Study finds fewer homeless in LV

Erin Neff

Thursday, Oct. 28, 1999 | 11:07 a.m.

A study released this week suggests that estimates of 20,000 homeless people living in the Las Vegas Valley are highly inflated.

The study, conducted by UNLV's Department of Sociology on behalf of four local governmental jurisdictions, presents a "hard count" of homeless at 6,707 -- roughly one-third of the total many had advocated lived in Southern Nevada.

"The population has never been accurately depicted," said Sharon Segerblom, the director of Neighborhood Services for the city of Las Vegas. "We believe that this extrapolation is the best number attainable."

The major change in homeless estimates may call into question the resources the city spends on the problem and lead to some public policy changes about where homeless services are located, Segerblom added.

Frederick W. Preston, the principal investigator for the study, calls the study a "benchmark in the efforts to enumerate and describe the homeless populations locally as well as around the country."

The so-called "hard count" of homeless took place overnight between May 12 and 13. Investigators picked the middle of the month because they believe more homeless have access to temporary housing at the beginning of the month after government checks arrive and before the money is gone.

A total of 248 counters, working in teams of two, canvassed the area between 10:30 p.m. and 6 a.m. looking for visible indicators of homeless individuals.

A Metro Police helicopter was employed to locate homeless individuals in the Las Vegas Wash, in and around the Silver Bowl and in the area known as Pabco swamp. Heat-identifying technology was used to count 158 homeless that otherwise would have been missed.

A total of 2,312 homeless -- outside of shelters -- were counted during the night. A special formula to adjust the figure was multiplied to the total to reach a figure of 5,198 nonsheltered homeless. An additional 1,509 were counted in shelters.

Las Vegas had the most homeless at 3,932. Henderson had 293, North Las Vegas had 1,154 and unincorporated parts of Clark County had 1,328.

Although homeless advocates had estimated those figures as much higher, the numbers in the study are much higher than the 1990 census data.

And, the seriousness of the homeless problem cannot be underestimated because of the reduction in figures, the study says.

Las Vegas reportedly has more homeless on the streets at night --2,312 -- than Chicago's 1,184 or Phoenix's 140. Both of those cities have more homeless in shelters than Las Vegas does.

The study also included interviews with as many homeless as possible. More than one-third surveyed said they had served in the military and more than one-third said they had some type of addictive behavior.

Segerblom said she thinks the city's resources, therefore, should concentrate on services for veterans, job training and substance abuse education.

"In the city of Las Vegas, we actually have enough emergency and transitional shelters," Segerblom said. "We plan on focusing a lot of our resources on the veteran community."

In the 1997-98 fiscal year, the city spent $3,449,123 on homeless issues. It spent another $2,957,980 on homelessness during the 1998-99 fiscal year. Those figures do not include the shared cost with Clark County to fund construction of the MASH homeless shelter in downtown Las Vegas.

David Buer, a Franciscan brother and chairman of the Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition Advocacy Committee, said shelter for homeless people remains an issue no matter what the official count shows.

"I think we can see it's not an impossible situation that we can serve the needs of the homeless in our community," Buer said. "I do still think we need more emergency shelters, especially for men, who don't want to sleep outdoors at night."

The UNLV study was funded by $20,000 each from the city and Clark County and by $5,000 each from the cities of Henderson and North Las Vegas.

Among the recommendations the study suggests is a systematic method for monitoring the current status of the homeless population.

One of the key recommendations also deals with a policy debate that has been ongoing for years. The study suggests offering services in the suburbs and periphery of Las Vegas, instead of limiting them to a homeless corridor.

"The city of Las Vegas is bearing the economic and social burden for the regional issue of homelessness," the study states. "Other local jurisdictions have enjoyed the benefits of exporting many of these social costs to the city of Las Vegas, where the vast majority of homeless services are provided."

The Rev. Lloyd Rupp, pastor of St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Henderson and chairman of Friends in the Desert, a group dedicated to feeding Henderson's homeless, said his sense is that the study underestimated the homeless population in that city "by a fairly large margin."

Rupp said while Henderson is full of caring individuals and agencies who do what they can, more needs to be done. The most pressing need, he said, is a shelter.

Mayor Oscar Goodman said he planned to read the study Wednesday night so he could speak about it at his weekly press conference this morning. He said the findings sounded "very significant" and would likely raise funding questions.