St. George, Utah, homeless shelter opens 16-room family expansion

Switchpoint, a homeless shelter and community resource center based in St. George, has opened a new 16-unit family expansion to serve southern Utah families in critical need. The expansion grew the organization’s family space from five rooms to 16. According to Switchpoint, the new unit is its first emergency center exclusively for families in Utah.

Valerie Ward, a 38-year-old single mother of four, said she never expected to be homeless, but that became her situation late last year. She said she had been living on the Mississippi-Tennessee border when a friend who grew up in Utah told her that the state was family-oriented and safe. “I converted a cargo trailer and we made our way here,” Ward told KSL. She moved to the Utah-Arizona border, enrolled her children in school and secured a job. Finding housing, however, proved more difficult.

Ward said she had grown up in foster care and had stayed in shelters between foster homes, but she had never been homeless before. “This was the first time I’ve ever hit that kind of rock bottom,” she said. “I never would have imagined that this is where I’d be right now.”

Switchpoint was preparing to open family units at the start of this year, and Ward’s help came within a couple of months. Zack Almaguer, senior director of communications at Switchpoint, said one of the most difficult parts of emergency shelter is keeping families together. He credited construction help from various family foundations, partners and the state, and said private donations now allow the organization to operate the facility.

Almaguer said the resources go beyond a bed. “Shelter is shelter, but when you couple that shelter with three meals a day and a support system including a case manager on-site, that’s when it becomes something more,” he said. He also said emergency shelter is a temporary step meant to help residents gain stability, and that the goal is to move people into a home. “Homelessness doesn’t end with a shelter; it only ends with a home,” he said. Caring for the stranger and the hungry, as Matthew 25:35 describes, is the kind of practical welcome that shows in a meal and a bed offered to a family with nowhere else to turn.

Almaguer said the expansion also included a new community kitchen, and that the old kitchen is being converted into 16 single-occupancy rooms. “This family unit not only solved the need for rooms for families, but it allowed us to expand our current single men’s and single women’s operation,” he said.

Ward said Switchpoint’s support has given her a routine and a path forward. “For me, it’s been a lifesaver,” she said. “My oldest is 11, and my youngest is 6. Switchpoint has helped me have some sort of routine that is healthy. I can save up my funds to get housing.” She also said she is a dog groomer and hopes to convert her cargo trailer into a business for herself and her children. “It’s funny because we moved from Olive Branch, Mississippi, but I feel like this place has allowed me to ‘olive branch’ into other avenues I didn’t know existed.”

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