Media Mentions

A new program to help more Utahns achieve homeownership was announced at the Utah State Capitol this week. The Utah Workforce Housing Priority, an effort from Ivory Homes, Utah’s Number One Homebuilder®, is focused on assisting professions that provide a public service and first-time homebuyers. The program, taking place outside any government obligation, reserves the most affordable homes for critical members of Utah’s workforce. “In a climate of increasing housing prices and affordability challenges, we have a duty to those serving our communities and to assist them in becoming homeowners,” said Clark Ivory, CEO of Ivory Homes. “We are committed[...]

SALT LAKE CITY — Andrea Brandley, who currently works as an elementary theater teacher, said the idea of searching for affordable housing is "very daunting." Brandley said she and her husband spent a year living with family, trying to save money for a down payment and working with a real estate agent to run the numbers on what kind of mortgage they would be able to qualify for. But ultimately, Brandley said they settled on renting because they just couldn't find anything they could afford to buy in the area where they wanted to live.

SALT LAKE CITY — During his State of the State address last week, Gov. Gary Herbert called for reforming Utah’s sales tax system by cutting the percentage of sales taxes and broadening the base of taxed goods. The exact proposal in Herbert’s speech was a cut from 4.85 percent sales tax across the state to 1.75 percent, and the state would collect taxes on services like Lyft and Uber, or other services. […]

SALT LAKE CITY — Three finalists in Schmidt Futures' American Dream Idea Challenge were announced at the University of Utah Thursday. The three teams will go on to compete for $1 million in funding among finalists selected by three other anchor universities participating in the challenge, Ohio State University, Arizona State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Three ambitious proposals — a peer-to-peer service for storage rentals, an app to coordinate modes of public transportation, and a drive to revitalize Utah’s coal country — are the Utah nominees in a national competition for ideas to boost America’s middle class. The nominees, chosen from 152 proposals from around the state, were announced Wednesday at the University of Utah as part of the American Dream Ideas Challenge — which will give $1 million each to the best ideas that can raise the net incomes of 10,000 middle-class households by 10 percent by 2020.

WEST VALLEY CITY — West Valley City is the first Utah metropolis to become home to mostly racial minorities, according to newly released population data. "It is the multicultural, multilingual, multiethnic Utah. It's just leading that change that's really sweeping the state," said Pam Perlich, director of demographic research at the University of Utah's Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

SALT LAKE CITY — A top Trump administration health official says our best hope for curbing the opioid crisis may lie in the concept of “prehab,” or helping people avoid addiction in the first place, rather than rehabilitation after the fact. Adm. Brett Giroir, Assistant Health Secretary, visited Utah’s Morning News on Friday to talk about what the White House is doing to fight the opioid epidemic. His visit coincides with a healthcare innovation symposium hosted by the Kem Gardner Policy Institute and the Hatch Center.

Limited housing supplies on the Wasatch Front are stifling sales of single-family homes and pushing prices to new highs. In keeping with trends seen in many parts of the country, home sales fell between April and June in Salt Lake County as a result of tight inventories, declining by 4.6 percent compared to the same quarter last year, according to new numbers released Thursday by the Salt Lake Board of Realtors.

SALT LAKE CITY — While national conversations about hacking attempts aimed at disrupting U.S. elections are ongoing, security experts raised red flags Monday about the 2020 Census and the U.S. Census Bureau's failure to share details about keeping the effort safe from digital intruders. The warnings carry extra heft with this version of the decennial effort as the population count is relying on technology at unprecedented levels, including allowing respondents to complete census forms online for the first time.

SALT LAKE CITY — When their family first moved to Bountiful, Yetlanecy Mendez’s daughter, who was 5 at the time, cried every day. "Please bring us back to Mexico," the girl said during prayers. Her mother at times felt the same way. The family had moved from the state of Puebla so Mendez’s husband could pursue a master’s degree in Utah.