OGDEN — Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski says it’s high time for other municipalities — both in and beyond Weber County — and states begin to step up in helping tackle homelessness.

He made this very clear during his State of the City speech and he is continuing to reiterate it long after.

“I am imploring our public to implore officials to hold everybody accountable to a standard of human kindness,” Nadolski told the Standard-Examiner. “There’s a humanitarian crisis all around us and we are letting too many cities, counties and states get way with not doing their part to help.”

He said that Ogden has stepped up in a way that has ultimately placed a disproportionate amount of the work on the city.

“What continues to happen for Ogden is that we are always innovating and delivering on needs and meeting the need here,” he said. “The more we meet the need, the more it allows others to get away with not doing their part.  We see it across the board in our homeless population that they’re coming from other places. And we’re trying ot meet the need for our people, yet when those officials don’t meet the need for their own people, they find that need somewhere, and they’re finding it here. So the more we achieve and accomplish for people, the more it creates a burden on top of us. We’re tired of it.”

Nadolski said that this is overwhelming those who do provide such services in Ogden.

“At some point, state and federal officials have to stand up and require everybody participate more,” he said. “Currently, cities across the state are cutting a check that go to the cities that do have a homeless shelter and it’s not enough. I have mayors tell me all the time that is a check they’re more than happy to write.”

Nadolski said, that, in spite of him bringing this up during this month’s State of the City Address, none of the officials from other municipalities or the state approached him about it afterward.

“They know,” he said.

With the 2026 legislative session getting under way in Utah, Nadolski said he’s spoken with legislators about the situation in Ogden.

“The more they learn about what the work we do in Ogden, the more the impressed they are and the more they want to model a lot of the things at the state level after what we do,” he said. “That’s very heartening. It sounds like it’s going to be a major topic of focus with the legislature and the governor this year. We are pushing the same message that we need other cities stepping up.”

He said that it will ultimately take being compelled to do so for other municipalities to take on their own burden of the homeless issue.

“If you ask, they won’t do,” he said. “When we beg, of course they’re not going to do it. When they’re required to, they will.”

However, he said there are examples of other cities stepping up to the challenge.

“I do want to give credit where credit’s due,” he said. “Just this (past) year, in 2025, Harrisville City stepped up and they built Family Promise of Ogden.”

For the time being, Nadolski said that the city will keep up services the best it can.

“We’ll continue to push for common sense,” he said. “We’ll continue to push for meeting people where they’re at, meaning having that full spectrum of services and that we don’t go ‘all in’ to arresting people out of homelessness nor do we go ‘all in’ to not holding people accountable.”