How a former youth hostel was flipped into a key housing need in Salt Lake County

SALT LAKE CITY — Kelly Cockrell is thrilled to move into her new home because having a place to live has been difficult, especially after the last few years.

Cockrell explains that she "spiraled down" after losing her son a little over two years ago, eventually ending up at the Odyssey House of Utah, a substance use disorder and mental health treatment nonprofit headquartered in Salt Lake City. She focused on sober living at a group home, which helped her take this next step, moving into Stonebridge, a 29-bed facility for women recovering from severe mental illness.

Stonebridge feels much like a college dormitory. Some rooms have one bed, others have two or bunk beds, but every room is brightly colored and topped with folksy artwork.

"It is really nice and new. I love it," Cockrell told KSL, as she stood outside her new home.

She and 28 others will be the first tenants of the building in Salt Lake City's emerging Central Ninth district that suddenly became available for a major need in Salt Lake County. While many projects like this take years of planning, coordination and fundraising, this one took a few months with state, county and philanthropic help and a little luck in the market.

Odyssey House already operates a pair of group homes across Salt Lake County, but it only scratches the surface of a wider need, said Adam Cohen, president and CEO of Odyssey House. Salt Lake County Behavioral Health Services informed him earlier this year that there were state and county funds available to get more group homes online should they secure a new building or project.

Eager, Cohen called a real estate agent who searched across the valley and found a youth hostel that had gone up for sale. It was close to Utah Transit Authority's 900 South TRAX station, a major bus route and the 9-Line Trail, offering a space, housing, resources and transit options for residents to reach services or go to work.

"We got lucky, and found something that was perfect for what we needed," he said.

County and state officials were presented with a plan four months ago, and they were even surprised to learn that the facility could be up and running so quickly.

People struggling with homelessness and a co-occurring mental illness often end up having tougher times getting out of homelessness and higher rates of victimization when they're on the streets, said Tyler Clancy, the state homeless coordinator. He was delighted when he heard there could be a new deeply affordable option for people with severe mental illness by July.

Gail Miller, owner of the Larry H. Miller Group, also got involved. Together, the groups raised $2.8 million to purchase the building, while another $500,000 went into renovating it for its new use, Cohen said. A team worked long days and late nights to help get the building ready for a grand opening, which took place on Thursday.

The facility provides more than just housing. Its residents will have access to security, food and 24-hour resources to help them handle medical, mental health and case management needs, which include peer support, clinical therapy and providing medications. It's expected to cost $1.5 million to operate annually.

Odyssey House plans to open a similar facility in the county for men later this year. Another building with similar services is also on track to open this year, creating more than 60 additional units for people recovering from severe mental illness.

They won't completely solve a need for beds of their kind, but they help chip away at a long waitlist of people trying to enter mental health treatment programs, Cohen said. In turn, he says it keeps people in the community without sending them to a hospital or jail to receive help.

"This is a model that is working. We already know it's working," he said. "They're not reoffending, they're not going back into the hospital, they're not going to higher levels of care. This is cost-effective, and it's humane."

Stonebridge also helps boost the various types of deeply affordable units in Salt Lake County, Mayor Jenny Wilson adds. The county is in the middle of a five-year goal of adding at least 1,000 units of deeply affordable housing, and what it offers has been one of the toughest options to deliver because of its resource needs.

It also fits into a model the county is shifting to, as it seeks to reform its homelessness and criminal justice systems to something that helped Miami-Dade County significantly cut arrests, jail populations and homelessness by addressing mental and behavioral health needs.

But she also thinks about the women who will live here, like Cockrell.

"These are 29 lives that are going to be enhanced," Wilson said. "I think women who come here ... are going to have a second chance at life."

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