Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

OGDEN — A little under a year after breaking ground, YCC Family Crisis Center’s new transitional housing unit is nearly ready to help clients and continue serving them for years to come.

On Friday, community members and YCC officials cut the ribbon on the 14-unit apartment complex during a special ceremony that also included tours of the facility.

YCC’s transitional housing unit includes 14 units — six studio apartments and eight “flex” units where bedrooms can be combined into another unit depending on the family size. Officials say they have begun the intake process and families are expected to move in within the next few weeks.

During the ceremony, several dignitaries from YCC and the community spoke about the new addition to YCC and the furthering of its mission.

“This is truly the culmination of so many people and so many partnerships in this community coming together to make a project a reality in a relatively short amount of time,” said YCC Executive Director Margaret Rose.

She said the need for transitional housing at YCC became apparent a couple of years ago as the full impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic became clearer.

“Post-COVID, there was such an increase in domestic violence resulting in homelessness — we know the connection between those two are incredibly strong,” she said. “One of the pieces that we were really missing was when our people left the crisis shelter, they didn’t really have anywhere to go, whether it was financial abuse or lack of money, lack of a job or whatever it might have been. There were a number of circumstances that really kept people returning to abusive relationships or becoming homeless, relocating or whatever they had to do.”

The Standard-Examiner reported in April that YCC had transitional housing up until about 10 years ago, but deteriorating conditions of the building it was housed in and changing funding priorities resulted in YCC moving away from the transitional housing model.

With the trends of the last few years, it was time to return to that model, Rose said.

“As we started embarking on ‘how can we make a difference?’ it really ended up being that transitional housing was what we needed to really focus on as an option,” she said.

She added that many donors helped with the project, including America First Credit Union, the Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation, the State of Utah, Ogden City and several others.

“If we bring sexual assault and domestic violence out into the open, it helps reduce the shame, it helps reduce the stigma around it,” Rose said. “If we remain unknown, we’re also unknowable, so I think it’s important we’re out and people recognize that this has happened to them, but it doesn’t have to define them. This building and these homes are known in the community. It will be a secure site, but it’s not a site with a stigma or shame associated with it.”

Other speakers included Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski, Utah State Rep. Rosemary Lesser, Ogden Chief of Police Eric Young (in his last official act before retiring) and others.