Utah officials deny homeless sent to LV

By Timothy Pratt

Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001 | 9:51 a.m.

Utah officials denied Wednesday charges by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman that 1,000 homeless persons in Salt Lake City are being intentionally bused to Las Vegas to get them out of town before the 2002 Winter Olympics.

On at least three occasions in recent weeks, as recently as Wednesday -- Goodman has said that his reliable police sources tell him that the homeless have been sent from Utah to Nevada. On Wednesday, he made the charge again during a meeting of a homeless task force.

If proof of the policy is found, "there will be war between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas," Goodman said, noting that Metro Police was investigating.

Metro, however, does not have an investigation under way into allegations homeless people are being sent to Las Vegas from Salt Lake City, department spokesman Lt. Vincent Cannito said Wednesday.

And Kerry Bate, chairman of the Utah Homeless Coordinating Committee, said, "This sounds like one of those old wive's tales. We emphatically deny anything like this is happening.

"If anything," Bate said, "we have been preparing for a possible increase in the homeless population by setting up an additional 300 beds at a nonprofit shelter."

Linda Lera-Randle El provides services to the homeless in Las Vegas with a program called Straight from the Streets.

"If something like this was happening, you'd see it in the lots, washes and fields where the homeless sleep. I haven't seen anything like 1,000 more people on the streets recently," she said.

The homeless population in Utah is estimated at 2,000, about 60 percent of whom live in Salt Lake City. Many of the homeless in the capital seek services at the Road Home Shelter, which has 1,100 beds during winter months, and would receive the 300 additional beds in January.

"The Salt Lake Olympics Committee and the state and city have been working hard for over a year to make sure that services to the homeless are not interrupted during the Olympics," said Brooke Lewis, a spokeswoman for the shelter.

"I can emphatically deny that the homeless are being bused out of here."

Bate said that landlords in other cities where the Olympics have been held gouged rents to offer temporary housing to visitors, forcing part of the local population into the streets.

"We heard that there were some cases of this in Atlanta and Sydney, and that's why we're setting up more shelter in advance," he said.

The official said a similar rumor about the homeless was circulated four or five years ago -- but in reverse.

"We heard here that Las Vegas was sending its homeless to Salt Lake City, and we checked it out with shelters and officials there. And it just wasn't true."