An unusual 'village' aims to help people leave long-term homelessness for good
toggle caption Jennifer Ludden/NPR
MURRAY, Utah — On a weekday morning, about two dozen formerly homeless men and women file into a small room at The Other Side Village near Salt Lake City.
"How have you felt since our last meeting?" asks Melissa Hepworth, a fellow resident here who tells the group that she's felt "challenged with a little bit of shame."
The people in this meeting have all been chronically unhoused — typically living outside for eight to nine years with significant addiction or mental illness. They are among the hardest to help, and that's exactly who the Village has targeted since it opened two years ago.
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"Once you've forgotten how to work, forgotten how to engage with other people, forgotten how to solve human problems, forgotten how to manage finances, it takes a lot of work to restore some of those abilities," says Joseph Grenny, a co-founder of The Other Side Village .
Across the country, much-needed housing and treatment programs for the unhoused are in short supply.
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