Every year, communities that receive federal funding to combat homelessness are required to count all of their homeless residents. Salt Lake County’s count for this year took place Jan. 24-27, but the results are not yet available to the public. In the 2017 count, 1,886 people were found in a shelter or other residential facility for homeless people and 161 people were found sleeping outdoors.
This means that in the coldest month of the year, about 8 percent of the homeless people in our community were sleeping outdoors. This is significantly better than the national average, about 35 percent, and nowhere close to as bad as the worst city in the country, Fresno, Calif.