Nonprofit helps Salt Lake City’s unsheltered with registering to vote
Oct 31, 2024, 10:25 PM | Updated: 10:41 pm
SALT LAKE CITY — On the afternoon of Halloween, the political season was in high gear in an unlikely area of town.
A nonprofit was conducting a grassroots effort to register voters among the city’s unsheltered population near 400 West and 200 South.
“If they vote, if they’re registered voters, I think some of the leaders and the politicians in power will take them a little more seriously and listen to more of their concerns and do more to solve the homeless epidemic,” said Kseniya Kniazeva, founder and executive director of the Nomad Alliance.
Kseniya Kniazeva talking to unsheltered people in Salt Lake City and getting them registered to vote. (KSL TV)
Kniazeva said many homeless people don’t even have proper IDs, so Thursday’s first step was to get people to a nearby Driver License Division location.
“The unhoused don’t vote,” Kniazeva said. “They’ve long given up thinking that the government is there to take care of them.”
Kniazeva said her organization has helped roughly 50 people secure IDs and approximately 30 participate in early voting so far.
Brandy Kaye Cook secured her driver’s license Wednesday.
“One vote is a vote that wasn’t there before,” Cook said. “If we stand united, we might get to have a voice.”
Some of the unsheltered people at the DMV getting licenses. (KSL TV)
Kniazeva has also experienced homelessness during childhood and also briefly during the pandemic. She said she had set up her nonprofit to help others who don’t have the support that she did.
She said several unsheltered helped her during her journey.
“It was those people that were taking care of me when I was extra vulnerable,” Kniazeva said. “It was the people from the streets that helped me feel safe and helped me feel calm in a time of my crisis, so this is a way that I can give back to them.”
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