Homeless shelter meets deadline for council action

Diana Sahagun

Wednesday, May 9, 2001 | 10:43 a.m.

The Las Vegas City Council will discuss a new contract for MASH Village next week, but there has been no agreement reached on whether the homeless shelter will remain open under the Rev. Joe Carroll's direction.

No contract has been proposed, but the shelter met a deadline of 5 p.m. Tuesday to request the council put MASH Village on its May 16 agenda.

That buys the shelter a week of negotiating time to stave off its closure.

Staff members for the city and shelter will meet over the next week in hopes that an agreement can be reached.

"We would like to be able to put a solid proposal before the council at their meeting," Assistant City Manager Betsy Fretwell said.

If an agreement is not approved, MASH Village will close its crisis intervention center and health clinic May 18.

At a meeting of the Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition Tuesday, MASH Village Executive Director Ruth Bruland said shelter caseworkers are quietly trying to relocate homeless families in case an agreement cannot be reached.

Bruland said the caseworkers are trying to find shelter for 33 families, most of them single women with children. There are also four intact families and single fathers with children.

Carroll has demanded the city give the shelter ownership of the parcel that it sits on to aid with the group's fund-raising. The city, however, maintains that the group was to make $5 million in capital improvement to the land before it gained ownership. MASH Village has raised less than $2 million in the past five years for improvements.

The contract expired in December.

Carroll last week gave the city 10 days to reach an agreement before he would shut down the crisis intervention center and health clinic. He said he would close the housing portion by the end of the month.

The tug-of-war over whether the shelter would close, remain open or remain open with a new operator has affected more people than just those who must be relocated.

Two Metro Police officers based at MASH Village as part of the Homeless Evaluation Liaison Project, or HELP, packed up their boxes last week when they heard the shelter was closing.

Officer Kendall Wiley said although the shelter is still open, neither she nor her HELP partner are unpacking their boxes. They have an option to move their office across the street to Catholic Charities if the shelter closes.

Even if Carroll continues to run the shelter, Bruland said the shelter will no longer provide the 250-bed temporary winter tent, as it has for the last three years.

When the winter tent closed for the season earlier this month, Bruland said several of the men were angry that the service would no longer be provided. The day after it closed, Bruland said, a homeless person slashed the plastic tent and set the inside on fire, destroying blankets, beds, and a computer inside.

"It was a really rocky end to that program and we're quite certain should (MASH Village) be in operation a year from now, it will not be able to operate the winter shelter," she said.

Nearby homeless providers say they wish they could take in some of the families in case the shelter closes, but that doesn't appear to be a possibility.

Of the 100 people living at MASH Village, 33 are families, Bruland said.

Shade Tree is the only shelter that could take some of the 25 single women and children if MASH Village closes.

But at least four men at MASH Village are single fathers, and there are four intact families, who would be split up if MASH Village closes.

Catholic Charities and Salvation Army only house single men.

"It's a very bad situation and there's no easy remedy except we could supply food, and possibly other services like utility assistance and counseling," said Charles Desiderio, director of development and marketing for Salvation Army.