SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — A mental health provider says she stopped admitting people to an intensive outpatient program after a dispute with her landlord, the Housing Authority of Salt Lake City, over plans for her treatment space.
Aimee Hadfield, founder of Hearten House, said she needs a clear construction plan and timeline before she can promise clients that their treatment won’t be interrupted. The Housing Authority’s executive director calls the situation a lease dispute and said Hearten House is refusing to honor an agreement to share a room.
Hadfield contacted FOX 13 News after seeing the station’s reporting on problems at senior housing properties managed by the authority.
Hearten House uses art, movement and other experiential therapies to help people work through trauma. Hadfield said the work is personal: She has lost people to addiction and mental health concerns.
Earlier this year, she moved the practice into the historic Oquirrh School at 350 S. 400 East, hoping the larger space would allow Hearten House to provide more services simultaneously.
The practice subleases the third floor from the Housing Authority. The written agreement also says one room will be shared and gives the authority the right to use it for board meetings.
Hadfield said she understood the room would be used for those meetings. But on Sept. 22, she said, two contractors entered the room while she was alone inside preparing to record a course. The door was marked “occupied,” she said.
“It is labeled on the outside therapy room 2, and it was marked occupied, and they just walked right in,” Hadfield told FOX 13 News.
Hadfield said the contractors told her they planned to gut the room and remodel a kitchen for the Housing Authority. She said she had not been told about those plans.
The sublease says the Housing Authority may enter with reasonable notice, except in an emergency.
Hadfield said she contacted the authority about her concerns, and a meeting was arranged. But a week after the first encounter, she said, a contractor returned while she was preparing a client for a trauma therapy session.
She said she asked the authority for the scope and timing of the proposed construction so the practice could plan around it.
In an Oct. 21 email reviewed by FOX 13 News, Hadfield told the Housing Authority that Hearten House had paused admissions for a month because it still lacked clear answers about the construction timeline and scope.
Executive director Daniel Nackerman responded that evening, writing that the shared room would be scheduled carefully and remodeled “soon.” He described the work as “nothing major” and said it would be kept toward the end of the process. His email did not provide a specific date. He also suggested a lease addendum to describe a scheduling system.
Hadfield said the uncertainty led her to stop admitting people to the intensive outpatient program, which she said lasts eight to 16 weeks.
“It would be unethical and unsafe for me to admit people to an 8- to 16-week program, promising them confidentiality, promising them safety, promising them continuity, and then break those promises,” she said.
Hadfield said clients already participating were allowed to finish. She and Syd Sneddon, Hearten House’s director of programming and experiences, estimated that about a dozen people seeking the program have been placed on a waitlist or turned away.
Sneddon said some were leaving inpatient care and looking for additional support. She said she was not part of the admissions team and could not say exactly what each person was told.
In a response to FOX 13 News, Nackerman described the situation as a “minor lease dispute.” He said Hearten House agreed to share the room and was refusing to honor the lease.
FOX 13 News followed up with questions about the contractors and the lack of a specific construction timeline. The Housing Authority did not respond to those additional questions.
Hadfield said no remodeling has occurred. She said she is waiting for a clear plan and timeline so she can decide what comes next for the practice.