By Tony Semerad | The Salt Lake Tribune
October 31, 2022
For a pioneering no-kill animal shelter located amid the grandeur of Utah’s national parks, this is wild territory.
A chronic housing shortage in and around Kanab has recently turned much worse and Best Friends Animal Society -- Kane County's largest employer with around 850 workers and 40 job openings -- says it's building affordable housing for its workers.
Company leaders, homebuilding partners and their pets celebrated recently by tossing shovels of red dirt at a groundbreaking that is reverberating as a first in the nonprofit world.
With the way Utah's housing market is turning, it’s also a harbinger of what's to come for other major employers, especially for those enticed to come to Utah with public funds.
Echoing old company towns in Utah’s early mining history -- places like Magna, Bingham and Copperton -- the Best Friends animal sanctuary is building 12 duplexes for 24 dwellings in Kanab with private yards, garages and appliances just a 15-minute drive away, with the first units to open sometime in 2023.