LOGAN, Utah — There will soon be a place for people experiencing homelessness in northern Utah to stay warm.
In December, Nicole Burnard aims to open Cache Valley’s first emergency crisis response warming center.
“One night in particular, January 1st of this year, within two hours, we found, like, eight people sleeping in their cars. It was single-digit temperatures," she said. "And that was the moment that really motivated me to take action.”
Burnard named the center the William A. Burnard Warming Center in her grandfather’s memory.
“He had another injury, and he got prescribed opiates, and then there was some trouble in his marriage, and just one of those strings of unfortunate things," she said. "He ended up living out of his car, and he did die by suicide in 2003.”
The WAB Warming Center needs volunteers to keep it open every night from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. from mid-December to the end of March. During December and January, the Center will operate out of St. John’s Episcopal Church at 85 E. 100 North in downtown Logan and during February and March at the Cache Valley Veterans Center at 1760 N. 200 East, Unit 100, in North Logan.
"We want to save lives in the winter and help our most vulnerable community members," said Burnard. "There's not really any options here in northern Utah, here in Cache Valley.”
Although providing warmth and shelter can help the homeless survive this winter, Daniel Taylor with Utah's Nomad Alliance wants to see more permanent solutions in the state, like funding for tiny home projects or land for sanctioned camping.
“I think that if they had something to hope for, you know, a place to be able to go, a place to belong, a place to be able to have an actual start, that would be the answer," said Taylor.
Taylor knows what it’s like to not have a warm place to sleep on a cold Utah night.
“There's times where individuals will have a part-time job or an under-the-table position where they're just trying to get back on their feet, and the cops have come and done an abatement while they're at work and they come home to nothing," he said. "No blankets, no clothes, no anything.”
Taylor believes there are more people on Salt Lake City's streets than ever before.
“There's a lot of new faces that I haven't seen since I was homeless, and that was just, you know, about eight months ago," he said.
