FRUIT HEIGHTS, Utah — Code blue warming centers are a controversial issue in Davis County.
Tucked in a neighborhood in Fruit Heights, is Mountain Road Church.
"We are all willing to do something to help somewhere. But we have to be smart about it and safe about it,” explained Mary Monson, who lives in Fruit Heights.
This church was designated as a code blue warming center in Davis County, to help those experiencing homelessness.
"By law, we need to respond by having a certain amount of beds available, where people can go in extreme cold situations, that's 18 degrees and below,” said Wayne Niederhauser, state homelessness coordinator.
It caused division in this tight-knit community. Some neighbors like Monson said they want to help those experiencing homelessness, but are worried about the impacts on homes close by. And feel like the city was not transparent with them about the process.
"My number one concern is the safety of my community,” said Monson. “You bring in 16 or 18, you cannot force someone to stay in a building, you cannot force them back on a bus, they have constitutional rights, they are able to walk the streets, and they would break into buildings, break into homes.”
Niederhauser said last year, code blue centers were only open for about 32 or 35 days, and they did not have any safety issues. "We want to make sure all the community is safe. Our first priority is to get people off the street, safe from frostbite and potential death,” he added.
On Wednesday night, Fruit Heights City hosted a public meeting to explain this plan to residents. It was a packed room, and that’s when Pastor Don Krafft announced that the church would no longer be a warming center.
He shared this statement with FOX 13 from the church:
“Fruit Heights has many wonderful and compassionate people who have done humanitarian works in our community. We withdrew as a warming center as we dug deeper into the safety protocols in place and felt we needed more support. We deeply encourage our fellow Utahns to help the needy and homeless as they are able, as we at mountain road church will do.”
"I thought it was extremely brave of him to step up and say, we have made a terrible mistake, we love our neighbors and want to be good neighbors,” said Monson.
"And so consequently, we will be looking at probably some county or state buildings in Davis County,” added Niederhauser. "They're set up to hit the road running once a location is secured."
At Thursday night's Kaysville city council meeting, officials discussed opening a code blue shelter here.
"I'll do everything in my power to prevent that because we don’t feel like Kaysville is the right location to host a facility like this, I still believe that, I still believe that that’s true, our council agrees,” said Kaysville Mayor, Tamara Tran.
The city said they proposed having a warming bus instead, which the state did not agree to that. Now, the county emissions building in Kaysville is shortlisted as a warming center. Residents also spoke during public comment -- some against the shelter. "This is my neighborhood, I am right down the street, and I’m very concerned,” said one resident.
Others in support of being part of the solution. "As a resident of Kaysville, I’m actually in favor of the code blue housing. I think it’s a way that our community can contribute,” added another.
Hoping that whatever does come next, helps everyone.
