Frequently
Asked Questions

At The Other Side Village, we believe the ingredients for a fulfilling life are universal. Everyone benefits from meaningful relationships, purposeful work, personal accountability, safety, and a sense of belonging. Healthy communities create environments where people are supported, challenged, and encouraged to become their best selves. The same is true for individuals emerging from chronic homelessness.

The biggest difference is that we are intentionally human-centered, not just housing-centered. Traditional systems often focus on service delivery—getting someone housed, connected to benefits, or assigned a case manager. Those things matter, but we believe transformation happens primarily through peer relationships, shared responsibility, meaningful work, and community culture.

At The Other Side Village, neighbors aren’t just recipients of services; they become active participants in a community. We emphasize accountability, contribution, employment, recovery support, and relationship-building. The goal isn’t simply to help people survive—it’s to help people thrive and be able to maintain self-sufficiency.

While housing is an essential foundation, we believe true stability comes when people have opportunities to grow, contribute, and connect with others.

That is why The Other Side Village is designed to be more than just housing. It is a democratic therapeutic community where neighbors help one another build stability, purpose, and connection. Safe and permanent housing is a critical first step—but lasting transformation happens when housing is paired with community.

At The Other Side Village, being trauma-informed does not mean eliminating discomfort or shielding people from life’s challenges. Instead, it means creating enough safety, connection, and support for individuals to gradually build resilience, emotional regulation, and confidence in their ability to navigate everyday life. Research shows that avoiding discomfort often increases anxiety and distress over time, while healing occurs when people are supported through manageable challenges and discover they are capable of overcoming them.

Our approach combines safety and stabilization with a “Community as Therapy” model that emphasizes relationships, accountability, and belonging. Through supportive connections, meaningful participation in community life, and opportunities to develop practical and interpersonal skills, residents learn to manage daily responsibilities, build healthy relationships, and regain a sense of purpose. Rather than focusing immediately on past trauma, we prioritize helping individuals develop stability, coping skills, and community connections, creating a strong foundation for long-term healing, growth, and recovery.

Importantly, we believe trauma-informed does not mean “expectation-free.” We believe people heal best in environments that combine compassion with accountability, support with responsibility, and autonomy with community. The goal is not simply to help people survive, but to help them rediscover dignity, stability, and long-term belonging.

Most people arrive carrying a tremendous amount of loss, distrust, and survival behavior. Early on, the focus is helping people feel safe, welcomed, and connected to community. From there, individuals begin engaging in the rhythms of life—work opportunities, meetings, shared responsibilities, peer support, and relationship-building.

What makes the biggest difference is the culture. People are surrounded by others who have lived experience, who understand struggle, but who also challenge each other to grow. The peer culture creates both support and accountability. Over time, people begin shifting from surviving day-to-day to seeing themselves as contributors, neighbors, leaders, and community members again.

Prep School participants (“Neighbors”) live in a structured residential educational and personal development program. Their participation in social enterprises is an integral part of a hands-on curriculum designed to teach work ethic, accountability, leadership, communication, and personal responsibility. In exchange, neighbors receive housing, meals, transportation assistance, coaching, mentorship, life skills education, financial literacy training, workforce development, recovery support, and a highly structured community environment focused on helping them achieve long-term stability and self-sufficiency.

The social enterprises operate as a work-based educational program where productive work is the classroom and personal transformation is the curriculum. Revenue generated through these enterprises helps support and sustain Village programming and operations, but their primary purpose is to provide meaningful opportunities for neighbors to practice teamwork, customer service, leadership, problem-solving, build confidence and accountability in real-world settings. Unlike a traditional job, where the primary goal is compensation, the Prep School uses work as a tool for education, growth, and transformation.

Participation in the Prep School is entirely voluntary and requires a high-level commitment to personal growth and community engagement. We believe meaningful work builds confidence, purpose, discipline, and self-respect while preparing individuals for long-term employment and independent living. The ultimate goal is not simply housing or a job, but helping people develop the skills, relationships, financial literacy, accountability, and sense of purpose necessary to thrive as productive members of a healthy community.

The Other Side Village was founded by the same leaders who created The Other Side Academy. While the Academy serves many individuals who have experienced homelessness, The Other Side Village is designed to serve a broader population, including individuals facing mental health and other chronic health challenges who may not be a fit for the Academy model. Both organizations share a common belief: people heal, grow, and thrive through meaningful relationships, accountability, and community.

Although they share a philosophical foundation, The Other Side Academy and The Other Side Village operate separately with independent governance, operations, and finances. While Academy students made the first $50,000 contribution to help launch the Village, the organizations maintain completely separate budgets, funding sources, and financial oversight.

Both communities are guided by Therapeutic Community principles, but those principles are applied differently to meet the unique needs of the populations they serve. The Other Side Academy is an intensive residential vocational and life skills training program, while the Village is a permanent supportive housing community designed to foster long-term stability, belonging, and personal growth.

No. The Other Side Village provides high-quality, permanent supportive housing designed to offer long-term stability and belonging. Residents who qualify for the Village may remain in their homes indefinitely, provided they pay rent, comply with applicable laws, and uphold the community standards that help create a safe and healthy neighborhood.

The Village is specifically designed to serve individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness, including many who live with significant mental health, physical health, or other long-term challenges, and must be able to independently complete activities of daily living. Our goal is not to provide temporary shelter, but to create a permanent community where residents can build meaningful relationships, access support, and thrive for as long as they choose to call the Village home.

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

• Safe and deeply affordable permanent housing
• On-site coaches with lived experience 
• Primary healthcare including behavioral health, dental, vision, pharmacy 
• Work opportunities through The Other Side Village Social Enterprises
• Regular farmer’s markets to provide residents with healthy, nutritious fruits and vegetables harvested from the Village’s main gardens 
• Employment opportunities
• Ongoing supportive community 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 want to live in.

The Other Side Village is intentionally designed to be a safe and well-ordered community. While physical design features such as controlled access and camera systems may support safety, they are secondary tools. The foundation of safety in the Village is a strong, engaged community where every resident shares responsibility for maintaining a healthy environment.

From the moment new neighbors enter the Prep School—an intensive residential  experience designed to prepare individuals for success in Village life—they are taught the importance of personal responsibility and proactive community care. Residents are encouraged to address small issues early, such as litter, property concerns, or antisocial behavior, because we believe that communities where people consistently attend to small problems are far less likely to experience larger ones such as theft, drug activity, or violence.

We have seen this principle work in practice at The Other Side Academy, where a strong peer-driven culture of accountability has helped create an exceptionally safe environment. Regardless of residents’ past histories, the emphasis on mutual responsibility, structure, and connection has resulted in a community where safety and sobriety are maintained through culture rather than enforcement alone. We are committed to bringing that same standard of safety, care, and shared responsibility to The Other Side Village and making it one of the safest neighborhoods in our community.

Individuals living in The Other Side Village are expected to uphold three core community covenants:

• Pay rent consistently and on time

• Comply with all applicable civil laws

• Adhere to community standards and guidelines, similar to the expectations of a homeowners association (HOA) in a residential neighborhood

These covenants are designed to support a safe, stable, and respectful living environment where all residents can thrive.

The Other Side Village provides permanent supportive community housing for individuals experiencing chronic homelessness, including those living with mental health conditions and other significant disabilities. Our focus is on serving people who need long-term support within a stable, structured community while working toward greater independence over time.

Chronic homelessness is generally understood as an individual with a disability who has experienced extended periods of homelessness—living in places not meant for human habitation—either continuously for 12 months or more, or on multiple occasions that add up to at least 12 months. The Village is designed to meet people where they are and provide the support needed to move toward greater stability, autonomy, and long-term well-being.

In strong, healthy communities, the vast majority of issues are addressed by residents themselves rather than law enforcement. The Other Side Village is designed with that same principle at its core. We have seen this approach work in practice at The Other Side Academy, which has maintained a safe, stable environment for years through a culture of shared responsibility, accountability, and strong peer relationships.

At The Other Side Village, peers are the first line of support and accountability. Residents are encouraged and trained to respectfully speak up when they see concerns, offer feedback, and help one another stay aligned with community expectations. The Village is organized into small neighborhoods of approximately 25–30 homes arranged around shared gathering spaces to foster connection, awareness, and natural communication. When issues arise that cannot be resolved between neighbors, they are brought to Neighborhood Councils led by trained resident leaders who use restorative practices to facilitate resolution, accountability, and repair of harm.

If an issue is criminal in nature or cannot be resolved within the community structure, civil authorities are involved immediately. This layered approach—peer accountability first, community leadership second, and law enforcement when necessary—helps create a safe and responsive environment. While challenges will inevitably arise, we believe that a strong culture of shared responsibility leads to faster, more effective, and more humane solutions than traditional neighborhood systems alone.

We are fully committed to ensuring that the site is safe for both residential living and workplace use. A range of environmental assessments has already been completed, and we continue to conduct additional testing in partnership with qualified professionals to confirm that the site is safe, healthy, and appropriate for long-term use.

The property includes a historic landfill on the western portion of the parcel, which was used between approximately 1920 and 1962 and is located along the elevated area adjacent to I-215. This section has remained dormant for more than 60 years and is covered by approximately five feet of fill. Importantly, we do not plan to construct any housing or office space on this western portion of the site. Instead, development is focused entirely on the eastern portion of the parcel, which consists primarily of native soil with limited areas of green waste at the northern and southern edges.

To date, environmental testing has not identified conditions that would preclude the eastern portion of the site from being used for development. We have engaged Terracon to conduct ongoing environmental analysis. Their findings indicate that native soils on the eastern side have not been impacted above residential screening levels. While arsenic was detected in all samples, these levels are consistent with naturally occurring background conditions in the Salt Lake Valley and are generally not considered a concern requiring corrective action. Terracon did identify one localized area of contamination and is currently developing a remediation plan to address and remove impacted soils, with no evidence of widespread contamination on the eastern portion.

We continue to work closely with local and state regulatory agencies, including the Salt Lake City Office of Sustainability and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. Testing and review will continue throughout the process, and if at any point the site is determined to be unsuitable for safe human use and cannot be appropriately remediated, we will discontinue development and pursue alternative locations.

Our testing and any required remediation is conducted under the oversight of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) through its Voluntary Cleanup Program. Upon successful completion of all required remediation activities, we received a Certificate of Compliance from DEQ confirming that the site meets applicable standards for its intended use.

No. Neighbors should reasonably expect the surrounding area to become safer, cleaner, and more visually appealing as a result of our presence. We have already seen this outcome with The Other Side Academy in downtown Salt Lake City, where a strong community culture rooted in accountability and care has contributed to a positive neighborhood environment. Similar results have also been observed at Community First! Village in Austin, where a large-scale neighborhood for formerly homeless individuals has become an integrated and valued part of the broader community.

In both cases, consistent community standards, strong internal accountability, and ongoing engagement with surrounding neighbors have contributed to improved neighborhood conditions, increased positive interaction, and strengthened community perception. We anticipate a similar trajectory for The Other Side Village as it develops.

Yes. We offer a comprehensive range of services designed to support long-term stability and personal growth, including continuing education, workforce development, and job training.

Residents who participate in our social enterprises are thoughtfully matched to roles that align with their individual strengths, skills, and developmental needs—creating real-world opportunities to build confidence, gain experience, and move toward meaningful, sustainable employment.

The Other Side Village is designed to serve individuals who have experienced chronic unsheltered homelessness (typically one year or longer). Applicants are admitted individually and begin their journey in the Village Prep School, a structured residential program that can last up to a year or more. During this time, residents receive comprehensive support, including behavioral health care, medical services, financial counseling, vocational training, and other wraparound services. They also build foundational habits of self-care, accountability, and community engagement that prepare them for long-term success in their permanent homes within the Village.

Because of the scale and design of the housing and the need for individualized support, The Other Side Village is not structured to accommodate family units. Families experiencing homelessness often have access to different systems of support than single adults with chronic homelessness histories, which is why the Village is focused specifically on serving single individuals. Applicants who are in relationships are asked to apply individually, with the understanding that healthy relationships can be developed or maintained once stability is established in the community.

All applications are reviewed on an individual basis. In cases where both partners are accepted into the program, they may request to live together in the Village, and those requests are considered thoughtfully on a case-by-case basis to ensure alignment with community structure and individual support needs.

We welcome philanthropic investment from foundations, corporations, and individual donors to support the capital costs of building The Other Side Village. In parallel, we are also raising bridge funding to cover operating expenses during the early years of launch and stabilization.

Our long-term goal is financial self-sustainability. Once fully operational, the Village’s social enterprises are designed to generate the revenue needed to sustain day-to-day operations, reducing and ultimately eliminating reliance on ongoing operating subsidies or donations.