Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Homeless campers on the move

One homeless man spent Sunday night standing in front of a full shelter and about 40 homeless people found new spots to pitch their tents after an early-morning sweep of a camp at Foremaster Lane and Main Street.

Meanwhile, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who ordered the cleanup of about 175 homeless people downtown, said this morning his office had received offers from several residents to help those who did not have shelter. Goodman said the operation at Foremaster and Main, which began about 4:30 a.m. and ended about noon Sunday, had addressed a serious health problem and averted an epidemic.

"Also," he said, "from everything I've heard, everybody who wanted a bed got one."

During the action, which was weeks in the planning, Metro Police officers arrived during the year's first steady rain to find most of the homeless already gone.

Many had begun leaving the night before, and as many as half were camped out by dawn in a lot only blocks away, on Washington Street and Veterans Drive. A woman who declined to give her name had driven a U-Haul to Foremaster and Main during the night and took the homeless and their belongings to the new site.

The lot's owner, Bunker Mortuary, complained to Metro Police about 9 a.m, and Metro issued trespassing warnings to the inhabitants of the 50 or so tents that had risen with the sun. They were moved by 11:30.

This morning a 74-year-old man who gave his name as Pop stood in front of MASH Village, saying he spent the night that way after being told there was no space in the shelter behind him or at the nearby Salvation Army.

The man, who said he was partially blind and had lung cancer, said Sunday he pushed a shopping cart of his possessions from Foremaster Lane to the lot on Veterans Drive, then returned to Main, across the street from where the original camp had been and in front of the full shelter.

"The police came by in the middle of the night and said they'd arrest me if I was sleeping," he said.

"I told them I wasn't sleeping, I was just standing here."

Two new camps had sprouted this morning only blocks away, with about 40 people between them: on A Street between Owens and Washington avenues, and under a bridge on Owens west of the Salvation Army shelter.

"I figure if we all stick together here, maybe they can't run us off again," Ywuanna, a woman camped on A Street, said.

Meanwhile, Goodman said this morning that private citizens were calling the city to offer the homeless a place to stay and other services.

Ken May, who said he directs a nonprofit drug and alcohol rehabilitation center named Call First, confirmed this morning that he was one of them. He said he had four houses and land to help the homeless being chased from one place to another.

"I've been homeless myself -- 10 years ago in Florida -- and I just want to give back," May said.

Homeless advocates who witnessed Sunday morning's sweep said the second camp on Veterans Drive and its immediate cleanup underscored their frustration with the situation.

"Today's action shows that we're just going to keep moving these people from one place to another until we really have a strategy to deal with the problem," said Gus Ramos, deputy executive director of the Clark County Housing Authority and member of a regional task force on homelessness.

"This was just a reaction to a specific situation and shouldn't have gotten to this point," he said.

Sunday morning the city's Rapid Response Team and the Clark County Health District -- with help from Metro Police and city marshals -- using street sweepers, bleach, water and trucks set about cleaning up the sidewalks of Foremaster and Main, where the first camp had broken only hours before.

At the new camp, Al Gallegos, a neighbor from Bell Drive, drove up to express his displeasure.

"They were better off on Foremaster," he said.

"I was having breakfast and saw this and am here to say we're not going to put up with it. We have a school and families here."

Those who work with the homeless wondered at the operation's results.

"I only wish the amount of financial and human resources brought to the issue today could have been there months ago," said Linda Lera-Randle El, director of Straight from the Streets, a nonprofit outreach program.

The Foremaster and Main camp drew complaints from neighboring businesses in recent months as dozens pitched tents along the downtown sidewalks, creating what the Clark County Health District termed a health hazard after a visit last week.

The American Civil Liberties Union tried to block the sweep, but Judge James C. Mahan denied a temporary restraining order, saying there was insufficient evidence that the homeless would be arrested and citing the city's need to protect the public health.

When Goodman said the homeless on the sidewalks would be treated humanely and offered space in area shelters, homeless advocates questioned whether there was enough space available.

"I will make a bed available to every man and woman who wants one," Goodman said.

At 10 a.m. Sunday city spokesman David Riggleman said 41 beds were open at Shade Tree -- a women's shelter -- three at Salvation Army and 10 at Las Vegas Rescue Mission. Most of the homeless being moved were men and not eligible for Shade Tree.

Catholic Charities St. Vincent's Shelter, which had been at capacity for several weeks, had three beds open Sunday night, but none of the Foremaster Lane people accepted them, the agency said this morning.

Chuck Burke, a Salvation Army mental health technician, said shortly afterward that the shelter's emergency day facility had taken in 24 people from the operation and was filled to greater than capacity at 8 a.m.

"We fit in people where we didn't know (space) existed," he said.

The Salvation Army 100-bed shelter was increased by six beds Sunday night and all were filled, with 24 of the people coming from the Foremaster sweep, shelter spokesman Charles Desiderio said.

At the Las Vegas Rescue Mission, which houses men, a clerk said that all 49 of its beds had been full for weeks and men were generally turned away.

MASH Village took in two people from the Foremaster sweep and was at capacity at that point, executive director Ruth Bruland said.

Attempts to reach shelter officials at Shade Tree this morning were not successful.

Pancho Hernandez, who had been on Foremaster for a month, said he had been told by someone connected with the operation about 9 a.m. that there was no shelter space available for him.

Others leaving the lot said their situations kept them from getting into shelters.

Selina Taylor said there was no place that would take both her husband and her. Bill Morse, who said he was stranded in Las Vegas after his car broke down four months ago, said no shelter would take his dog. Ronny Maldonado, recently arrived from Honduras, said he had no identification -- a requirement, he said, for staying at the shelters.

Sometime around noon, after most of the homeless had scattered for points unknown, Brother David Buer, a Franciscan friar and homeless advocate, looked out over the Veterans Drive lot.

Small front loaders scooped up about a dozen tents that had been left behind. Buer explained that they had been donated to the homeless weeks earlier.

"What a waste of charity," he said.

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