A Salt Lake City nonprofit that employs people facing homelessness, disabilities, addiction, and criminal-record-related barriers has furloughed 110 employees, after it could not cover a third payroll this month. Advantage Services began a three-week furlough on October 12, leaving workers who handle biohazard cleanup, landscaping, snow removal, and shelter transportation suddenly without pay.
The nonprofit, founded in 1992, had 160 employees just six months before the furlough and had already permanently lost 50 positions in that span, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. The crisis traces back to Salt Lake City cutting Advantage Services' largest municipal contract from about $2.165 million to $1 million, paired with insurance costs that rose more than 300% and climbing fuel expenses, the Tribune reported. CEO Robert Ferris, who has led the organization since 2014 and also co-chairs the Employment and Education Core Function Group on the Salt Lake Valley Coalition to End Homelessness, oversees the nonprofit's government contract negotiations, according to Advantage Services.
A Business Model Built on Thin Margins
Advantage Services relies almost entirely on fee-for-service government and private contracts; Utah Gives says less than 3% of the organization’s $3.2 million annual revenue comes from grants or donations. Utah Gives That structure left the nonprofit exposed once its biggest funding source shrank, while rising insurance and fuel costs added pressure.
Salt Lake City has been a major source of funding for the organization, underscoring how central municipal dollars have been to its operations. The strain emerged as municipal funding fell, with the city's cut to its largest contract contributing to the shortfall.
Who the Furlough Hits Hardest
Advantage Services enforces hiring benchmarks requiring at least 70% of its workforce to consist of people with physical or mental disabilities, and 80% to live at low-to-moderate income levels, according to the organization's own 2024 Employment Report. Its Clean Team program is one of the nonprofit's employment offerings.
Some workers staff kitchens and support programs at housing sites, while others handle biohazard cleanup, landscaping, snow removal, and transportation, according to the Tribune. The nonprofit also partners with Shelter the Homeless to operate a seven-day-a-week free shuttle connecting 10 shelter and service locations across Salt Lake County — a service that delivered 38,499 rides in 2025, with 79% of its drivers themselves formerly unhoused, according to Shelter the Homeless.
Why the Stakes Reach Beyond Payroll
The furlough's ripple effects extend into Salt Lake County's broader homeless response system. Local and state agencies in the county have previously spent more than $500,000 in a single year on homeless encampment cleanups, according to a 2022 investigation by the Utah Investigative Journalism Project, work that contractors like Advantage Services have historically shouldered. Advantage Services' operations include landscaping, biohazard cleanup, and transportation services.
Whether other Salt Lake County municipalities will step in to help fill the funding gap, or whether Salt Lake City will renegotiate or restore part of the contract before the three-week furlough ends, remains an open question raised in the organization's own August social media post. The furlough comes as Salt Lake City has been expanding other pieces of its homeless services network, including the new ARCH diversion center that opened earlier this month, even as workforce and transportation programs supporting that same population now face sudden instability.
