A tool developed by U students is about to make Utah’s efforts to end homelessness a lot easier.
Five graduate students in the City & Metropolitan Planning program began creating a map of homelessness last semester that identifies where homeless services are and where homeless individuals come from. The maps are currently on display at The Leonardo and in the hands of local community leaders, such as Salt Lake City mayor Jackie Biskupski.
“It’s already generated quite a bit of discussion,” said Christian Kirkham, a member of the group. “The map helped to serve as a conversation starter for a lot of those meetings.”
The project came out of an urban design studio class led by Soren Simonsen, an urban designer and visiting professor at the U. Simonsen’s students were studying homeless services in Utah when they realized a comprehensive map would be an effective solution.
“If anyone is experiencing homelessness or on the verge of that, knowing where services are located is invaluable,” Kirkham said.
The students also created a zip code map — a map showing the last residences of homeless individuals. The group discovered a high concentration from Ogden, west Provo, West Valley City, Salt Lake City and South Salt Lake, said Andy Hulka, graduate student and group member.
They received permission to publish the information from the Homeless Management Information System. Utah has received local and national attention because of programs, such as Housing First, that have greatly reduced the amount of homeless people in the state. Now, Hulka hopes the information will help city and county leaders find gaps and make improvements.
“Part of what we wanted to show is that even though we’ve had success, there is still a lot more to be done,” Hulka said. “We want to keep people interested while the issue is garnering so much attention.”
Ashley Cleveland, graduate student and group member, worked on the Housing First project with the Road Home last year as an AmeriCorps volunteer. While she believes they have made a lot of progress with the veteran and chronic homeless populations, she said it is time to focus on families, who constitute 45 percent of the homeless population.
“Right now you have children staying in a shelter with people who are sex offenders,” she said.
Seeing this, plus her own experience as a homeless child from age 9 until 16, Cleveland chose to design a new family shelter.
@carolyn_webber