Salt Lake City baked through a record-shattering 109°F day this summer, and a new University of Utah report examines how unsheltered residents cope when the heat turns deadly. Researchers who tracked homeless residents with GPS devices and interviewed dozens of local business workers are now urging lawmakers to create a Code Red heat policy, mirroring the state’s existing winter cold-weather protocol, before another brutal summer arrives.
The temperature record set July 12 broke Salt Lake City’s previous all-time high of 107°F, according to The University of Utah. It capped a summer in which the city logged 20 days at or above 100°F, the third-most such days in a summer, tied with 2024 and 2013, while Salt Lake County overall had its second-warmest summer ever, per KSL News. That kind of sustained extreme heat is exactly what prompted University of Utah researchers to study how people living unsheltered actually survive the summer, and what, if anything, is helping them.
As KSL News reports, the researchers interviewed 24 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in the Salt Lake Valley about how they navigate extreme heat in public spaces and how city and private business policies shape their ability to cope. The report identified heat exhaustion, dehydration, sleep disruption and emotional strain among participants, who described limited access to shade, water and restrooms. Eight of the study participants carried GPS-enabled smartphones and backpack-mounted weather monitors, tracking their locations and temperatures over six summer days — data that showed prolonged exposure to what the monitors defined as moderate- and high-risk heat thresholds, above 91°F and 102.9°F respectively.
Businesses Become Accidental Shelters
With public cooling options scarce, researchers found that Salt Lake City businesses have effectively become de facto heat refuges, according to the same KSL report. But the businesses themselves told researchers their capacity is limited and their practices too inconsistent to substitute for coordinated public cooling infrastructure. About 30 business employees, managers and owners took part in the research interviews…