Salt Lake City officials are leveraging new interactive dashboards to track housing affordability and stability, even as state data from late 2025 reveals an 18% increase in the number of Utahns experiencing homelessness. These digital tools aim to provide transparency regarding how the city and its Community Reinvestment Agency invest in preserving and constructing affordable units.
Tracking Housing Stability Metrics
By monitoring these dashboards, the city tracks various housing numbers across Salt Lake City. The Housing Indicators Dashboard specifically focuses on market trends, while the Affordable Housing Dashboard highlights municipal actions intended to increase access to safe and stable homes for all income levels. To ensure the best user experience, the city recommends viewing these interactive tools on a personal computer rather than mobile devices due to potential compatibility issues with screen readers or specific PowerBI features.
Beyond large-scale construction, the city also provides direct support to individual residents through programs such as rental assistance, foreclosure prevention, and home rehabilitation. The Housing Stability Dashboard serves as the primary resource for tracking these person-centered interventions, complementing the broader infrastructure data found in the construction dashboards.
The Salt Lake City Housing Stability Division has launched several dashboards to monitor the local housing market and the city's efforts to build and preserve affordable housing. These tools, which utilize Microsoft PowerBI, allow residents and policymakers to view specific indicators regarding housing stability and the progress of affordable housing initiatives.
Mechanisms for Affordable Housing
To maintain long-term affordability, the city frequently uses deed restrictions. These legal documents are recorded against properties to ensure that combined housing costs—including rent or mortgage, utilities, and other essential expenses—do not exceed 30% of a resident's income. These restrictions are typically monitored over terms lasting between 30 and 50 years.
The city utilizes several financial levers to incentivize development. This includes loan funding, where the City lends money to partners for rehabilitation or creation of housing that must be repaid with interest. The city also employs land sales or discounts, where properties owned by the municipality are sold at a reduced rate to partners, or the sale price is deferred and paid back via loans. Additionally, the city may provide fee waivers for projects that meet specific affordability criteria or offer tax rebates through tax increment reimbursement agreements within CRA project areas.
Other tools include the allocation of both city and federal funds through grants or direct budget allocations for projects meeting community priorities. The city also utilizes 'wealth building units,' which allow residents to build equity through either for-sale models or shared equity models. In a shared equity rental unit, tenants receive a share of the building's equity alongside owners, while in shared equity for-sale units, prospective buyers enter agreements to help fund affordable homeownership programs in exchange for a lower purchase price.
The Salt Lake City Community Reinvestment Agency (CRA) and the city are working in tandem to manage an interactive Affordable Housing Construction and Preservation Dashboard. This tool provides a detailed look at how public investment is being utilized to track the number of affordable units built or preserved, their specific geographic locations within the city, and the total amount of funding contributed by the City.
The dashboard is designed to offer transparency regarding which housing projects are currently in progress, which have been completed, and which are upcoming. By visualizing this data, the City and the CRA aim to help stakeholders understand the direct impact of public investments on the community's ability to sustain a growing population.
Statewide Homelessness Trends
Data from the 2025 report also showed an increase in the duration of homelessness. The average length of stay in emergency shelters in 2024 rose by 17%, or approximately 10 days, compared to 2023. This trend underscores a critical need for faster housing placements and more robust exit options, such as access to treatment and long-term supportive services.
Despite these challenges, the report noted successes in permanent supportive housing. Approximately 93% of individuals in these programs either retained their housing or transitioned to other permanent options, marking the fourth consecutive year this success rate has remained steady. Niederhauser credited increased legislative investment with providing the tools necessary to expand services and maintain accountability through data, moving the state closer to a goal where homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring.
The push for housing stability comes amid challenging statewide trends reported by the Utah Office of Homeless Services. According to an annual report released on August 13, 2025, the state's 2025 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count revealed that 4,584 Utahns were experiencing homelessness on a single night, representing an 18% increase from the previous year. This surge was accompanied by rising numbers of veterans, seniors, and children experiencing homelessness.
State Homeless Coordinator Wayne Niederhauser noted that while most individuals are able to resolve their homelessness quickly through shelter and support, the state is facing growing needs. The report highlighted that Utah's homelessness rate rose to 13 per 10,000 people, up from 11 per 10,000 in the prior year. Niederhauser attributed these trends to a booming economy and rapid population growth that have outpaced the availability of affordable housing and overwhelmed behavioral health services.
Future Planning and Definitions
For all housing calculations, the city relies on the Area Median Income (AMI) metric established by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This measure uses the median household income for Salt Lake County to set income limits, ensuring that rent for affordable units is set at no more than 30% of a resident's income. By combining these precise financial metrics with transparent construction tracking, the city aims to address the gap between the growing need for housing and the availability of accessible, stable homes.
As Salt Lake City continues to implement its housing dashboards to track Area Median Income (AMI) and construction progress, the city remains focused on long-term planning through Neighborhood Plan Areas. These plans are designed to help sustain and enhance specific neighborhoods into the future by coordinating development with the city's broader goals for stability and growth.
