December 2024 | Urban Utah Homes and Estates

Code Blue

December 22, 2024/in Living Here: Urban Utah Blog /by Babs De Lay

Damn it got cold fast! As I scurry around my home trying to finish winterizing my yard, replacing furnace filters, changing out batteries in my smoke detectors and putting away yard tools I find I’m so incredibly grateful to have a home and not be out on the streets, unsheltered in the cold. Luckly almost every larger city in the state has at least one emergency shelter and or a transitional housing facility but there are hundreds of folks who don’t want to go into shelters because they have their pet(s) with them, are too mentally unstable and prefer the streets, feel there’s too much crime and drugs in the shelters and/or simply don’t feel safe enough to check in for the night. However, when it gets super cold everyone needs some kind of shelter.
In 2023 the state passed a law creating a ‘Code Blue Alert’, which takes effect when temperatures are expected to drop to 18 degrees (including wind chill) for two hours or more during a 24-hour period. The law allows that a homeless shelter can expand it’s capacity by up to 35% to provide temporary shelter and can speed up intake procedures to get checked in. Even better, any indoor facility owned by a private or nonprofit organization, state or local government entity may be used as a temporary shelter and is exempted from licensing for the duration of the code blue alert if the facility meets fire and building code requirements. The alerts are issued, county by county depending on weather reports.
I remember a few years ago when First United Methodist Church in downtown Salt Lake City opened its facility after dark to dozens of street people when the temps dropped into the teens. Volunteers set up mats on the floor if folks wanted to sleep in their warm building, could use the bathrooms, eat donated food and get donated clothing. Basically, the church, its congregation and the community saw the need downtown and provided loving shelter to our Salt Lake neighbors and without any special funding or authority simply said, “We see a desperate need in the cold and we’re going to help!”
According to homelessshelterdirector.org, there are 14,659 homeless shelters and related social services in this country. You can go to that website to specifically see a list of all those currently in operation in Utah. According to the Utah Office of Homeless Services this summer, our homeless population increased by 9% in 2023 over 2022. The rate of homelessness here was found to be 11 per every 10,000 people, which is lower than the national average.
My wife and I stock our cars with blankets, water bottles, dog treats and simple foodstuffs that we give out regularly at intersections and on the streets downtown. It’s not much but it brings a smile to the giver and the receiver every time.

Trans Away

December 13, 2024/in Living Here: Urban Utah Blog /by Babs De Lay

Well, this is something I never expected. Clients and potential customers are calling me to sell their homes. That’s not unusual, but the WHY is unusual and disturbing. They are calling me because they are leaving Utah due to the anti-trans laws our phobic legislature has passed and they simply don’t feel they and or their children will be treated fairly or potentially not be able to receive future health care here that addresses their needs.
There’s the ‘Final Pre-Election 2024 Anti-Trans Risk Assessment Map (Google it) which came out this year and was updated before we all voted for President last week. It shows which states have a DO NOT TRAVEL warning (Texas, with Florida a close second) and which states may be safer. If you go to the map at the www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights-2024 you can click on each state and it will show you the legislative bills there that have passed and were defeated and will be updated as bills are written for future legislation in 2025 around the country. You may not have heard or seen any anti-trans ads here in Utah because national politicians don’t spend much money on ads here as we’re a ‘given Red State’ but across the U.S. anti-trans ads were a major part of many campaigns.
If you click on Utah on the website you’ll see there are ten bills the ACLU followed in Utah that passed into law or were defeated, including public accommodation bans, school facilities bans, etc. It’s a real fear of parents around the country and in Utah that their Transkids might be taken from them or that our legislators will meet this January and pass laws to force Transkids and people into medical detransition, ban the use of anything but dead names, and disallow gender to be changed in legal documents. Cities and towns can pass the same kind of laws, like Odessa, Texas that became the first city in the nation to pass a $10,000 bounty on transgender people inside bathrooms.
The rise of anti-trans bills around this country is astounding and sadly the fear mongers will submit more laws next year to restrict gender-affirming healthcare for trans and gender-expansive people this year with most of the bills targeted against children under the age of 18. Dr. Diana Finkel at Rutgers University Medical School noted, “If you, as the parent of a 16-year-old, want your child to have breast augmentation because she wants a larger bosom and she is a cisgender girl, she can do it” but noted that the law would ban a trans girl from having the same surgery.
Given we don’t know the outcome for sure with last week’s election but certainly the creation of anti-trans laws and their enforcement will continue despite what so many medical professionals and their research have found… that touting the mental and physical health benefits of gender-affirming care is good for children and adults seeking to transition.

Bye Bye Retail

December 5, 2024/in Living Here: Urban Utah Blog /by Babs De Lay

Do you remember going to Kmart and experience the ‘blue light specials’? You could literally stand in the store and wait until an employee rolled up a cart with a pole that went up a few feet above the average human head, which was topped with a flashing blue light similar to a police car beacon on top of a patrol car. As soon as the light was flipped on you’d hear an employee over the speakers in the store announce the new sale item, aka ‘the blue light special’. Shoppers would scurry over to the half price sale on tidy whities, shampoo or slippers-whatever the store wanted to get rid of that day. It would last about 15-30 minutes and then the cart would move somewhere else in the store. Kmart closed on Parleys Way in 2005 and was turned into a Walmart. The one on 900 East @4900 South was bulldozed two years ago and in its place is a huge apartment complex. Well, the last full sized Kmart in the U.S. has now closed in Bridgehampton, NY. There are still a few stores in Asia and a tiny version of it in Kendall, FL, but the retailer is basically kaput.
This isn’t surprising, as the company failed to trend after Target entered the market with their groovy offerings and they couldn’t compete with Walmart’s low prices. Plus, in the past decade Amazon and its free home delivery to members has decimated brick and mortar options for retail shopping. Plus, people work at home more and shop on line more, rents for retail spaces are high, and it’s hard to find workers in low paying blue collar jobs.
Bed, Bath and Beyond disappeared from malls in ’23 when they closed the last of 900 stores nationwide. This year Business Insider reports Walgreens is closing 1,200 stores after losing 8.6 billion last year, Family Dollar is closing 1,000 stores, CVS has a three year plan to close 900 stores and eliminate 2,900 corporate jobs, Big Lots has concluded with the close of 500 of its locations, and Denny’s will close 150 locations. 7-11 is shuttering 444 stores and has been bought out by a Japanese firm. They have had lower sales due to a reduction in SNAP benefits and flavored nicotine bans that had previously created a lively cash flow for the company.
The disturbing thing about the Walgreens and CVS failures are due mainly to prescription pricing wars and who controls how meds are priced. There are hundreds of small pharmacies that have closed around the country due to this really fubar system and it’s leaving retail deserts in big and small cities. Sure, sometimes the little guys can’t compete with the big guys, but it’s very worrisome to see so many large retailers leave the landscape. On the other hand, progress is bringing Amazon’s One Medical, Amazon Clinic and Amazon Care that offer virtual health care and same day appointments under $50 a month.