THE OTHER SIDE VILLAGE

Utah is being squeezed from both ends of a tightening vise. The homeless crisis is worsening — visible in downtown encampments, overwhelmed shelters, and a mental health system stretched thin. At the same time, the housing crisis continues to push rents upward. For years, policymakers have treated these as separate emergencies: one a social-service problem, the other a development problem.

On Salt Lake City’s west side, The Other Side Village is showing that they are, in fact, the same crisis — and that a single, carefully designed community can begin to address both.

Colorful tiny homes, each with a small porch, line pedestrian paths. Residents wave to neighbors, head to shifts at the Village’s donut shop or construction crew, or sweep their stoops in the evening. It feels less like an institution and more like a small town — one built to help people to work, stay sober, and move toward independence.

For Preston Cochrane, CEO of The Other Side Village, that sense of purpose is central.

“You can’t solve homelessness with an asset,” he said. “A house isn’t going to solve it. A meal isn’t going to solve it. You have to get down deeper into the behavior.”

A Community That Begins Before the Front Door

One of the most striking differences between The Other Side Village and traditional homeless housing is that nobody moves directly from the street into a tiny home. Before residents ever hold a key, they enter The Other Side Prep School, a transitional, sober-living environment on the same campus.

There, participants stabilize their lives within a highly structured setting. They work in Village-run social enterprises, attend daily community meetings, and begin rebuilding habits necessary for independent living. Sobriety is required, but accountability matters just as much.

“Homelessness is a symptom of something bigger,” Preston said. “Housing is important, but it’s not enough. You have to address the underlying behaviors.”

Those behaviors — anger, manipulation, dishonesty, dependency, or simply never having learned basic life skills — are nearly impossible to change in traditional shelters, where drug use and conflict are common. In those environments, survival becomes the focus, not growth.

The prep school offers something different: structure, safety, and constant reinforcement. Coaches — many formerly homeless themselves — live on-site and provide round-the-clock mentorship.

“They’ve been there,” Preston said. “They know what it takes because they’ve lived it.”

When residents demonstrate stability by maintaining sobriety, holding a job, and paying rent, they earn the right to move into a tiny home. Because that step is earned, the homes remain safe and sober.

Why the Current System Keeps Failing

Utah’s homeless system, like many nationwide, is built around fragmentation. Detox programs handle detox. Shelters handle beds. Clinics handle mental health. But no one entity is responsible for the entire pathway out of homelessness.

The result is a system of silos — one that Tim Stay, co-founder of The Other Side Academy, has described as a “Chutes and Ladders” cycle, where each setback drops people back to the beginning.

One major obstacle, he argues, is that many government-funded housing programs are required to tolerate active drug use as a protected condition. Operators often cannot remove residents even when addiction overtakes entire buildings.

“The funding for permanent supportive housing comes with the requirement that you can’t kick people out for using drugs,” Preston said. “So how do you maintain a facility on that basis?”

The Other Side Village avoids that dilemma by declining government operating funds. That decision allows the organization to set expectations — and enforce them — without federal restrictions.

“We’re the landlord,” Preston explained. “If someone relapses, we don’t want to evict them. We restart them in the prep school — not back on the street.”

The emphasis is on responsibility and recovery, not punishment.

Peer Leadership: The Secret Sauce

What ultimately makes The Other Side Village work isn’t just the housing or the rules — it’s who runs the community.

From leadership through daily operations, the Village is peer-led. The people enforcing standards are people who once lived without them.

“From top to bottom, it’s peer-run,” Preston said. “The people guiding others have been incarcerated, homeless, addicted. That creates credibility professionals often can’t replicate.”

In a system where caseworkers frequently rotate or burn out, the Village offers continuity. Accountability carries weight because it comes from lived experience.

Preston notes this model is far more common internationally.

“Therapeutic communities and peer-to-peer models are standard in Europe,” he said. “In the US, we rely much more on medication.”

The Village brings that philosophy to Utah and with visible success.

Why Residents Choose Change

At the heart of The Other Side Village is a simple truth: people change when they are ready.

“Every person who comes here,” Preston said, “decides to change when they hit rock bottom. They say, ‘I can’t live like this anymore. My life means more than this.’”

Many residents arrive directly from encampments, exhausted by danger, addiction, and instability.

“They tell us, ‘I can’t be around that environment anymore,’” Preston said. “Here, sobriety is the norm. Safety is expected.”

The change is often visible. “You can see the light turn back on in their eyes,” he said. “Their entire countenance changes.”

A Tiny-Home Solution to a Double Crisis

On paper, The Other Side Village is an affordable housing project — small homes, modest rent, shared amenities. In practice, it represents a fundamental rethinking of how Utah approaches homelessness, housing, and recovery.

It addresses the housing crisis by building homes people can afford.
It addresses homelessness by providing the structure people need.
No apartments that quietly turn into drug markets.
No short-term programs that return people to the same park bench weeks later.

Instead, the Village offers a path long enough and accountable enough to produce durable change.

“We’re not a panacea,” Preston said. “But the outcomes we’re seeing — that’s what tells us this works.”

A New Way Forward for Utah

As Utah debates major new investments in homeless campuses and supportive housing, The Other Side Village stands as a working prototype: a community where housing is paired with expectation, where sobriety is normal, where work is encouraged, and where culture itself becomes a tool for healing. Residents talk with neighbors, or walk home from work. For many, it’s the first time they’ve felt a part of a sober community in years.

Utah’s twin crises — homelessness and housing — have long felt overwhelming. But in this small community of tiny homes, a new model is emerging.

The homes are tiny. The shift in thinking they represent could be enormous.