By McKenzie Romero | Editor
For 34 years, Advantage Services has employed people no one else would. Currently or formerly homeless, leaving jail or prison, refugees, and those living in poverty, all doing taxing work like clearing empty homeless encampments while also receiving job coaching and other services.
The nonprofit has now furloughed all but 15 of around 125 employees as it drowns in growing costs and shrinking contracts. Without an infusion of cash to cover the next payroll, it will shut down completely at the end of the month.
In today’s Dispatch we spotlight the search for solutions to keep Advantage Services’ employees from losing their jobs, the Department of Justice plan to send election monitors to Utah, and the growing burden for employer-sponsored health insurance plans.
“We’re the largest employer of people in this population — the homeless, people coming out of jail or prison — in the whole state. … Where are they going to go? There is no other company that does what we do.” — Advantage Services CEO Rob Ferris on his efforts to either fund or merge the nonprofit.
Advantage Services employees Max Loveridge and Anthony Tarchick, left to right, clean up abandoned property called in by a police officer in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
By Katie McKellar
Advantage Services has been financially struggling due to issues including 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.
The situation has caught the attention of the Utah Homeless Services Board, the powerful body that oversees the state’s homeless system and distributes state funding to homeless service providers, though no solution has been presented so far.
Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson speaks to reporters at the Utah State Capitol on Oct. 22, 2026. (Alixel Cabrera/Utah News Dispatch)
By Alixel Cabrera
The U.S. Department of Justice is sending election monitors to Utah polls to oversee the Nov. 3 elections, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson learned on Wednesday. The move comes amid pressure from the agency as Henderson, Utah’s chief election officer, refuses to release private voter data to the federal government.
The monitors will dress in business casual clothing and won’t be allowed to use any DOJ identifiers. They aren’t allowed to talk to voters inside polling places or to carry firearms. Henderson encouraged voters who are worried about going to an in-person polling location to submit their ballots at a drop box ahead of Election Day.
The price health insurance companies charge for employer-sponsored plans increased again this year, according to a survey by KFF. (Photo by krisanapong detraphiphat/Getty Images)
DC BUREAU
By Jennifer Shutt
The price health insurance companies charge for employer-sponsored plans increased again this year, as did the deductible many people must pay before those plans begin covering most healthcare costs, according to a survey released by the nonpartisan health organization KFF.
The amount of money an employee pays toward an individual health insurance plan rose by $232, or 16%, from 2025 to 2026. The price an employee pays for a family health insurance policy increased by $621, or 9%, according to the survey.
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