SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The second of three new homeless resource centers that will replace the Road Home shelter will be ready for service this upcoming week.
The center held an open house Friday and will be a new model for caring for the homeless in Salt Lake City. It’s named after Gail Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz and a long-time supporter of homeless services.
“It’s designed with the idea that it will radiate light and provide hope for some of our brothers and sisters experiencing their most difficult days,” said Miller, owner and chairman of the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies.
The Gail Miller Resource Center will serve men and women experiencing homelessness and provide a place where couples can go and find resources and hope.
“I believe our generation’s moonshot challenge should be to solve the housing crisis,” said Matt Melville, Catholic Community Services Director of Homeless Services.
The next step in that goal is the opening of the Gail Miller Resource Center in the Ballpark community.
The 68,000 square-foot modern facility has 200 beds: 160 for men and 40 for women. It opens this week.
“We’ll accept couples,” Melville said. “We’ll accept single individuals here. So, it’s a great opportunity for all of these people to come in.”
It is not a final destination. It is a place to direct people to vital services and get them back into housing quickly and sustainably.
“It’s a new beginning because these resource centers will be very different than the way homeless this has been handled in the past,” Miller said.
The Gail Miller Resource Center is where homeless couples can go to find job resources and find hope for the next chapter in life. They sleep in different areas, but they can get together and work with case managers on finding permanent employment and housing. The three new resource centers are expected to replace the services provided now at the Road Home Shelter in downtown Salt Lake City.
“It’s just a different opportunity for them,” Miller said. “We’re not going to warehouse them. They will have opportunities to grow and develop and build skills to go back to where they came from and be happy, healthy people.”
Miller said she’s honored to have the building named after her, but more important to her is that many people have worked so hard to prepare the center for service. It’s a mission that stirred her emotionally.
“I guess because it’s my time,” Miller said. “I’m at a place in my life where I can do this.”
She urged everyone to find a way to help this cause.
“It’s really important that we help each other because if we don’t do it, who will?” she said. “And, if we don’t show the next generation how to do it, will they take it on? So. That’s why.”
BY JED BOAL, KSL TV
