Folding the tents: Homeless people at center of dispute

Erica Johnson

Monday, June 18, 2001 | 10:29 a.m.

Homeless advocates say the city of Las Vegas has created an unnecessary crisis with its recent initiative to remove encampments of homeless people along the railroad tracks near Main Street and Owens Avenue.

They are challenging city officials to come up with proactive suggestions to find a new place for the 100 people who live in the area dubbed "Tent City" to go.

"Whenever 100 people lose their homes, whether it's an apartment or a house or a tent, that's a crisis, because they have nowhere to go," Brian Brooks, chairman of the public awareness committee for the Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition, said.

But city officials say the "Tent City" closure, and homelessness in general, is not a city problem, but a regional one that Clark County and the cities of Henderson and North Las Vegas also should address.

After receiving an abatement notice from the city, William Smith of Boulder City, who owns the property, earlier this month signed a formal trespass form, asking Metro Police to remove the people who live there.

Plans to clear the encampment came shortly after Catholic Charities closed its emergency shelter, which provided 175 beds to homeless men, in order to renovate.

MASH Village cut back beds and services at its nearby shelter earlier this month as well, after negotiations with the city of Las Vegas failed to grant ownership of the land it occupies. It had also lost $500,000 a year from the city when a five-year contract expired in December.

The nonprofit group also shut down its 250-bed winter tent on April 16. Officials said next winter's cold-weather shelter will depend on how successful the group is in raising private funds. The shelter aims to raise $1 million by the end of the year,

The Salvation Army still has 20 beds in its emergency shelter and the Shade Tree Shelter for Women and Children, also an emergency shelter, has 182 beds.

Brooks said the Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition, a network of individuals, nonprofit and for-profit groups that help the homeless, wants to meet with the city to come to an agreement on where the Tent City squatters can go.

"What we want is for the city to contact us when something like this happens instead of just acting on it and making the people move off the property," Brooks said. "That way we could get together with the city and with experts and try to work something out that meets the goals of everyone and takes care of the people in a respectful way."

As of today the coalition had made no direct attempts to reach city officials, or vice versa, Brooks said and city officials confirmed.

Sharon Segerblom, director of Neighborhood Services, said the city is taking steps to provide the homeless with other options, whether that means helping them find temporary shelter or enrolling them in social service programs.

Segerblom said city officials are working closely with the Salvation Army to "speak to, touch and counsel every individual" in the encampment. Since the impending closure, the Salvation Army has formed an outreach team to provide services to anyone living in the encampment who wants help, Segerblom said.

City officials said since the outreach, which began June 11 and was to last for two weeks, 16 people from the encampment have been enrolled in Salvation Army programs and others have found programs on their own. As a result, Segerblom said, only 30 to 50 people are left at the encampment.

Segerblom said that besides being a health risk, the encampment was notorious for violence, beatings and murders. She said the city's role is not to shoo people off the property, but to deal with health and safety hazards while maintaining the dignity and privacy of the people who live there.

"It boggles my mind that a homeless advocate would want people living in 100-degree temperatures with no sanitation and no water," Segerblom said.

A 1999 study done by UNLV's sociology department, which counted and surveyed homeless in the cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson, estimated about 6,700 homeless people on the streets or in shelters in Southern Nevada.

More than 45 percent of those surveyed were high school graduates and 20 percent of them had either bachelor's degrees or some college credit. More than 34 percent said they had served in the military, the study showed.

Metro Police Officer Kendall Wiley, who specializes in homeless outreach, said no date has been set for the "Tent City" clearing, and the department is waiting for the Salvation Army to finish its evaluation. At that time she will hand out fliers warning the people to vacate the property. Once the fliers are dispersed, Wiley said, she will try to give the inhabitants another week to move along.

Gustavo Ramos, a member of the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition Task Force and chairman of the Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition, said the task force is considering reaching out to local churches or synogogues and asking them to help house the people on an interim basis.

The task force, he said, includes representatives from the cities of Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas, Boulder City and Mesquite, as well as Clark County.