Two programs to aid homeless take very different approaches

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Friday, July 11, 2003 | 11:09 a.m.

In the air-conditioned Las Vegas City Council Chambers before a group of reporters Thursday morning, Mayor Oscar Goodman announced that a new program had found housing for 28 formerly homeless people since it began just 10 days ago.

Six blocks away and five minutes earlier at the Greyhound bus station, 17 homeless people were grabbing their bags from the baking pavement, taking advantage of another new program to get a free one-way ticket out of town.

The two programs, one sponsored by the city, the other by Metro Police, took different approaches to a single issue that the city has been struggling to address in the past couple of years: homelessness.

"Whatever works to help solve the problem," homeless advocate Linda Lera-Randle El, executive director of Straight from the Streets, said.

In the first, Goodman boasted that HELP of Southern Nevada, a nonprofit, had already gotten results in the first nine days of a yearlong, federally funded program that will spend $300,000 to help the homeless or people in danger of becoming homeless find housing and pay rent and utilities if they look for jobs.

The second, called Police Assisting Travelers Home, has Metro officers identifying homeless people who want to move to other states where they have family or others they can depend on to start fresh.

Officers work with Lutheran Social Services of Southern Nevada on the program, funded by a $10,000 donation from a company called Light America. About $2,300 was spent Thursday on the first 17 participants.

Goodman said the housing program was providing "permanent housing to people who never had the possibility of that dream."

Of the bus program, Goodman said, "Godspeed to them and I hope they go home soon."

Goodman and officials of other local governments have debated publicly during the past year over how to address the homeless problem in the Las Vegas Valley.

Goodman has argued that it is a regional problem and that all municipalities should contribute to services provided within Las Vegas' borders. Other municipalities have balked, saying they do enough within their own borders.

Goodman said Thursday that the failure of other municipalities to see homelessness as a regional issue prompted the new approach.

"We began to think inwardly when we saw that the regionalism issue wasn't being unanimously adopted ... so we created this program," he said.

Deni Conrad, executive director of HELP, said the city program has found housing for 16 families or single people who were formerly on the streets or in shelters since starting July 1. The nonprofit has someone help each person find work and provide referrals for counseling or other services.

The federal funding, earmarked for helping the homeless, will be available until June 30, 2004, and additional funds will be sought thereafter, Conrad said. About $8,000 has been used so far, said Sharon Segerblom, director of Neighborhood Services, the department that disburses the funds.

However, Lera-Randle El said she and a client who is in danger of becoming homeless both called HELP to ask about the program Thursday and both were told no funds were left for the month of July.

Segerblom said there were funds available. HELP did not respond to calls.

Meanwhile, at the Main Street Greyhound bus station downtown, 17 people were leaving for Florida, Texas, New York and other points of the compass as part of the police-sponsored program.

Jeremy Levy, a Metro officer who works with the homeless downtown, said the program saves the taxpayers money because it costs more to house the homeless in shelters or put them in jail than it does to buy them a bus ticket.

"This program helps people that have ... support systems in other states and are just not getting the services they need here," Levy said.

When choosing those who will get a free ticket, the police do a background check to make sure applicants aren't fugitives from justice.

Metro then works with Lutheran Social Services to keep track of those who use the program once they arrive and to call their families before and after they go.

Levy said a similar program in Reno has had a 96 percent success rate for two years.

One of the people lugging her bags onto a bus Thursday morning was Latreese Smith. The 18-year-old arrived in a Greyhound two months ago with her friend Shaeene Anderson, who is 23. Friends in Bradenton, Fla., had told them they could easily find work in the valley's casinos.

But their $500 ran out quickly while they were figuring out how to get health and sheriff's cards and Nevada identification. When they could no longer stay in hotels, they wound up in a shelter and then a church.

Thursday they were heading back home to Bradenton, where they hoped to find work in telemarketing.

"This was the first time we were homeless," Smith said.

"Hopefully it will be the last."