 2025 session, but perhaps a future session.
“Our highest priority right now is what’s in the governor’s budget. Discussions on direct funding will always continue to be an issue, but less of an issue for us this session,” Niederhauser said, though his comments came before Mendenhall’s plan was released.
Niederhauser, former Utah Senate president, has also previously told Utah News Dispatch that in past years he’s advocated for dedicating a portion of the state’s profits on alcohol toward homelessness, but he said that proposal “didn’t get traction.”
So now, he said he’s exploring pursuing other ideas, like perhaps an optional local sales tax increase that the Legislature could authorize “a locality like Salt Lake County or any county in the state to enact.”
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In a media availability Tuesday, Republican Senate leaders did not give any firm answers of whether they’ll act on Mendenhall’s funding recommendations.
Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, said lawmakers will be “working closely” with the Governor’s Office on their requests, but he also noted the Utah Legislature has already committed “hundreds of millions of dollars” toward homelessness services in recent years, “which is unprecedented.”
“I think there does need to be a dedicated source. Whether that’s specifically from the state or whether we can find paths that the counties and cities can participate in that, I think there will be efforts to find that,” Cullimore said. “I’m just not sure where it’s coming from.”
Pressed on whether the funding could come from a local option sales tax hike, Cullimore said the Legislature last year already “expanded authorization” for rural counties to raise taxes for “public safety,” but it remains to be seen whether that could be a way to answer Mendenhall’s call.
“So that might be one of the things we can talk to them about, about dedicating a portion of that in exchange for some state cooperation,” Cullimore said.
Senate Budget Chair Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, said since the state started becoming more involved with homelessness, starting in 2017, “we have literally put hundreds of millions of dollars into this process.”
“Actually, I’m very eager to see the city step up a little heavier than they have,” Stevenson said. “This isn’t going to be solved by one level of government. It’s going to take multiple levels to solve it. … The cooperation, that piece has been a little bit missing, but I believe we’re on a good track.”
Democrats urge collaboration and focus on community needs
House and Senate Democrats that represent Salt Lake City told reporters on Tuesday that they are concerned that Republican state leaders seemed to strong-arm Mendenhall in managing crime and homelessness in Salt Lake City to their liking.
They said state leaders should also be ready to commit increasing funding throughout the state to help solve homelessness and other complex issues, not just expect Salt Lake City to solve it alone.
Homelessness is not just a Salt Lake City concern, House Minority Leader Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City said. The state capital is an urban setting with the most homeless resources in Utah, attracting homeless individuals, so, she said, the governor and the legislative majority should work with the city.
The Senate president and the speaker of the House weren’t elected by Salt Lake City residents, Romero said.
“They need to trust the elected officials in Salt Lake City. And this is not just about Salt Lake City. This is about Salt Lake County. This is about the district attorney. This is about the sheriff,” Romero said. “There’s a common theme there. They’re all Democrats. They’re all elected to represent the people, but they have a ‘D’ behind their name.”
Romero has concerns because she has seen crime in Salt Lake City go down. While there are still issues that need to be addressed in the city, she believes the question isn’t about crime.
“I think the question should be about what should we do more as the state of Utah to address the needs of our community,” Romero said, “whether it’s dealing with mental illness, whether it’s dealing with substance or drug abuse, or whether it’s dealing with people not being able to afford a place to live.”
Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, also believes there should be statewide solutions to homelessness, since data shows that unsheltered communities come from all over Utah, not just Salt Lake City.
Those solutions include a facility, and, as a representative of Salt Lake City’s west side, Escamilla worries a new shelter would be located in that specific area.
“That’s a problem for our constituents,” she said.
There needs to be a comprehensive plan to address homelessness and other related issues, she said. But, she hopes there’s a shared responsibility.
“I know we’ve all been pretty collectivist when we were proposing that heavy hand on Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City,” Escamilla said. “And sometimes it doesn’t feel very fair to the rest of the state.”
Finding ways to address the “strong suggestions” of the state in a short timeframe while meeting Salt Lake City residents’ wishes is a big task for Mendenhall and her team, House Minority Whip Jennifer Dailey-Provost, D-Salt Lake City, said on Tuesday.
Balancing a stronger focus on public safety while not criminalizing homelessness is also challenging for the city, she said.
“I know that it is really, really hard to see unsheltered people. It’s really easy to make assumptions about people who are unsheltered, and it is also challenging to find a place of compassion in our hearts to try to understand where those are coming from,” Dailey-Provost said. “And simultaneously be willing to invest the resources and time and energy that it takes to address the problem.”
Statistically, Dailey-Provost said, there has been an increase of 180 homeless people from January 2023 to January 2024. If compared to the general population, unsheltered individuals face murder at 19 times higher, attempted murder at 27 times higher, assault 12 times more often, and sexual assault nine times more often.
“Perhaps we need to have a stronger conversation about the vulnerabilities and risks of those human beings, and start our problem solving conversation there,” she said.
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