Charity chief comes to city’s defense

Friday, Aug. 30, 2002 | 2:52 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: August 31, 2002

Maj. William Raihl has taken over the reins of the Clark County Salvation Army at a time when one national homeless advocacy group is calling Las Vegas one of worst places to be homeless.

Raihl, who has been at the helm for about a month after serving at the Salvation Army's district office in Phoenix the last four years, questions those who say Las Vegas does not have the interest of the homeless at heart.

"I've seen much worse," Raihl , 41, said. "Try being homeless in Anchorage, Alaska, in the winter. Every night we drove around in vans and picked up drunks who had fallen asleep in snow banks to save them from freezing to death.

"And Anchorage didn't have anywhere near the social services network we have in Las Vegas."

Raihl's comments come on the heels of criticisms earlier this month by representatives of the National Coalition for the Homeless, the nation's oldest and largest homeless advocacy group, which said, "The city (of Las Vegas) seems to breed prejudice and hatred toward this population."

The Washington-based group came to the city on a fact-finding trip for its annual report that includes a list of the nation's "Ten Meanest Cities" toward the homeless. It said, "there is a good chance" Las Vegas will make that list next year.

The group apparently was targeting Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who has been critical of homeless people who do nothing to try to improve their situation.

"To an extent, the mayor is right," said Raihl.

"I hate categorizing the homeless, but there are two main groups -- the very vocal habitual homeless who comprise 20 percent or less of the homeless population and want to live on the streets, and the 80 percent or more who have fallen on hard times and want help to get back into their own homes."

Where Raihl differs with some officials and agrees with the National Coalition for the Homeless is that government agencies and nonprofit organization must find ways to help provide basic needs for the habitual homeless who often shun such help and the restrictive rules of shelters.

"We cannot let the nation see a city that is abusing or manhandling them to keep them out of tourist areas," Raihl said.

He said he believes the long-term solution to the homeless problem is to "stop focusing on the habitual homeless minority and put the bulk of our recources and efforts into helping the majority who don't want to be homeless.

"For that, we need funds for more vocational training and rehabilitation and to expand our successful efforts like our culinary and security guard job training program. We need a sufficient number of beds to shelter people while we identify their needs and we need more (low-cost) transitional housing."

Raihl also has to overcome the long shadow of a predecessor who helped change the face of homeless advocacy in Southern Nevada. But Raihl has nothing but praise for retired Col. Jim Sullivan, who ran the local Salvation Army for 19 years during its period of greatest growth.

"I have laid awake at nights hoping I don't mess up what Col. Sullivan has done," said Raihl, who heads an operation that has a $14 million annual budget and helps thousands with everything from shelter to free meals to drug rehabilitation to job training.

"He (Sullivan) gave the organization much needed direction in the early 1980s and built a legacy."

Raihl and his wife, Maj. Harryette Raihl, say that to accomplish their goals they are going to do the same thing Cols. Jim and Maud Sullivan did in 1983 -- establish a 20-year plan.

"The Sullivans accomplished everything that was in their plan," Raihl said. "It is unusual for people in our position to be at one post for that long. Even if my wife and I are here just five years and get reassigned, we want to leave having established a good direction for the coming years."

That plan will include establishing innovative programs at the soon-to-open Lied Vocational Training Center, continuing to work with local governments to provide additional winter shelter to the homeless and to bring the outlying Salvation Army chapters into the fold and give them more active roles.

"A number of these corps agencies have been treated like forgotten stepchildren," Raihl said. "But they have vital programs that can be replicated and used throughout the community, like Henderson's excellent adult day-care program and the North Las Vegas Salvation Army's strong youth-tutoring program."

And the Raihls, who also have worked for corps in San Diego and Washington state since being commissioned as officers in 1984, will strive to establish the local Salvation Army's role as a signficant ecumenical body, getting involved in some religious political issues.

"I am pro life, but I'm not going to be carrying placards in protest," William Raihl said. "However, we are a Christian church and we will get involved in issues that are relevent to the work we are doing, like supporting President Bush's faith-based initiatives."

For years the Raihls, while working in Phoenix, helped oversee establishment of the federally funded Silvercrest 60-unit senior housing project in North Las Vegas. They had to jump through many hoops that are not required of secular nonprofit agencies to get the project built, they said.

"We had to establish a separate nonprofit agency to even get the money from HUD (Housing and Urban Development Department) to build Silvercrest," Raihl said.

"A bureaucrat went so far with the separation of church and state thing, he told us to build a fence separating the units from our church. It took us nine months to get the government to change its mind on that. As a compromise, they made us plant shrubs as a barrier instead.

"Part of Bush's faith-based initiatives will put religious nonprofits on the same playing field as secular nonprofits. That is something we need, because the money and time we spent on the extra paperwork and special landscaping could have been better spent on services for those in need," Raihl said.

It was such statements that Harryette Raihl said defined what her husband is all about.

"He is a good businessman and he has the heart of a pastor," she said.