Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Las Vegas wants to demolish buildings at MASH Village

When MASH Village opened in December 1995 at an initial cost of more than $6.8 million it was hailed as a potential national model for homeless shelters.

Now, eight months after the unceremonious demise of the operation, city officials want to spend up to $200,000 to demolish MASH's Transitional Living Center.

The Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday will consider a proposal to bulldoze the 10-acre site. The demolition is expected to cost at least $150,000.

Initially, the city kicked in $2.9 million, a federal grant added another $2.2 million to the project and $1.7 million was anted up by a San Diego-based group that ran the shelter through late last year.

Over the years, millions of dollars more were spent to operate the pink prefabricated building at 1559 N. Main St. and to fund the adjacent Crisis Intervention Center, the only remaining working element of the village. The center, which was once home to 42 social service offices, now houses just eight agencies.

Plans to level the MASH's Transitional Living Center portion of the site come in the wake of the city's recent decision not to put $160,000 into the crisis center, a one-stop clearinghouse of social services for the homeless, in a city-owned building on the property.

That decision came after the cities of Henderson and Boulder City declined to fund the CIC and North Las Vegas voted to underfund the center, Las Vegas officials said.

City Neighborhood Services Director Sharon Segerblom said the city does not plan to immediately put the demolition out to bid. The item is before the council primarily to secure the money from the 2004 fiscal budget, she said. The fiscal year begins July 1.

"We are still considering other options for the property -- no decision has been made about whether to demolish it," Segerblom said, noting that the city will consider some other social service project for the property.

The city is also considering finding another agency to use the site or spending $1.1 million renovating the site.

Mayor Oscar Goodman at his weekly news conference last Thursday said he supports affordable veterans housing for the site.

"You can only resuscitate something for so long then you have to cut your losses," said homeless activist Linda Lera-Randle El, the first program manager at MASH. "It's time to bury the dead and move on. Let's stop worrying about that land and start worrying about the homeless."

Lera-Randle El said that MASH brought public awareness to the plight of homeless families, but it also became a political football. Also, the building designed initially to house 225 women and children at any time became inadequate because of a much greater demand than was anticipated.

The city conducted a study of the property and learned it would cost $150,000 to repair the foundation alone. Additional work at a cost that never was determined was needed to rid the property of potentially dangerous mold.

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

Gus Ramos, chairman of the Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition, said having just a scaled-down version of the Crisis Intervention Center operating on the site is not enough and whatever the city puts on the property "there has to be an overall reason -- a defined purpose -- for it."

"There has been a lot of good redevelopment in this area -- about $52 million worth -- with new and renovated buildings for Catholic Charities, Salvation Army and Shade Tree" shelters, Ramos said. "The city should be proud to showcase this area. Veterans housing on that site will address the problem too because affordable housing is part of the whole picture of homelessness."

Lera-Randle El does not object to the plans either, as long as the property does not become a flop house for veterans or a defacto homeless shelter.

"The vision is changing for addressing the needs of the homeless, and I have taken the direction of getting homeless people off the streets and into permanent private housing as soon as possible," she said. "We don't need more shelters. Warehousing the homeless has not worked. Affordable housing is a solution."

At its peak, MASH's Transitional Living Center housed 225 people and the Crisis Intervention Center helped from 2,500 to 3,000 people a month. There also was a free medical clinic on the site and, during winter months for several years, a tent was erected to provide emergency shelter to 250 single men.

Last summer, the city put the site out to bid looking for an operator. Catholic Charities tendered a conditional offer, seeking interest in running the CIC, but not the shelter for families.

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