LV to consider low-income housing plan

Monday, July 14, 2003 | 11:01 a.m.

The weeds that grow around the old MASH Village Transitional Living Center are a reminder of the shelter's failure to make a dent in local homelessness at a cost of millions of tax dollars.

The Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday will consider a proposal to enter into negotiations with one of the nation's largest builders of transitional housing to construct low-income apartments on the old MASH Village shelter site -- a move city officials hope will better meet the needs of the poor.

If a deal can be struck for the abandoned city-owned property at 1559 N. Main St., it would be the third transitional housing project in Southern Nevada for the 17-year-old New York-based HELP USA, which has more than 2,300 transitional housing units nationwide and nearly 200 in Las Vegas.

The proposal is on the consent portion of the City Council agenda -- a group of items considered to be routine and thus approved without discussion by a single vote unless council members request to bring them forward for discussion.

"The service/shelter funding system (by the Department of Housing and Urban Development) was not as successful as people would have liked," City Neighborhood Services Director Sharon Segerblom said. "This is a new direction for the city."

Segerblom noted that after MASH opened in December 1995, HUD changed its funding direction toward transitional housing and away from shelters. She said the city has follow the trends set by federal funding.

Obtaining federal dollars is a strong suit for USA HELP, which has drawn on federal grants, federal dollars to city and county home programs, federal home loans and service money through tax credits for its projects.

And they believe they can overcome the heavy baggage the MASH site carries.

"We don't expect there will be a problem with this site because it is not as if we were trying to take over an existing operating shelter -- we want to demolish something and build something new on it," Vincent Ravaschiere, president of the HELP Development Corp., said.

"One thing we would not build is another shelter. Our emphasis is on building affordable housing. These are apartments to prepare people for returning to private housing."

He said it is "very preliminary" to say how many units would be built on the MASH site. Segerblom said that issue will be for the mayor and council to decide in giving staff direction for the negotiations.

USA HELP in 1999 entered into an agreement with Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada to build 120 transitional housing units at its Main Street campus. In January 2002 HELP opened the 75-unit Bonanza View Apartments, at 640 McKnight St., near Bonanza Road and Eastern Avenue.

City officials worked with HELP USA on both projects.

In a memo to the City Council, Segerblom said the city "will be taking the necessary steps to demolish the former Transitional Living Center on the MASH site. The city wants to enter into negotiations with HELP USA to purchase one of the lots and build housing for low income persons."

Goodman at a recent news conference said he wanted to have low-income housing units for veterans built on that site.

HELP USA, which operates on a $47.4 million annual budget, requires that at least 75 percent of Bonanza View's occupants be military veterans. Catholic Charities' St. Vincent HELP apartments has no such requirement, Catholic Charities spokesman Sharon Mann said.

Ravaschiere said the availability of federal funding for veterans housing will play a major role in whether the site will be primarily for homeless veterans.

The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that one-third of the nation's homeless are ex-military and that there are 275,000 homeless veterans in the United States.

Last month the City Council approved spending up to $200,000 to bulldoze the pink prefabricated building on the 10-acre MASH site.

The adjacent Crisis Intervention Center, which closed June 27 after the cities of Las Vegas, Henderson and Boulder City declined to help co-fund it as a regional operation, will not be part of the demolition, the city said.

The center had been the only remaining working element of the old MASH Village, providing centralized social services for the poor. Three of the agencies in that facility -- Nevada State Welfare, Clark County Social Services and Nevada Mental Health -- moved their offices to the Catholic Charities campus across the street.

HELP USA's prior local apartment projects have done more than just put a roof over a former homeless person's head.

The Bonanza View furnished studio apartments, for example, offer self-help programs to help tenants stay off drugs and alcohol and provide self-sufficiency training that includes saving money in a bank.

Those who qualify for residency in such low-income units pay 30 percent of their gross income -- which averages about $250 per month.

A project that can help pay for itself through collection of rents will be a far cry from MASH, which according to city of Las Vegas records, cost at least:

Still, the city has long left open an option to sink another $1.1 million into renovating the site. According to one city study, it would have cost $150,000 to repair the foundation alone. Potentially dangerous mold also needs to be removed from the shelter, city officials said.

San Diego-based Father Joe's Villages' seven-year management of the shelter ended last Oct. 1 when the organization could no longer afford the operational and maintenance costs.