By McKenzie Romero | Editor
The final pitch to save Advantage Services and its 125 employees — most of them currently or recently homeless, or with criminal records that prevent them from getting work elsewhere — has failed.
For 34 years the nonprofit has deployed its workers to clean up homeless encampments, power wash biohazards from sidewalks and streets, drive shuttles between homeless shelters and services, and more. On Saturday, it will shut down permanently.
In today’s Dispatch we report on Advantage Services’ closure announcement, a $3 million gift from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the Great Salt Lake, and an Idaho woman’s personal account of how her state’s abortion ban pushed her into Utah for care after tragic pregnancy complications.
“Rob and his team saw past my hands and what I could do. They gave me a chance. And so having that taken away from me, I feel very robbed.” — Megan Belagam, who worked as Advantage Services’ office manager, on losing the job that allowed her to work despite a disability from arthrogryposis multiplex congenita.
Advantage Services employees Anthony Tarchick, Max Loveridge, and Trevor Howell, left to right, clean out bins of abandoned property at the Transitional Storage Program in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
By Katie McKellar
Advantage Services has been facing financial woes due to several issues: unexpected cost increases, higher insurance premiums, and scaled-back contracts from various customers. But one of the biggest reasons was its largest contract with Salt Lake City’s Urban Services Division was slashed in half from roughly $2 million to less than $1 million.
CEO Rob Ferris said over the next 30 days he’ll be working on liquidating the company’s assets, which includes a fleet of vehicles, in hopes he can use the money to pay out employees’ unused vacation time as severance.
A tributary to the Great Salt Lake at the Ogden Bay Waterfowl Management Area is pictured on Monday, Nov. 25, 2024. (Kyle Dunphey/Utah News Dispatch)
GREAT SALT LAKE COLLABORATIVE
By Carter Williams, KSL
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has agreed to donate $3 million toward the state’s efforts to remove phragmites that surround the struggling Great Salt Lake. The donation will help improve habitat restoration, protect shoreline wetlands and boost natural water inflows into the lake, said Gov. Spencer Cox.
State officials estimate that phragmites covers more than 50,000 acres around the lake. They estimate the lake could save 82,000 acre-feet of water annually if the state can convert the area into 40,800 acres of inland saltgrass.
Rebecca Crozier, 27, of Meridian, Idaho, poses in October 2026 with mementos from her baby, Haven. (Photo by Otto Kitsinger for Stateline)
STATELINE
By Kelcie Moseley-Morris
At 11 weeks’ gestation, specialists told Idaho resident Rebecca Crozier the unborn baby she’d named Haven had anencephaly, which occurs when the brain does not develop normally and the skull is left open, exposing brain tissue to amniotic fluid that causes the tissue to dissolve. It is a fatal condition.
In many states, even ones with abortion bans, Crozier would have had the option to terminate the pregnancy. But Idaho’s near-total prohibition includes no exceptions for fatal anomalies. Next Tuesday, Idahoans will vote to determine whether the ban should remain the law.
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