The Other Side Village welcomes first residents to Salt Lake City's new tiny home community.
Village People
By Benjamin Wood @BjaminWood
POPLAR GROVE—The inaugural residents of a neighborhood of tiny homes on Salt Lake City's west side are set to move in this week after The Other Side Village celebrated the completion of its first phase on Monday.
As a new venture affiliated with The Other Side Academy, or TOSA, the tiny home village—located just west of Redwood Road on Indiana Avenue—will provide additional housing options for individuals experiencing chronic homelessness. And unlike the traditional shelter models, residents who qualify for the village will have access to individual homes, built around shared community spaces, with work opportunities, transit connections and other resources and services nearby.
"The physical village is a marvel," TOSA co-founder Joseph Grenny said. "But it is the human village we’re here to inaugurate and celebrate."
At Monday's ribbon-cutting event, a beyond-capacity crowd spilled out of the neighborhood pavilion that anchors the first cluster of operational tiny homes. A health clinic is under construction next to that pavilion, and additional phases could see the village expand by more than 200 housing units, plus space for small businesses and shared facilities like a greenhouse. Earlier this year, The Other Side Donuts began operating adjacent to the village.
While the east side of Redwood Road is residential, the west side is predominately industrial and the site of the tiny home village is a former landfill that has long sat vacant. Significant environmental restoration was necessary at the site, which contributed to a yearslong delay of the tiny home project.
Grenny compared tiny home residents—or "villagers"—to the Latter-Day Saint settlers who arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. He noted that historic Utahns also lived in small homes and, "through grit and cooperation," were able to lay the foundation for a prosperous future.
Grenny suggested that in time, the village will transform what was "wrongly assumed to be a wasteland" into a thriving community that is "more productive than a hive of bees and more sober than a BYU dorm."
"The Other Side Village will be one of Utah's gems," he said. "It will ultimately be the thriving estate of 500 Utah pioneers."
The tiny homes, as a tool to fight homelessness, are unique in both Salt Lake City and Utah—though similar programs exist in other states—and required an array of public and private entities to coordinate on their construction. Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall described Monday's launch as a "dream come true," and said that city staff and other public officials worked hard to find "a way to say 'yes'" in the face of governmental policies and procedures that seem "designed to say 'no'."
"We can move mountains," Mendenhall said. "We can do things on what were abandoned pieces of former landfills and turn them into the most beautiful neighborhood in Salt Lake City."
She said The Other Side Village is about "creating a new kind of belonging" in the state's capitol, and the ripple effects that stem from housing and community.
"People are watching what is happening here," she said, "and they’re feeling the difference."
About The Author
Benjamin Wood
Lifelong Utahn Benjamin Wood has worn the mantle of City Weekly's news editor since 2021. He studied journalism at Utah State University and previously wrote for The Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News and Entertainment Weekly
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