Columnist Melissa Schorr: No rooms at the inn? Hard to belive

Melissa Schorr

Monday, Dec. 21, 1998 | 11:52 a.m.

They're running out of beds down at the emergency shelters. Shade Tree, Safe Nest, MASH Village -- all are currently jam-packed.

"It's hard to turn somebody away," sighs Shade Tree director Brenda Dizon, who is sometimes forced to do exactly that.

Meanwhile, down on the Strip, though hotel occupancy rates hover at a staggering 90 percent, that still means more than 10,000 beds in this city go empty on a given night.

Are we overlooking a simple solution here?

Before you call the idea idealistic, leftist or downright Marxist, consider the program "American Responds with Love."

The 16-year-old non-profit corporation matches the needy -- a woman fleeing an abuser, stranded travelers, homeless families -- with local hotel/motels who donate their unused rooms for the night. (To prevent abuse, all are carefully screened by participating agencies.)

The Wichita-based program, which relies on the kindness of 727 anonymous hotels and motels in 227 cities, has helped 85,000 people since 1982, including Bosnian refugees, children with lead poisoning and burn victims.

President and founder Richard McDonough says the program is not a replacement for permanent shelter space, but a supplement. "It's a backup safety net for the 'what if?"' he says.

In Las Vegas, though, the program is only used sporadically by Safe Nest for extreme cases.

Meanwhile, local shelters race to expand: Shade Tree is a third of the way toward raising $3.2 million for a new, 500-bed complex before its current, 84-bed facility is demolished by January 2000. Safe Nest's 64-bed facility for battered women plans to add 40 beds in anticipation of the city's growth. And MASH Village set up a 250-bed emergency tent in order to make it through wintertime.

Why can't a program like America Responds be used more extensively?

In fact, it was -- by the Salvation Army, until about two years ago. Recipients included a woman vacationer stranded when her husband died of a heart attack, an elderly couple evicted from their home, and unprepared new arrivals awaiting a workcard.

But with dozens of hotels and motels in town, only two agreed to participate. And even they often begged off, claiming occupancy rates were too high to donate the rooms.

To be fair, Las Vegas hotels are often fully booked. "In our town," Dizon notes, "the times of the year that have the highest degree of stress and incidents are also the times this town caters to tourism -- like Super Bowl Sunday."

But this program asks for no set asides, just leftover scraps of space. "When there's no room, there's no room," McDonough says. "When there is, that's an under-utilized resource we think could be used in a productive manner. I do not want to tell hotels what they should do. But if they have responsibility, they will do something."

With more than 20,000 rooms coming on line by 2000, and a palpable fear on Wall Steet that occupancy rates could dip lower, here's a way hotels could salvage that situation -- and get a tax break. Oh yes, and do some good.

"This could be the silver lining of that cloud," McDonough agrees. "We'd be happy to work with any agency. If this opens some doors, it would be wonderful."