Switchpoint Community Resource Center

Carol Hollowell opened Switchpoint in 2014 in a donated building on the northwest side of St. George — a single shelter and soup kitchen that she started after meeting a man in a wheelchair named Ray who couldn't navigate the city's existing services. Twelve years later the organization runs seventeen facilities in and out of Southern Utah, has permanently housed more than 6,100 families and individuals, and has served upward of 173,000 meals through community kitchens.

More Than a Shelter

Switchpoint's model is built on the premise that housing plus food alone doesn't end homelessness — what it requires is a structured path to self-sufficiency. The St. George campus at 948 N 1300 W runs 24/7 emergency shelter, a community kitchen, sixteen family housing units, a thrift store, and a doggy day care called Bed 'N' Biscuits whose proceeds fund operations. Individualized case management sits at the center of each stay: every client gets a plan. The model has drawn attention from national press — Utah News Dispatch featured it in 2024 as an example of what comprehensive shelter reform looks like in practice.

Place and Scale

The St. George location is the original and the flagship. The others — shelter sites, childcare centers, supportive housing units — spread from it. That kind of growth from a single converted building in Washington County is unusual enough that it's become a reference model for municipal homeless strategy in the region. Washington County's population has roughly doubled since Hollowell first opened the doors, and Switchpoint has grown alongside it — not as a static charity but as a scaled operation.

Switchpoint in the 435

For a register cataloging locally rooted Southern Utah organizations, Switchpoint is the clearest example of a homegrown institution that built a model the national conversation eventually caught up to. It was started by a local director, funded by local donors and private grants, and anchored on the northwest side of St. George with no federal operating subsidy. That combination — mission-driven, place-rooted, self-sustaining — is exactly what the register is meant to surface.