Senator Jim Dabakis launched a campaign to eliminate sales tax on food at our Poverty Summit on Saturday

On Saturday, August 26, 2017 over 80 people gathered at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark in downtown Salt Lake City for our fourteenth annual Poverty Summit.  The highlight of this fun and productive event was a speech from Senator Jim Dabakis in which he announced that he is going to sponsor a bill eliminating the sales tax on food in Utah and challenged everyone in the room to help him get it passed.

Most states do not tax food because most people see that it is inherently unfair to tax the purchase of basic life necessities.  Low income families that are already struggling to pay for  and higher rents cannot afford to have the price of food increased by three percent.  We are grateful that Senator Dabakis is willing to take this important issue on.

Other highlights from the Summit include:

•  Motivational and inspiring opening remarks from Rev. Vinnetta Golphin-Wilkerson from Granger Community Christian Church.

•  Andrew Riggle being awarded the Hellraiser Award for his tireless efforts this year and in past years to make Utah a better place.

•  A panel on what Salt Lake City can do to promote the creation of low income housing this year featuring City Council Member Erin Mendenhall, City Housing Authority Daniel Nackerman, and the director of the City's Division of Housing and Neighborhood Development, Melissa Jensen.  The City Council is going to begin discussing Mayor Biskupski's five year housing plan next month and so this was a very timely discusssion.

•  A panel discussion on how we can measure the successes and failures of efforts to change homeless services in Salt Lake County featuring Leah Farrell from the ACLU of Utah, longtime community activist Deeda Seed, and Bill Tibbitts from Crossroads Urban Center. 



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