Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Number of homeless deaths rises

More homeless men and women have died in the streets and washes of the Las Vegas Valley in 2003 than in previous years, and more of them were killed in homicides and car and train accidents, according to data released Wednesday.

Fifty-five homeless people died this year through Monday, up from 50 all of last year and 32 in 1997, said Linda Lera-Randle El, organizer for the last seven years of an annual vigil for the homeless who have died. Fifteen of those who died in 2003 were 55 or older. Eight were women.

This year's event will be at 3 p.m. Dec. 19 at the American Burial & Cremation Service, 310 Foremaster Lane.

The figures come at the end of a year when a regional task force on homelessness headed up by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman disbanded after two years of meetings after producing a five-point plan on "reducing homelessness."

A new task force, headed up by Clark County Manager Thom Reilly, has formed in its absence, apparently with a more hands-on approach expressed by its current search for a permanent emergency winter shelter in the valley and for a regional coordinator on homeless issues -- both firsts for Southern Nevada. The coordinator should be hired in the new year.

Lera-Randle El, who directs a nonprofit group called Straight from the Streets, said she holds the vigil "around the holiday season because these are people who died alone." It is one of at least 100 held nationwide, according to Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, a Washington-based nonprofit group.

The vigil and the people it honors offer a snapshot of the ongoing hazards facing the valley's estimated 10,000 homeless men and women, based on Clark County coroner and the group's records.

This year's accounting of those who died without an address listed drugs and alcohol as the No. 1 cause of death, followed closely by heart failure. These were also the most frequently-listed causes of death last year.

As in previous years, many of those who died homeless had multiple causes of death.

Brian Brooks, director of special populations for Nevada Health Centers, Inc. -- a local nonprofit that runs two clinics for the homeless -- said that heart conditions have long been a problem for homeless people, and getting them to treat those conditions often depends on having health-care professionals go to where the homeless are to diagnose them.

"People who are homeless often don't know they have a heart problem until somebody checks their blood pressure or other symptoms and then gets them into a clinic and into treatment," Brooks said.

Lera-Randle El said that many of those who died at least in part due to addictions also had mental health problems, and that there were no programs to deal with this dangerous pair of problems. A pilot program at Westcare -- a Las Vegas nonprofit -- treated so-called dual diagnoses, but its funding ran out in June.

"These are people that don't fit into any of the programs out there," Lera-Randle El said.

A difference in this year's deaths was that five people died of exposure, whether from the heat or cold, compared with nine in 2002.

Lera-Randle El attributed this drop to "more effective outreach this year," as well as increased cooperation from people in the community who call her and other outreach workers when they see homeless people who seem to be in danger due to extreme heat or cold. Clark County Social Service introduced outreach workers for the homeless earlier this year and Westcare's project on dual diagnoses also included people doing outreach.

On the other hand, more people died violently on the streets in 2003.

Nine of the 55 -- about 16 percent -- had homicide listed as the cause of death. Likewise, nine people died because they were struck while crossing a street or train tracks. Last year only two homeless people fell in each category.

Whitehead said more of the homeless were dying violent deaths nationwide. "The issue of violence against the homeless has been noted by others around the nation," he said.

In looking at those numbers, Brooks said, "When you live on the streets, you are exposed to all kinds of danger, whether it's other people or the type of severe depression that causes people to step in front of cars and trains."

He also said that periodic police sweeps throughout the valley in the last year and a half may have threatened the safety of the homeless.

"The encampments being broken up spreads people out and puts them more at risk -- both because they don't have safety in numbers and because they're in unfamiliar surroundings," Brooks said.

This year's vigil will be held at a place that was familiar to hundreds of homeless men and women while a camp grew outside its doors in the early months of 2002, creating a problem for area businesses. The camp was broken up in March of that year in a controversial action by Metro Police that some said pointed to the lack of shelter and other help for the homeless in the valley.

Now the American Burial & Cremation Service -- located on the downtown street where those sweeps began -- will host the vigil in its parking lot honoring homeless men and women who have died, on the other side of a fence it put up to keep the homeless out.

"We're doing this ... because a lot of the homeless used to be around here and we wanted to have a tribute to them," funeral director Regina Bell said.

"We wanted to let them know we are here for them, even though they can't stay on the property," she said. "We even had a couple of people die in front of the place ... (and) you can't forget them just because they're homeless."

Join the Discussion:

Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.

Full comments policy