Salt Lake City to expand affordable housing: tiny homes, dashboard and $5M budget ask

Mayor Erin Mendenhall used the 2025 State of the City address to lay out a multi-part housing push that combines new construction, transparency tools and direct tenant support.

Mendenhall said Salt Lake City faces a shortage of more than 18,000 affordable housing units. She reported counts of housing completed or funded since 2020: 524 deeply affordable units, 684 family-sized affordable units and 119 for-sale or shared-equity affordable units. She said the city has built or funded a total of 6,567 affordable units since 2020, supported by about $22 million in city funding, and that 1,500 more units are under construction.

As part of near-term actions, the mayor highlighted a tiny-homes village already housing formerly unhoused residents, saying residents had been unsheltered an average of nine years before moving into the village. "Over the next year, Salt Lake City will help the village expedite the creation of at least 200 more homes," she said.

To improve transparency, Mendenhall announced a new affordable housing construction and preservation dashboard to track units under construction, completed projects and funds committed to closing housing gaps. Separately, the mayor noted the Tenant Resource Center and a rental assistance fund launched in October and reported navigators have assisted about 320 renters on weekdays since opening.

Budget ask: Mendenhall said her upcoming budget will include a request to the City Council for an additional $5,000,000 toward deeply affordable housing construction.

What remains to be decided: The mayor did not provide legislation text or Council votes in the address; the announcements set priorities and funding requests that will require Council review and appropriation.