Andi Beadles, executive director of the Weber Housing Authority, described the agency’s yearslong effort to combine housing with onsite case management for this vulnerable segment of the homeless population as “well thought out, well coordinated and well organized.”

Project funding totaling $3.79 million has come from three sources: $1.59 million from a “Deeply Affordable Housing Fund” grant, $1.2 million in financing from the Alliance Funding Group and $1 million from Utah’s Olene Walker Housing Trust Fund.

Beadles said they used part of the funding to purchase the Aspen Care Center at 2325 Madison Ave. in Ogden in September 2022.

Then the WHA began the city’s planning commission process, where their original plan met with a denial in December 2023.

“So we met with the Ogden City administration and they asked us to make some changes to the project and how it was going to be run,” Beadles said. “We decreased the number of units (from 32 to 25), increased staff and made some changes to the operations plan.”

In August 2024, their modified application gained approval as planning commission members decided it lined up with the city’s general plan.

“Then we were ready to submit the site plan when we got a letter from the City Council saying that we also needed a resolution from them to move forward — according to state statute,” Beadles said. “We were unaware of that.”

So the WHA began that process last fall, and Beadles presented project details to the City Council in early December in hopes it would find the “need for the county authority to exercise its powers within that city” and approve the resolution to move forward.

That didn’t happen. Instead, Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski asked for an extension to consider alternative locations for the facility. Public input again was taken during a Jan. 14 council session this year, but Nadolski said his staff still needed more time.

During a Feb. 18 council session, Nadolski spoke of options he’d discussed with both county and state leaders regarding the facility’s location.

“We’ve looked at getting an appraisal for the value of the property,” Nadolski said, leaning toward the city purchasing the Aspen Care Center property from the WHA to help make the agency financially whole.

Nadolski said he also favors relocating the project to a more acceptable location, “preferably in another city in the county,” noting that Ogden City has invested “tens of millions of dollars in neighborhood stabilization in that area” for more than a decade.

On Feb. 20, Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, introduced House Bill 532 that seemingly targets this particular project and could ensure its failure.

That measure moved quickly to the House Government Operations Committee where it might get a hearing by early next week and then would have to move quickly through the House and the Senate.

The 45-day legislative session ends by midnight March 7.

Beadles wrote Wilcox a letter stating the WHA’s objections to H.B. 532, calling the measure repetitive since state law already prohibits a county housing authority from operating in a city without that governing body’s approval, that it targets one specific project and also promotes a “not in my backyard” mentality.

Wilcox did not respond to requests for comment.

Now, $590,000 in grant funding earmarked for rehabilitation of the purchased property must be spent by June 30 or returned to the state and federal government.

Weber County Commissioner Gage Froerer serves on the WHA’s board and said he’s been working with Nadolski to find possible solutions that might be acceptable to both entities.

“I understand Ogden City’s position. It comes down to land use — they’ve been talking about it for a number of years,” Froerer said. “Population-wise, they feel they’re probably taking more than their share and that some of the other cities in the county should take on that responsibility. And I don’t disagree with that.”

However, the very services that the chronically homeless population needs to routinely tap are located in downtown Ogden, making it the sensible choice for people who lack transportation.

“So to say that they’re going to go to west Ogden or Hooper or somewhere out in West Haven — without services, I don’t think it solves the problem they’re looking for in terms of moving those people on a permanent basis,” Froerer said.

Froerer, a former state lawmaker, said he objects to Wilcox’s bill because “it’s one-issue legislation, which I don’t believe in.”

“Right now, state law allows a housing authority to transfer authority or development to an organization that is state sanctioned,” Froerer said of one option that had been discussed to salvage the project. “His bill would not allow that to happen, so it basically puts the Weber Housing Authority in a financial bind.”

The WHA has over $2 million wrapped up in the project, Froerer added, so selling the property to Ogden City could help it avoid bankruptcy and repercussions with the state over grant funding, but the project itself would likely go away.

“Obviously, the project doesn’t move forward under that scenario, but the Weber Housing Authority continues to exist,” he said.

Froerer said belated notice about the required city council approval “came as a surprise to a lot of us.”

“I think the (WHA) director had made inroads and received some verbal promises from the city, but obviously not all the T’s were crossed and the I’s dotted,” Froerer said. “But I think she felt she had an agreement with the previous administration anyway.”

Voters elected Nadolski as mayor in November 2023 and he replaced three-term Mayor Mike Caldwell in January 2024.

Beadles estimates that about 50 people would qualify for this specific project.

“It’s a population that you can’t just place into regular housing. They won’t be successful. You have to have the housing with the case management,” she said. “There’s a select few that are just too vulnerable … too easily taken advantage of to be in a scattered site model.”

In her presentation to the City Council, Beadles said the WHA has received administrative assistance from the county since 2008 but is “now poised to operate independently.” While it has a nonprofit arm, the agency is considered a public body.

WHO ARE THE CHRONICALLY HOMELESS?

A homeless person with a disability who lives in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven or in an emergency shelter and has been homeless for at least 12 months, or has at least four separate occasions of homelessness in the last three years (totaling one year).

SOURCE: https://www.huduser.gov and https://www.hudexchange.info