Our Recommendation
The Other Side Village as a bold, evidence-based response to chronic homelessness that combines permanent housing, a structured therapeutic community, and clear, measurable life changes for residents. Their impressive first‑year outcomes (100% housing stability, 100% sobriety, 100% employment or training, 75% health improvement, 538% income growth) for an exceptionally high‑need population. For funders willing to support a bold, intensive model while it matures its evaluation, especially on counterfactual impact and long‑term justice and health‑system outcomes, it is a strong candidate that pairs permanent housing with a deeply structured therapeutic community.
The Other Side Village's Fierce Certification score is 100/100 based on our criteria:
✔ Has Ultimate Outcome Goals (50 pts)
✔ Measures Intermediate Outcomes (10 pts)
✔ Measures Ultimate Outcomes (15 pts)
✔ Shows Continual Learning & Adaptation (25 pts)
☐ Measures Intermediate Counterfactual (10 pts)
☐ Measures Ultimate Counterfactual (10 pts)
The Social Problem
The Other Side Village is tackling chronic homelessness driven by addiction, trauma, mental illness, and long‑term disconnection from work and community in Salt Lake City. Traditional responses have often cycled people through shelters, jail, and emergency rooms without delivering lasting stability, recovery, or belonging, leading to premature death, high public costs, and visible neighborhood disorder. The Village is designed specifically for those who have been on the streets the longest and have not succeeded in less intensive models.
The Solution
The Other Side Village’s solution is to create a master‑planned tiny‑home neighborhood with an embedded, peer‑led therapeutic community, rather than just housing units. Residents go through a preliminary stabilization and Village Prep School focused on mental health, sobriety, accountability, and life skills, then move into permanent cottage homes with access to integrated social and medical services and a strong culture of work, service, and shared governance. The core bet is that stable housing plus a disciplined, supportive, democratic community will produce durable recovery, work attachment, and wellbeing for people who have failed in traditional housing approaches.
Key Outputs
Key outputs that give context to the model:
- Housing units: 60 completed tiny‑home units in Phase 1 on an 8‑acre portion of a 70‑acre former landfill site owned by Salt Lake City.
- Program pipeline: all residents enter a structured stabilization and Village Prep track, with 80% continuing to progress through the program and into the Village.
- Resident work and engagement: residents participate in daily work, service, and community responsibilities, contributing to neighborhood upkeep and on‑site enterprises.
- 538% income growth. Residents’ annual incomes increase more than five‑fold after one year in the program.
- Integration with broader ecosystem: the Village is built by The Other Side Foundation, drawing on its long‑running therapeutic‑community experience, and partners with the city and multiple organizations to construct and support the neighborhood.
These outputs reflect an emerging but already substantial physical and programmatic footprint.
Key Intermediate Outcomes
Intermediate outcomes with measurement:
- Engagement and progression: 80% of people who enter the stabilization and Village Prep program successfully move on to the Village, indicating strong engagement and fit for a high‑bar community.
- Work attachment: 100% of Village residents are employed or in vocational training, reflecting effective re‑attachment to meaningful daily structure.
- Hygiene and sanitation: The cottages provide private access to hygiene and sanitation.
Key Ultimate Outcomes
Key ultimate outcomes reported:
- Housing stability: 100% of Village residents remain stably housed at one year, addressing unsheltered chronic homelessness directly.
- Sobriety and health: 100% sobriety among residents, combined with a 75% average improvement in physical and mental‑health indicators over one year, suggests substantial behavioral‑health gains.
- Wellbeing, safety, and quality of life: residents show 538% income growth and 4.9/5 happiness‑safety‑wellbeing scores, indicating substantial improvements in quality of life and economic stability.
Continual Learning & Adaptation
The Other Side Village already demonstrates many features of a learning organization:
- It is built intentionally on the long‑tested therapeutic‑community model of The Other Side Academy, adapting that approach from a downtown residential program to a purpose‑built neighborhood while maintaining core elements like peer leadership, accountability, and work.
- It is in an explicit pilot phase on an 8‑acre site, with clear early metrics (housing stability, sobriety, employment/training, health stabilization, wellbeing, income growth) that are tracked and shared externally via partners like the Know-by-Name Phase 2 effort.
- Leadership and partners describe an intention to reach operational self‑sufficiency through social enterprises and to refine screening, support intensity, and community norms over time as data and lived‑experience feedback accumulate.
Written by
