so according to our content sharing
partners at the salt lake tribune
moab's housing crisis is making it
harder to get people experiencing
homelessness
off the streets they also report that
tourism is contributing to the
housing crunch it's pushing people out
of homes and making it more difficult
to get them housed jim winter mob's
former police chief told the trib that
his
this growing homeless population is also
in dire need of mental health
and addiction services we want to go in
depth on this so we're joined
live via zoom by taylor stevens who
worked on this story for the tribune
taylor thanks for joining us let's
let's just start by we don't usually
associate a a smaller town
like moab with a homelessness and
housing crisis so
where is this coming from why moab
well moab like the rest of utah is
seeing
some of the housing crunch just from the
general
growth that we're seeing in utah but in
moab
a lot of the factors have to do with
tourism a lot of
second homes out there a lot of
you know tourist accommodations driving
up prices
and so that is having an impact on some
of the folks who
maybe are lower income and even on the
city's workforce we talked to moab's
police chief for example who said that
they had to have a few of their
potential officers turn down jobs
because they could not find any housing
in the city
yeah it's um you know yeah it is some of
that
it seems like you almost have to
separate um two
issues there when you talk about a
homeless issue as compared with
people who are who are employed
seeking housing often homeless people
are employed i know but is
is there uh is there this kind of
two-pronged
problem they're dealing with you know i
think
that the issue impacts both groups in
similar ways
however the community is really
concerned that it's particularly
impacting the workforce right now
because you know their services that
power moab those employees can't find
any housing but the homelessness is
additionally an issue
and one that i don't know many people
associate with
moab often it's not a gigantic
homelessness population there
they recently found about 30 people
during their point in time
count but that is a sizable increase
over last year so we are starting to see
some of these pressures
balloon and if it doesn't you know get
managed sooner than later
then officials worry that it could
become a bigger problem in the area
and what kind of services exists down
there for
the homeless population so there's no
shelter like we have
in the salt lake valley so many people
are sort of relying on a motel and hotel
system
however with the rising tourism hotels
and motel prices have
increased as well and so it's more
difficult to
you know get people off of the streets
on really cold nights really hot days in
moab
additionally there are some limited
services
but what we're hearing from service
providers is that they often have to
send people up north and you know
for further resources particularly
mental health and addiction
services because they're just aren't the
resources in grand county and in the
moab area
is is there do they have a a sense of
why moab um why there is a homeless
population there that you wouldn't
expect in a
in a smaller community is it is it
because it's just kind of a desirable
area that draws people
or or are is is it people who are from
there who have just
fallen on hard times it's both but what
we know about
homelessness in utah is that it's not an
issue that's just isolated to the salt
lake valley although that's how we often
talk about it
there are people experiencing
homelessness up and down the state and
it makes sense that they would be in a
place like moab
the problem is that there's not much
community awareness
to the issue of homelessness in other
areas
we recently also did some reporting on
homelessness in utah county and that
surprised a lot of people that there
were people experiencing homelessness
there
so this really is a statewide problem
and we're seeing all of the issues that
coalesce in salt lake are impacting
these smaller communities as well
but often without as many social safety
nets and social safety
supports in the community i wonder if as
you're talking with folks if anyone
mentioned the the proliferation of these
uh
rent out your own space kind of services
the airbnbs
the vrbo's those kinds of things where
where some of the housing
stock is taken up by these kinds of
vacation rental services things that
might otherwise be available
to people who who were looking for a
place to rent
while they lived there yeah people are
certainly concerned about that we told
we spoke to one man who lives in his car
and he had previously been living in a
mobile home park
but the property owner raised the mobile
homes that were there
in favor of overnight accommodations for
rvs
and so we know firsthand that there are
people who have been displaced because
of the tourism in moab
there is a moratorium on new airbnbs of
course there are some that are
grandfathered in and it's difficult
to enforce existing rules around
prohibitions on airbnbs and other
overnight rentals
so you know the community does feel that
there has been work
made toward staving off some of those
impacts
however you know it still stands that
there are many
uh second homes here the zoom boom
has come to moab where people you know
move in and want to live in moab and
work remotely and so we see all of these
impacts
sort of coalescing in moab right now
taylor stevens with the salt lake
tribune
really appreciate you taking this time
for us thank you
thanks for having me