Jeffrey Kaiser Plante didn’t grow up dreaming of joining the circus, getting stabbed thirteen times, or losing his teeth to methamphetamine. But life rarely goes the way we plan.
Right before his 21st birthday, Jeffrey made a decision that would define the next twelve years of his life. After being cited for minor alcohol consumption, he didn’t pay the fine or show up to court. Instead, he ran off to join a traveling carnival. “That was my pattern,” he says. “Any time something difficult came up, I just ran.”
Raised in Minnesota by a hippie mother and a biker father he wouldn’t meet until he was 25, Jeffrey came from a family steeped in addiction. Smoking pot with relatives felt normal, even routine. Despite a respectful home and what he describes as a decent childhood, addiction still took root.
His life with the carnival was transient—he’d work a season running games or rides, then return to Minnesota to stay with his mom. When that arrangement soured, he’d pack up again. Eventually, he met a woman at the carnival who became pregnant with his child. They moved back to Utah—her home state—and for a brief moment, things looked hopeful.
“I stopped drinking. I stopped using,” Jeffrey recalls. But the past caught up with him. Old habits resurfaced. He started using again, drinking heavily, and soon lost his job. A domestic violence incident sent him to jail, and after his release, he found himself homeless in Salt Lake’s Pioneer Park.
“That’s where it all started,” he says. “And that’s where you get into a lot of trouble.”
Jeffrey drifted between shelters and camps, eventually ending up in a canyon near the Utah State Capitol—what he calls “the mountain.” He lived there for six years, part of a community of roughly 25 others, most of whom were also using drugs.
“I justified it by picking up trash along the highway,” he says. “People driving by would see me doing a good deed, and I’d think that made it okay.” The reality was different. Encampments were trashed, addiction was rampant, and even brutal winters weren’t enough to push him to change.
Then came the moment that would truly break him.
A woman—whom he calls his “street mom”—came to him one night saying that someone named Candace was being held at knifepoint. Trying to play the hero, Jeffrey ran to the scene. “I said, ‘Okay, who’s got the knife?’” he recalls. Seconds later, the man with the weapon turned on him.
Jeffrey was stabbed thirteen times—in the head, face, arms. One of the wounds severed an artery; another broke a rib. Candace didn’t survive. She was stabbed over 40 times.
Jeffrey flatlined twice on the way to the hospital. He spent four days in a coma. When he woke up, he saw his four-year-old son—who didn’t recognize him. It was the last time they saw each other.
Even after that, he returned to the streets. “I had all my cuts, staples, everything infected,” he says. “I never went back to get them taken care of.” The paranoia from meth, the trauma of the stabbing, and the grief of losing his mother—a year later—plunged him deeper into despair.
“I went into psychosis. I called the police on myself,” he says. “I knew I needed help, but I didn’t know where to go.”
Jeffrey landed in jail on a warrant. That’s where he saw a flyer for The Other Side Academy. “My public defender said I didn’t need it, just take probation,” he recalls. “But I knew if I didn’t go somewhere, I’d end up back in jail or dead.”
The Other Side Academy—a peer-led, long-term residential program for people with histories of addiction, crime, and homelessness—accepted him. And for the first time in years, Jeffrey had structure.
“It’s like behavioral boot camp,” he says. “At first, I had a huge attitude problem. I didn’t take feedback well. I’d yell and scream in group meetings. But two years in, it finally clicked.”
The Academy doesn’t rely on government funding. Instead, it sustains itself through social enterprises: moving services, thrift stores, a donut shop. Residents work full-time, live together, and hold each other accountable in an environment rooted in mutual respect.
“What made it work,” Jeffrey says, “was that the people giving feedback had been through the same things. Who better to point out your flaws than someone with the same flaws?”
He stayed for four years.
“There were times I wanted to leave,” he admits. “But I knew if I went back out, it would be the same cycle—homelessness, jail, addiction. I wasn’t ready.”
Today, Jeffrey is a coach at The Other Side Village—a planned tiny-home community built for people transitioning out of chronic homelessness. After 25 years on and off the streets, he’s helping others rebuild their lives.
“There’s no high like this,” he says. “In the life I used to live, you chase a different kind of high. Now, it’s the high of helping people who are just like I was. There’s nothing better.”
He’s found purpose. He’s found love—he’s now in a relationship with Jackie, another graduate of the program. And he’s found home.
“The Village is amazing,” he says. “Five years ago, I couldn’t have imagined this life. We have everything—community, purpose, and fun. It’s hard work, but it’s fulfilling work.”
When asked what advice he’d give to someone currently living on the street, Jeffrey doesn’t sugarcoat it.
“Whole person change is hard,” he says. “But so is living in constant survival mode—wondering where your next meal’s coming from, your next fix, who’s watching you, who you have to rob.”
He continues, “The help is out there. You just have to find it.”
For Jeffrey, the turning point was choosing to stop running—from the law, from his problems, from himself. And while his story may seem extraordinary, it’s also a reflection of the larger crisis facing Salt Lake City: an epidemic of addiction, trauma, and people slipping through the cracks.
But it’s also a story of what can happen when someone finds the right support.
