A Bill That Would Allow Homeless Youth in Utah to Give Themselves Permission for Temporary Shelter Passed a Utah House Committee Rhett Wilkinson Follow Mar 5, 2019 · 3 min read

Beginning her testimony by saying that on any given day, Utah has more than 2,000 homeless youth, Utah Rep. Elizabeth Weight (D-Salt Lake City) sought passage of Utah House Bill 371. It would allow 15 to 17-year-olds to give themselves permission to have temporary shelter. (Currently, you must be at least 18 to do it.) A Utah House of Representatives committee advanced it unanimously after Rep. Norm Thurston (R-Provo) had stepped out of the room and stayed there when the vote took place Monday afternoon.

“Parents are not providing for (youth),” Weight said.

“Parents are not providing for (youth)” in Utah, Utah Rep. Weight (D-Salt Lake City) said when testifying for a bill that would allow 15 to 17-year-olds to give themselves permission to have temporary shelter. (Julia Ritchey/KUER)

Regarding the youth needing shelter and also personal care, clothing or hygiene products, youth “do not have access because they do not have someone who can sign them off for that access,” Weight said. “They are forced to stay wherever and take care however they can.”

June Hiatt, director of policy and advocacy for the Utah Housing Coalition, testified that the bill is a “direct answer” to the “request” of 91 homeless youth brought to Capitol Hill to see how the legislative process works.

“Early intervention” is “essential” to help with “increased employment and self-sufficiency” for folks, Hiatt also said.

Otherwise, sex trafficking and suicide often occurs, Hiatt said.

Anna Thomas, senior policy analyst for Voices for Utah Children, testified.

“In an ideal world, a child would never have to leave a home,” she said. “Sadly, we do not live in that ideal world. … Sometimes, parents are not allies or advocates of their own children.”

Sometimes, parents leave their children homeless “rather than protect children from the dangers of the world,” Thomas said, pointing out that some children younger than 15 are left homeless while saying that Weight had arrived at a “good age” in the bill.

Thurston had said “I’m still hung up on the definition of thing … how do you decide if a youth is homeless?”

Kathy Bray, chief executive officer of Volunteers of America, Utah, said that is if a person does not have a “nighttime residence” of “human habitation.”

“They shouldn’t be outside; they shouldn’t be in car,” Bray said.

Thurston asked if Bray wouldn’t turn a youth away. Bray’s chapter has a homeless shelter for youth.

“They are probably not going to come into our facility unless someone said ‘you can stay there overnight for emergency shelter,’” Bray said.

“Regardless of the circumstances or regardless of the reasons for their leaving or being separated from their parents, they get asked too many questions when they are simply looking for a place to stay that night or a second night,” Weight said.

Weight and Thurston debated further before dozens in the audience reacted negatively to a comment by Thurston. The debate then ended, and Thurston walked out of the room.

Lisa Dane of the Mama Dragons, a group of Latter-day Saint women who have LGBTQ children, said that a 17-year-old gay male, after being left homeless, “was dancing at a club and doing the other things that would go along with that type of behavior.”

“This bill is something that I would support,” she then said, remarking that the bill would enable youth under 18 to “have a safe place to … keep them off the street and out of dangerous, harmful behaviors.”

Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost (D-Salt Lake City) said the bill could enable legislators to “make a difference in these kids’ lives.”

— -

For more articles like this, please support Beehive Blunders at the Hero’s Journey Content Patreon page.