During the time she spent living on the streets in Ogden, Mariella Mendoza would pray multiple times a day.
Pray that she wouldn’t be kicked out of the coffee shop where she often sought shelter in the mornings. Pray the police wouldn’t make her move from her small slice of grass on the ground in the park at night. Pray that if they did, she could get a spot in the overflow area in the lobby of the homeless shelter, where she would sleep on a gym mat on the floor.
“And then you pray again,” she told a group of nearly 50 people who gathered at a rally outside Salt Lake City Hall on Tuesday as part of a multi-month campaign for housing justice and equity.