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Advocate urges Davis County for more transparency and data on homeless shelter operations
Summary
A Layton resident testified at the Feb. 11 Davis County Commission meeting that county officials should pause new shelter contracts and collect more data after alleging problems at a downtown shelter; commissioners heard the concerns during public comment but took no formal action.
Jennifer Garner, a Layton resident who said she has worked for years with people with disabilities and people experiencing homelessness, told the Davis County Commission on Feb. 11 that she was “quite discouraged about the transparency that we're not getting as a public on the shelter.”
Garner described challenges she observed at a downtown shelter where she worked with residents seeking employment and treatment. “When I was working downtown ... I would say that 70 percent of them had mental health issues. But they were being — they were being medicated, they were self medicating with drugs and other things,” she said. She also told commissioners she believed some people were arriving in the area after using the CBP One app to request refugee status and urged caution when contracting for services.
Garner said she had helped several men find jobs but was told by a shelter representative that employment did not guarantee a saved bed. “If I came every single day and let you know who was on the shuttle to go out to work, would you save them a bed? And they said, no,” she said. She described overflow sleeping arrangements as “a yoga mat on the kitchen floor,” and said that practice discouraged people trying to exit homelessness.
Garner urged the commission to “take a pause, asking for actual data instead of chasing dollars.” She also asserted safety concerns about criminal activity near the downtown shelter; those claims were presented as her observations and were not corroborated during the meeting.
The commissioners did not take formal action on Garner’s remarks during the meeting. Public comment is recorded on the transcript and preserved in meeting minutes; county staff did not present any new data or a response to the specific shelter operational concerns during the Feb. 11 session.
Why this matters: Local oversight and data collection affect how counties allocate dollars and choose service providers for homelessness programs. Garner asked the commission to prioritize verified information about shelter operations, client outcomes, and any patterns in admissions before approving or extending contracts with service providers.
Looking ahead: The commission’s agenda for the Feb. 11 meeting moved on to routine business after public comment. Any formal review or changes to shelter contracting would require a future agenda item or staff report.
