New online tool helps people find affordable housing

SALT LAKE CITY — Finding affordable housing in Utah just got easier. Gov. Spencer Cox has announced a new online tool to help Utahns find affordable housing. 

When you get onto this dashboard you can filter out what county you live in or are thinking of moving to and see how many deeply affordable houses are being built there.

Clearfield Mayor Mark Shepherd said the dashboard can also help lawmakers see what things are working. 

“We’ve got to be able to say, ‘We passed this law, we’ve done this much to it, and this is the result, and this is what worked and what didn’t,’ ” said Shepherd.

Eagle Mountain Mayor Tom Westmoreland said the dashboard can also help government leaders be more informed.

“This allows us to be dialed in to what’s happening at the moment,” Westmoreland explained, “and we can make better decisions.”

Spanish Fork Mayor Mike Mendenhall said all the mayors and the governor’s office need to work together.

“The governor told us ‘Let’s solve this together,’ ” Mendenhall shared, ” ‘I can’t solve it myself, you can’t solve it yourself, and neither can the building community so we need to get together to do it.’ ”

Westmoreland said the next step for the state is providing more funding to build infrastructure around the houses.

“It’s one thing to build houses,” Westmoreland explained,” but you’ve got to have the jobs, you’ve got to have the roads, you’ve got to have the water, you’ve got to have the power. We can’t do that alone. We need the state’s partnership to do all that.”

Governor Cox said the tool will help people debate solutions instead of debating facts.

The mayors and the governor all agree that housing is a big problem for the state but one they need to solve together. You can find visit the new online affordable housing tool here.

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