This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams's staff had hoped to move on from the controversy surrounding the site selection of a new homeless center and instead focus on the entire reform effort during a meeting with County Council members on Tuesday.
But there was a nagging question that some council members wanted answered.
"How did the decision come about to put the men's resource center in South Salt Lake?" asked Councilman Richard Snelgrove.
The question arose after officials from the nonprofit now helping drive the homeless reform effort quietly announced the soon-to-be-built homeless center at 3380 S. 1000 West in South Salt Lake would host single men, while a center in Salt Lake City, 131 E. 700 S., would be reserved for single women and a second, 275 W. High Ave (1400 S.), would host a mix of men and women.
The announcement was made without a public vote by any of the entities working to offer more effective services to prevent residents from becoming homeless or staying homeless for long. It also followed weeks of McAdams and his staff publicly saying a decision on gender would come in due time.
But those groups are now unable or unwilling to say when and how the decision was made.
During 30 minutes of questions from Republicans Snelgrove and Councilwoman Aimee Winder Newton, McAdams, a Democrat, said the question was irrelevant.
"To really try to boil it down to the gender of people who will occupy a facility really is a little bit shortsighted," he said.
Salt Lake County for two years has studied breakdowns in the homeless services system and put together a plan to improve those services, he said. The plan includes closing the one, 1,100-bed site in downtown Salt Lake City and opening three new shelters along with creating a more effective way to offer services.
Shaleane Gee, McAdams's top staffer on homeless reform, added that while there was too much focus on the population genders at each of the three sites, single men were to be housed at two of the new centers.
Winder Newton pressed for answers, saying she wanted to be able to tell constituents who they could hold accountable for the decision.
"It's important for us as you're coming to us with different budget requests for us to be able to answer to our constituents who made this decision," said Winder Newton, whose district includes part of South Salt Lake.
McAdams denied his team had been opaque during the process despite repeatedly suggesting during a monthlong site selection process that a decision would be made at a later date about which of the shelters would host single men, single women and a mix of both.
"All along as we've been talking about the South Salt Lake site we had envisioned that as a men's facility," McAdams said. "That was discussed very transparently."
South Salt Lake Mayor Cherie Wood said she had always been under the impression as McAdams was holding seven public meetings to hear concerns from residents that the center he was looking to site would host single men.
Yet during numerous news conferences and public committee hearings, McAdams said he didn't know which population would be assigned to each of the three resource centers.
Even after he announced South Salt Lake would host a center, McAdams said he didn't know whether the center would be open to men, women or both.
Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski on Thursday indicated the decision was made among state legislators when they got involved in the process in February.
House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, hasn't responded to requests for comment on whether he was involved in the decision.
Councilman Jim Bradley said he didn't know why the question was relevant now that it's made and because the new centers will look different from The Road Home.
"This is not going to be high risk," Bradley, a Democrat, said. "High-risk individuals will be where they belong, and that will be jail."
Despite the questioning, council members voted unanimously to allocate $400,000 to a nonprofit board, Shelter the Homeless, which is driving the homeless reform effort, for security at the existing shelter at The Road Home.
Editor's note: This story has been altered from from its original version to reflect the correct amount and action approved by the County Council