WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — As housing costs continue to rise, organizations that serve people experiencing homelessness say they are stretched thin — and the people who need help most are feeling it.
Adam O'Reilly has called his car home for nearly a year. He posts tips in a local Facebook group about how to survive living in a vehicle, and he said the posts have been getting a lot more attention lately.
"A lot of people I've talked to were just like, 'Hey, I'm living in my car. Where do I park? I have no idea where to go tonight?" O'Reilly said.
O'Reilly said he has PTSD and borderline personality disorder, which narrows his housing options even further. "It was just too expensive to go renting out something, and that would require me to live with other people, and I have a harder time living with people because of my medical issues," O'Reilly said.
Ryan Wilson, vice president of housing real estate strategy at Valley Behavioral Health, said there are fewer shelter options in the West Valley area — and getting to the ones that do exist is a challenge for many clients.
"One of the challenges that we have experienced and heard from our clients is the ability to get from the west side or the east side; there's not an easy route to get from west of Bangerter all the way over to 15th East for housing services," Wilson said.
Wilson said budgets are also getting tighter each year. "We're feeling the pinch every year. The number of folks that we have to serve is not decreasing, but the number of folks that have benefits and resources is decreasing every year," Wilson said.
Kylie Kim, 19, is one of the people relying on a shelter in West Valley City. She said she has been going to the Redwood Overflow on and off for nearly a year. "It's not fun being on the streets. It's hard to find shade, it's hard to get a tent. A lot of people aren't getting what they need," Kim said.
"We need more shelters out here, especially in West Valley," Kim said.
O'Reilly said the need is becoming impossible to ignore. "We just need to work together and figure out how to create a solution that makes it so that no child has to sleep on the streets. Like this is getting out of control," O'Reilly said.
