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Weber Housing Authority Executive Director Andi Beadles, center, speaks with attendees at an open house for WHA's planned permanent supportive housing project on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

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People gather for an open house at Aspen Village on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. The Weber Housing Authority is proposing turning the former assisted living facility into permanent supportive housing for homeless clients.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

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OGDEN — A decision on a permanent supportive housing facility meant to serve those experiencing chronic homelessness with a diagnosed disability will have to wait.

During its special meeting on Tuesday, the Ogden City Council voted 6-0 to extend the resolution granting the Weber Housing Authority permission to move forward with a project to turn a former assisted living facility into a shelter for those experiencing homelessness to another date.

The Weber Housing Authority bought what had been Aspen Assisted Living on Madison Avenue in 2019. The goal is to assist up to 25 individuals at a time with living space in the facility. Due to questions from the public and the city, the WHA hosted an open house Monday night ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

WHA Executive Director Andi Beadles told the Standard-Examiner on Monday night that the housing style is rental assistance paired with case management.

“The case management is what makes a project like this successful,” she said. “This facility will have three full-time case managers and two resident managers that will make sure all of the needs of the clients are being met.”

She said this would be a departure from the current model the WHA has employed.

“We do currently offer a scattered-site model,” she said. “Littered throughout the county with private landlords, we offer the same project, just at different locations.”

Beadles said a tragedy and an assessment of other individuals in the system made WHA look at alternative models.

“A few years ago, after one of our well-known homeless individuals died on the street, we found that some of our participants could not be successful in that scattered-site model. We started looking for a location for a single-site model,” she said. “We’ve been running the scattered-site program since 2009.”

She said the WHA has been responsive to the city’s questions about turning the property into permanent supportive housing.

“We heard what they said at the work session — we heard that they wanted to hear from neighbors and that they wanted to get a sense of why this location,” she said. ‘We listened, we responded, we put this event together so that we could educate — not only the City Council members, but also the community.”

Beadles said most of the neighbors near the project that she has spoken with have expressed positive thoughts about it.

Several supporters of the project were on hand for Thursday’s meeting while others still had questions and concerns about the project.

Council Chair Ken Richey said many of the concerns of those on the council stem from the location while also recognizing a need for such housing in the community.

“The general feeling as we’re continuing to ask the questions is not necessarily questioning the value of the Weber Housing Authority and the permanent supportive housing project,” Richey said. “It’s really more concern on the location. It’s not even necessarily the location itself; it’s more the fact that there’s such a high concentration of group homes in that area and just trying to understand what kind of an impact that may have on that area where we’re looking to see revitalization in such a historically important neighborhood in our community.”

He said the city is seeking a “win-win” solution.

Mayor Ben Nadolski said more time is needed to assess whether the location is the right one or not.

“We could just come back and say this is the right location or it is the only location,” he said. “But we really haven’t had that opportunity in full like we would wish. And having not had that full opportunity, it’s just hard to know that there aren’t any others, so if we could just have some time to go through the process and either come up with valid alternatives to fast-track and to put into place that would alleviate a lot of the concerns that we’re hearing tonight, I think that would be great. But, it would also be really valuable if we went through the same process and there aren’t any other options.”

He said there is one goal.

“At the end of the day, our collective goal is to make sure that as many people as possible who need housing are housed — that’s the goal — but doing it in a way that is protective and thoughtful and strategic around stabilizing a neighborhood,” he said.

The Standard-Examiner reached out to both the Ogden City Council and Beadles for comment on the extension and when further consideration may be given on Wednesday but received no response as of press time.

For more on the supportive housing project, visit https://aspenvillage.my.canva.site/.