Frequently Asked Questions

For many, it takes more than housing to overcome years of homelessness. Lasting healing and change require immersing oneself in a new community, overcoming unhealthy habits used to cope with stress on the streets, gaining new problem-solving skills, and developing habits that help achieve one’s potential. Some have misinterpreted “Housing First” research to mean the provision of housing with no expectations.
We believe that the same conditions that lead to a fulfilling life for the rest of the world apply to the chronically homeless as well. We all need social support, meaningful work, safety, peers who hold us accountable to healthy norms and a sense of purpose in order to thrive. Few people would ever achieve their potential if they weren’t embedded in a community that expected something of them. The Other Side Village is simply a healthy community that helps people learn to live in a healthy community.
Safe and beautiful housing is a necessary but insufficient ingredient to lasting change.

The Other Side Village was founded by the same leaders who built The Other Side Academy. While the Academy serves many who have been homeless as well, the Village will also include those with mental and other health challenges–people who are not served by the Academy. Both communities share the core governing philosophy that people heal and thrive through community and connection.
The two organizations are legally and operationally separate. While students of The Other Side Academy made the first $50,000 donation to help fund the Village, the finances of the two organizations are kept entirely separate as well.
Also, while the same Therapeutic Community principles will be used in the Village, the way they are implemented is adapted to the unique needs of the populations they serve.

It is not about “tiny homes.” Some communities have built tiny home neighborhoods that became tiny slums in short order. The most important part of The Other Side Village is the culture. It is a community with strong social norms that are maintained by the neighbors themselves. This culture facilitates connection, invites personal growth, and maintains a safe and beautiful community. Positive social norms are what brings out the best in all of us. The Villages norms, based on our shared beliefs, invite all to strive to achieve their potential, allowing them the dignity of being part of the solution, not just a problem to be solved. Work and self-improvement are fundamental principles of happiness.
As all are invited to contribute at the level of their ability, The Other Side Village will remain prosperous, safe, and strong.

For decades in Utah, we’ve wrung our hands about what to do with criminal offenders with long histories of addiction. Who would have thought that the solution was to have 150 longtime felons move into a home in downtown Salt Lake City? And yet, in 2015, that is exactly what began.

Since then, The Other Side Academy has become one of Utah’s gems – a model of citizenship, cleanliness, professionalism, and integrity. The students you see here have been arrested an average of 25 times. And yet when racial tension erupted into riots in downtown Salt Lake City in the summer of 2020, it was students of The Other Side Academy who rushed to the scene to clean up. When police spent sleepless nights preparing for civil unrest, it was students of The Other Side Academy who brought them coffee and encouragement.

When the Salt Lake City Council was considering whether to give The Other Side Academy permission to remain in its downtown location, over fifty neighbors turned out to say that the neighborhood was better because they were there. And the police officials gave a report that crime had actually gone down since we moved into the neighborhood.

And amazingly, all of this was done without any government funds. Students of The Other Side Academy pay their own way by running some of the most respected businesses in the state.

For decades in Utah, we’ve wrung our hands about how to help the growing number of people experiencing homelessness in our cities. We believe the same principles that have enabled students at The Other Side Academy to create a model community point the way to what must be done. While those experiencing chronic homelessness face different challenges than TOSA students, we contend that there are universal principles for creating healthy communities that give us a responsibility to step in.

Why? Because we understand what it is to be marginalized. We understand what it takes to become self-reliant. We have experience creating a peer community with strong values and shared accountability. The Other Side Village is a self-reliant, peer-led village that provides a safe, dignified, and uplifting life for people who are chronically unsheltered, and which brings them and the larger community into mutually ennobling relationships. Just like The Other Side Academy.

No, The Other Side Village provides high-quality, permanent housing. Any individual who qualifies can live in the Village permanently, providing they pay their rent, abide by civil law and follow the rules of the community. The Village is a community that serves the needs of those that experience homelessness chronically and who may have severe mental and physical disabilities with long-term support needs. Our facilities are designed to meet each resident’s needs for the rest of their lives, should they choose.

A broad range of services will be available on-site to our residents with facilities designed specifically to accommodate their unique needs. Services will be accessible to those with disabilities. Access to high-quality services is at the heart of our community. These services will include:

• Full-time behavioral health case managers 
• Primary healthcare service
• Work opportunities through The Other Side Village Social Enterprises
• Regular farmer’s markets to provide residents with healthy, nutritious, and free vegetables harvested from the Village’s main gardens 
• Employment opportunities
• Supportive community services and activities

The homes in the Village are beautiful, affordable, and accessible for those with disabilities. Homes provide 250 to 400 square feet of livable space, including a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom with a shower, and a kitchen with all the appliances. Our standard for home building is that it must be a place that anyone would be happy to live in.

The Other Side Village will be designed for safety. But design elements like biometric-controlled access to neighborhoods and camera surveillance are secondary methods. The primary method for maintaining safety in any community is for every citizen to be vigilant in addressing even the smallest of risks. From their first experience in the Welcome Neighborhood (the intensive and supportive orientation program that will help new neighbors learn the succeed in Village life), new neighbors will learn their responsibility to identify and take action to address things that compromise the safety of the community. We believe that if people feel comfortable routinely addressing little things (like litter, neglect of community property or any antisocial behavior), bigger things (crime, drug dealing, theft or violence) are far less likely to occur. 

It is this very neighborly culture that accounts for the fact that The Other Side Academy is one of the safest places in Salt Lake City. In spite of the fact that the campus houses those with long criminal histories coming from rival gangs, there has never been an act of violence on campus. This is also why adult probation and parole has never reported a dirty drug test administered to our students – all of whom have long histories of addiction. We are proud to say we are safer and soberer than a BYU dorm! And the reason is that we are all responsible for and to one another. 

We commit to making The Other Side Village the safest place in our new neighborhood as well.

Individuals living in The Other Side Village are required to follow three primary community covenants. Residents must:

1. Pay rent on time.
2. Abide by civil law.
3. Follow the rules of the community itself (similar to HOA or Homeowners Association for a neighborhood).

The Other Side Village offers permanent supportive housing for those who experience chronic homelessness, including those with one or more serious disabilities. The only requirement is that new neighbors eventually be capable of living independently. We define chronic homelessness as any person with a disability who has been living in a place not meant for human habitation for the last 12 months continuously or on multiple occasions that cumulatively total at least 12 months.

In healthy communities and safe neighborhoods, 95% of problems aren’t handled by the police, they’re handled by the community. The Other Side Village will work the same way. In six years of operation, The Other Side Academy has had no dirty drug tests, no acts of violence, and has maintained great relationships with its neighbors because the students of the Academy are the first line of responsibility for keeping things peaceful, safe, and clean. Here’s how it will work at the Village:

1. Peers are the first line of defense. Different from most neighborhoods, ours will be a Village where everyone is in everyone else’s business. People will speak up when they see problems. We will offer reminders and corrections to each other when someone is getting off track. The Village is organized into neighborhoods of 25-30 homes. All these homes form a ring around a central gathering place. This structure encourages interaction and increases awareness of the needs and challenges of neighbors. In addition, new neighbors will be trained to speak up and maintain strong community norms.
2. Village leaders get involved next. For problems that can’t be solved between neighbors, there will be Neighbor Councils. Each neighborhood has a Tribe Leader and Tribe Aid. These are peers who agree to take leadership responsibility within their neighborhood. These leaders are trained in “Restorative Justice” – a problem-solving process through which those who are wronged can be heard, and amends can be made. If someone behaves in ways that offend or hurt a neighbor, they will be required to participate in a Neighbor Council to address it.
3. Civil authorities are called whenever needed. If the offense is of a criminal nature, the police will be called first. If someone breaks a law, we will immediately report it to the police.

When people live in a community with strong and obvious norms, they behave much better than when we don’t. We will have problems. But we will have ways of solving them that are far faster and more effective than most neighborhoods because of our Village culture.

We are committed to ensuring that the site is safe for residential living and as a workplace. We have already done a number of environmental tests on the site and we continue to do additional testing until we are satisfied that this is a safe and healthy place.

In looking at the site, there is the historic landfill that was used from 1920 to 1962. This western portion of the site is the elevated portion on the parcel along the west side, adjacent to I-215. The landfill has been dormant for the last 60 years and has 5 feet of fill over the top of the landfill. We do not plan to build any housing or offices on the westside landfill portion of the parcel.

The east side of the parcel is largely native soil with some green waste at the southern and northern ends of the parcel. We plan to build the housing on the east side of the parcel and avoid building on the western landfill portion.

To date, none of the test results has disqualified the eastern portion of the site from being considered as a viable site. 

We have hired Terracon to do our Environmental Testing. In a recent report, Terracon stated: 

The results show the native materials on the east side of the site have not been impacted above residential screening levels. Although we did pick up arsenic in every sample, these are actually pretty typical levels for Salt Lake valley and are generally considered by the regulatory community to be naturally occurring and therefore, not subject to corrective action. 

Terracon did identify a location that had some localized contamination and they are putting together a remediation plan to remove the soil from this small area but found no widespread contamination across the eastern portion.

We continue to do further testing as well as work closely with local and state regulatory agencies, including the Salt Lake City Office of Sustainability and the Utah State Department of Environmental Quality. As we do continued testing, if we find anything that makes the site not viable for humans that cannot be safely remediated, we will abandon this site and pursue other locations.

Our testing and remediation will be supervised by the Utah State Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) under their Voluntary Cleanup Program. If we complete all their requirements for remediation, we will receive a Certificate of Compliance from DEQ. Based on the testing we have completed to date, we believe there are only a few localized areas of contamination that we need to address, but we will do much more extensive testing under the supervision of DEQ to confirm the areas that will require remediation. We will abandon the property if it can not be made safe for residential use.

No. Neighbors should expect that their neighborhood will be safer, cleaner, and more beautiful because of our presence. This is exactly what has happened since The Other Side Academy moved into downtown Salt Lake City with similar values and a similar culture to what will exist in the Village. It is also what has happened since Community First! Began building a village for formerly homeless individuals that will ultimately have over 1,500 tiny homes in it. The crime rate has dropped, neighbors are regular visitors to these campuses, and property values have been enhanced.

Yes, we do! The Village will have a robust set of services offered to residents, which will include continuing education and job training. Residents who choose to work in our social enterprises will be matched to jobs according to their needs and skills.

The Other Side Village is geared towards helping those who have been chronically unsheltered (for a year or more). New residents apply individually and participate in a residential Village Prep School for a few weeks or months. In the Village Prep School, candidates receive robust support in the form of mental health treatment, medical treatment, financial counseling, and other services. In addition, they develop habits of self-care and community engagement that set them up for success once they move into their permanent home. 

The size of Village homes and the need for individualized attention are not adapted for family participation. Unsheltered families have access to a number of resources that unsheltered singles typically do not. This is why The Village focuses on the needs of unsheltered single individuals. Those who are in adult relationships are asked to apply individually. Once settled in the Village, they are in a position to resume or establish relationships that enhance their lives.

All applications to the Village will be individual — couples will be invited to apply individually and once both are accepted they can request to live together. These requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

We invite donations from foundations, corporations, and private citizens to cover the capital costs of building out the Village. The City of Salt Lake is in the decision-making process to offer a site through a deeply discounted long-term lease. We are also raising funds to cover our operational costs until we can break even through our social enterprises. Once we launch and are in operation, we plan on reaching self-sufficiency to cover our operational expenses through the revenues generated from our social enterprises so we do not have to be reliant upon ongoing donations or operational funds for donations.