On Saturday, October 22, Crossroads Urban Center and the Coalition of Religious Communities joined in the Rally for Homeless Babies outside the Utah Governor's Mansion. The rally was organized because 78 families with children were turned away from the homeless shelter in Salt Lake County last month and the resources currently available to address this crisis are not sufficient to give every child a place indoors to get out of the cold.
At the rally we called on Governor Cox to declare this crisis to be an emergency and to call a special session of the Utah Legislature to address the suffering it is causing. To fully solve this emergency our state needs to dedicate $5 million to increase the number of motel vouchers and case management services for families with children that are experiencing homelessness. To prevent this emergency from happening again in future years Utah needs to spend $5 million to convert a motel into a noncongregate shelter for homeless families and $10 million to spur the creation of supportive housing for families headed by parents with disabling conditions.
$20 million is a small percentage of Utah's current budget surplus. Keeping children indoors this winter and shoring up our shelter system for homeless families for future years will be worth the money. This is a solvable problem!
At the rally we called on Governor Cox to declare this crisis to be an emergency and to call a special session of the Utah Legislature to address the suffering it is causing. To fully solve this emergency our state needs to dedicate $5 million to increase the number of motel vouchers and case management services for families with children that are experiencing homelessness. To prevent this emergency from happening again in future years Utah needs to spend $5 million to convert a motel into a noncongregate shelter for homeless families and $10 million to spur the creation of supportive housing for families headed by parents with disabling conditions.
$20 million is a small percentage of Utah's current budget surplus. Keeping children indoors this winter and shoring up our shelter system for homeless families for future years will be worth the money. This is a solvable problem!
