Residents press council on corporate landlords and shelter conditions; mayor outlines pilot to buy and deed‑restrict homes

Several residents told the Ogden City Council on June 10 they are worried about the rise of corporate ownership of housing stock, perceived gaps in landlord enforcement and poor conditions at a downtown shelter. Mayor Brown and staff responded with a range of short‑ and longer‑term measures the administration said it is pursuing.

In public comment Deborah Darrington, who identified herself as an Ogden resident, said corporate buyers are purchasing local housing and that owner‑occupant buyers and small local investors are losing opportunities to build household wealth. "We have a lot of properties here in Ogden that have been purchased by people who are not residents," Darrington said, adding that local residents who try to improve housing often face permitting delays she described as excessive.

Theresa Bramwell, a commercial property owner on 20 Fifth, said some properties near her had burned in 2021 and that she had not known about a city program that provided loans to businesses. Bramwell said the loan structure made the program unattractive to owners who do not want more debt. She also asked whether CDBG‑CV funds could be used for park‑strip repairs on her block; staff later said such private exterior work would be difficult to justify under HUD pandemic‑response eligibility rules.

Bramwell also criticized a new apartment project at 20th and Quincy, which she said was advertised at 60 percent area median income (AMI) rather than an earlier 80 percent target discussed during development review. She told council members that the 176‑unit project allows two pets per unit and the developer's advertised rents, in her view, could push the property toward subsidized housing if vacancies occur.

Several speakers raised serious allegations about Lantern House, the city's downtown shelter. Two residents, speaking as Holly and Tracy, said the shelter was "filthy," reported bed‑bug infestations, alleged lice and scabies, and said staff were discarding residents’ belongings and insulin. Noreen Jordan, who said she had stayed at Lantern House in the past, told the council she had seen medicine handled collectively in a drawer and called that practice a federal violation.

Mayor Brown acknowledged the concerns and described several ongoing and planned steps. He said the administration has been working with the shelter and nonprofit operators, is preparing an application to the state’s homeless mitigation fund (to be submitted the day after the meeting), and plans to propose additional funding to help with staffing and cleaning at Lantern House. Brown said the city has already placed a medical advocate at the shelter and is proposing a second advocate plus a mobile clinic to provide private, clinic‑style services on site.

On the broader housing issue, Brown said the city plans to pilot a home‑purchase program using state enabling language to access loan funds. "The state legislature did use some enabling language to make $10,000,000 of loan funds available to us to use to run the pilot," Brown said on the record. He described a model in which the city would partner with a buyer to purchase small, legacy homes, deed‑restrict them and put them back on the market for owner‑occupants. Brown said the effort would be a pilot targeted at areas with housing stock suitable for first‑time owners.

Brown and other city officials also described concurrent efforts to cut permitting red tape, rewrite parts of the zoning and development code and improve customer experience in the city’s permitting offices. He said the administration is working with stakeholders to test and refine changes and that some short‑term funding will be used to keep the shelter operating while longer‑term fixes are developed.

The council did not take formal votes on the shelter complaints or the housing pilot during the June 10 meeting; the mayor’s remarks described administrative direction and planned grant applications.