Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has repeatedly said the state’s housing affordability crisis is what “keeps him up at night,” and that’s why the governor made housing and homelessness centerpiece issues in his budget recommendation.

“Those are the two big rocks I’m focused on” during this year’s session, Cox recently told Utah News Dispatch in a sit-down interview ahead of the legislative session.

Cox has proposed the state spend $150 million on his Utah First Homes starter home program with a goal to create 35,000 new starter homes by 2028. That includes $50 million more for the state’s new first-time homebuyer program focused on helping homebuyers afford new-build homes, $75 million to provide low-interest loans for infrastructure that supports housing like roads, and $25 million for housing innovation and construction.

He also recommended $45.5 million more for affordable housing, including $30 million to help build deeply affordable housing for Utahns earning no more than 30% of the area median income (in the Salt Lake metro area, that would be an annual income of about $25,450 for a family of two), $5 million more to the Olene Walker Housing Fund for low- to no-interest loans for affordable housing projects, and $10 million more to the Utah Housing Preservation Fund, which purchases affordable housing and ensures it remains affordable for an average of 20 more years.

The governor also wants $128 million to “stabilize” the current emergency homeless shelter system and find more shelter beds, plus nearly $8 million for behavioral health.

“I’m very optimistic we’ll have a successful session when it comes to housing attainability and affordability,” Cox said, adding that Utah’s mounting homelessness issues have been “deeply concerning to me,” particularly “lawlessness” and on-street camping.

Will the Utah Legislature fully fund housing, homelessness?

Cox hopes the lawmakers will fund his asks. In recent years the Legislature hasn’t fully funded what he’s sought, particularly when it comes to homelessness, though over the past two years lawmakers have infused significantly more into housing and homelessness issues than they have historically.

“I think what’s different this time is we finally have for the first time a comprehensive plan that shows where everything goes,” Cox said, along with accountability for homelessness dollars.

When asked about the governor’s proposals, both Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said housing will be a top priority this session, but whether the governor’s proposals get fully funded will be determined in the budgeting process.

They were also noncommittal when it came to homelessness.

“We don’t have the revenue we’ve had in years past,” due to the cooling economy and the end of federal stimulus money for COVID-19. “We’ll have to look at the budget,” Adams said.

Meanwhile, they’re more definitive on using $160 million already set aside dollars to cut taxes, most likely in the form of another income tax cut. They want to balance Utah’s budget priorities while also cutting taxes — something Adams said will “stimulate the economy” and “create additional tax revenue” in the future.

Some of the money Cox recommended for homelessness was already earmarked for transportation dollars from last year’s projections, Schultz said. “I can tell you right now the Legislature is adamantly opposed to taking that money away from transportation, especially when we have the Olympics coming to Utah.”

So “we’ll see,” Schultz said, though he added he is “really excited about what the governor is talking about” when it comes to housing.

Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, said she was encouraged to see the governor’s proposals for housing and homelessness. She said for too long homelessness initiatives have been concentrated in Salt Lake County, and the priority needs to be “spread across the state.”

Escamilla also applauded former Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, who is currently working as the State Homeless Coordinator, and Cox’s recent appointment of Steve Waldrip as the governor’s senior adviser for housing strategy and innovation.

“Investment is good,” she said, though she agreed it might be difficult to fund everything in Cox’s wish list. “There is limited funding, so that’s just our reality. As the ones who have to balance the budget, we have to deal with that.”

Senate Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, credited Cox and his administration for working with Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and other local leaders across the state when it comes to housing and homelessness issues. She said the state needs to focus on “providing services to our most vulnerable, and I don’t think it falls on the backs of just municipal leaders. The state has to definitely intervene because it is a state issue.”

That’s why Romero said the Legislature should first consider these priorities rather than give another tax break.

“I really have concerns about doing another tax break when we can be providing more resources for some of our most vulnerable members in our community,” Romero said, adding that an income tax cut would largely benefit higher earners more than middle- or low-income Utahns.

Asked about housing and homelessness during the Utah Taxpayers Association’s annual conference on Monday, Senate Majority Assistant Whip Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, said he’s been exploring finding a new revenue source to pay for homelessness issues, but he didn’t specify where that new funding would come from.

“We really do need to get an ongoing funding source to address some of this stuff so we can get them off the street, so we can require the cities to enforce their prohibition on unsanctioned camping,” Cullimore said. “Because that really is the very first thing. We’ve got to get them not camping on the streets. It’s not good for them. It’s not humane for them. It’s not good for our city. There are ways to better address it, but an ongoing funding source is going to be critical.”

Homelessness: Shelter beds, diversion court, civil commitment

Cox’s budget recommendation says Utah’s “current emergency shelter system lacks sufficient capacity for existing needs,” calling for additional emergency homeless shelters while also enabling cities to enforce no-camping ordinances.

His proposal also includes $25 million in one-time money to “develop new low-barrier emergency shelters,” including two “non-congregate shelters,” meaning facilities, like motels, that offer more privacy, two “low-barrier shelters,” such as 24/7 emergency shelters that possibly don’t require sobriety, resources for a statewide winter shelters, low-barrier shelter development and supporting cities that host emergency shelter sites.”

Several years ago, Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City underwent a grueling process to site three new homeless resource centers — which are up and running today but have operated at essentially maximum capacity since opening. Cox said he and other local officials are “always worried” about running into public pushback when searching for additional emergency shelter beds and “we’re working closely (with partners) to find the right spots.”

“But I have to say, we’ve had new space open up in West Valley and Sandy with pretty minimal pushback” recently, Cox said. “So (when) done the right way, in the right places with the right amount of funding … the impact to the community can be very much minimalized and those are some lessons we’ve learned.”

On homelessness, Adams said if there is significant funding it needs to be targeted toward treatment programs.

“Most of the data that I’ve seen says homeless shelters without treatment are not productive, so whatever we do we have to have the ongoing revenue for treatment. That will probably be where a lot of the conversation will be.”

Cox has recommended the state establish a pilot program called HOME Court, which would divert people with mental illness to treatment rather than the criminal justice system. That would cost about $10 million in one-time funds and $641,000 for an additional judge and court staff for the five-year program.

Cox also said Utah’s laws around civil commitment need to be changed to allow courts to be able to order people to be held longer for detox. He said the state’s current laws were written to sober up an alcoholic and not necessarily treat drug addicts. “To sober up an alcoholic is very different than to sober up somebody on fentanyl. You need more time and the laws don’t allow us more time. So we take people and then we release them quickly right back into the same thing, and it’s just not working.”

Bill Tibbitts, deputy executive director of Crossroads Urban Center, a nonprofit that helps low-income Utahns, said the governor’s recommendations would provide a “truly comprehensive approach,” and would “make a difference,” particularly funding for deeply affordable housing.

Tibbitts said he’s also encouraged that the governor is proposing additional shelter beds alongside empowering cities to enforce no-camping ordinances — though that issue is difficult and complex, as demonstrated by lawsuits in Utah and other states over whether cities can enforce anti-camping laws against homeless people sleeping in public places if they have no other place to stay.

“If we really want to see camping end, then we need to have places for people to go,” Tibbitts said.

Potential housing policy changes

Also expect policy discussions around housing. Last year, the Utah Legislature chewed around the edges of housing policy and favored a freer market approach with a slate of widely supported bills that streamlined and standardized regulations to help facilitate housing development.

This year, the state’s Commission on Housing Affordability has compiled a list of consensus policy items to consider. That list includes adopting a statewide building code for modular homes, using state infrastructure funding to increase housing production by helping fund road projects, using state funds to incentivize cities to plan for a variety of housing types, and more.

A recent legislative audit also warned “time is running short” for Utah policy makers to take action on the state’s housing crisis, calling on lawmakers to require the creation of a statewide strategic plan. Legislative auditors said Utah needs to build almost 28,000 units of housing to keep up with growth while also warning a future of only single-family homes and not higher-density housing would be a “recipe for trouble” as the state continues to grow.

That same audit recommended the Legislature also consider “upzoning,” or requiring local governments to allow more homes to be built on less land to increase density on a wide scale.

Asked about whether Utah should consider upzoning, Cox said, “We should look at zoning policies kind of writ-large and make sure that we have the right mix, the right incentives there.”

However, Cox said he wants to work “constructively with cities,” and not “hammer them.”

“I have no desire to come in and tell every city how they should zone everything. I would prefer not to do it that way,” Cox said. “Yet, every city has a role to play in this. And so, we can’t have certain cities say, ‘We’re just not into attainable housing. That’s somebody else’s problem.'”

Cameron Diehl, executive director of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, which represents the state’s local municipalities, applauded the governor’s focus on affordable housing and homelessness and said the League looks forward to working with legislators during the session.

Diehl, however, also stressed that cities only have so much influence over housing prices and that zoning is just one piece of the puzzle, noting that there are almost 200,000 housing units across Utah that have been entitled and yet not built.

“Cities have no control over market forces that are driving up housing costs such as interest rates, inflation, materials, labor, and land. In fact, we’ve calculated that cities have entitled more than 190,000 housing units across Utah that are currently not being built,” he said. “That means that cities have approved the density and the planning but the housing isn’t being built due to infrastructure needs, market forces, or the preference of the property owner.”

Diehl said there have also been examples where city councils have “zoned for small lots with the intent that the housing built on the small lots would be affordable,” but “unfortunately, the housing actually built on those small lots often consists of large houses that are not affordable.”

Meanwhile, Diehl said local leaders are also seeing “more and more housing that is built to be rental property instead of being built for owners.”

That’s something the governor said he’s also interested in tackling.

“One of the things I’m concerned about is building all these homes, and then having institutional buyers come in and buy them up and take them out of the housing stock or having them all turn into short-term rentals,” Cox said. “And then we just lose all that housing stock and we’re no better off than we were.”

Utah News Dispatch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news source covering government, policy and the issues most impacting the lives of Utahns.

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