DAVIS COUNTY—The Davis County Commission has submitted four potential locations for a Code Blue facility to the Office of Homeless Services (OHS), one primary location and three alternative sites. There are three county owned buildings, Clearfield Senior Center, Valley View Golf Course and the Inspection Maintenance Center in Kaysville and one private entity. 

“The state is good with all of them,” said Ryan Steinbeigle, Grant Administrator for Davis County. “Davis County and the Office of Homeless Services worked together to develop the plan, now it will go to the Utah Homeless Services Board for voting on funding for Code Blue.”

The legislature passed a bill in 2023 requiring counties the size of Davis County to provide shelter beds for Code Blue and Winter Response. Code Blue and Winter Response mean beds for unhoused people for extremely cold days and also 60+ beds from Oct. 15-April 30. 

After the law was passed, Davis County created a task force made up of voting city mayors from Bountiful, Farmington, Kaysville, Layton, Clearfield, Syracuse and Sunset and one voting county commissioner, Bob Stevenson. The task force worked to submit the required plan that was due Aug. 1, 2024 for this coming winter. The plan was a Dignity Bus with 20 spots.

“The bus would have pickup spots at a designated time and they would be taken to a (Code Blue) location,” said Steinbeigle. “They would spend the night and then get back on the bus the next day and be taken back to where they were picked up. We’d have volunteers doing intake and giving them resources. The state denied the plan due to insufficient funding. That puts it back to the state to make a decision.”

There has been a great deal of controversy over where to have a Code Blue facility and more recently to find a suitable location for a year round homeless shelter. 

Last month, Switchpoint, a private company that provides resources for those who are experiencing homelessness, was considering purchasing the Lifeline building at 1130 West Center Street in North Salt Lake that would have met the county’s requirement for a year round shelter.

 Residents were in an uproar and fought hard to stop the purchase. Ultimately, Switchpoint pulled the offer killing the deal, leading the county to go back to searching for another building that could be repurposed or finding property to purchase.

The (Homeless Services) board won’t meet until Nov. 14, said Steinbeigle. “It’s from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. at the Capitol, Room 445. The board is a public body that approves funding requests from the Office of Homeless Services. They function together but OHS can’t approve funding. That has to be done by the board.”

In the meantime, the timeline of Oct. 15 has passed. “If it gets 18 or below the state will have to decide what to do but the first one last year was around Thanksgiving.” λ