Cities urged to aid crisis center

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Thursday, May 8, 2003 | 10:07 a.m.

A group of homeless advocates may have persuaded North Las Vegas to help keep a downtown center for homeless services open when its funding runs out June 30, an official from that city said Wednesday.

The Crisis Intervention Center has been the center of controversy in recent weeks after Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said that his city could not continue to fund the center together with Clark County unless North Las Vegas and Henderson chip in.

Neither city had responded to Goodman by Tuesday.

Officials from North Las Vegas met with a group of advocates lobbying on behalf of the center, City Manager Kurt Fritsch said.

"We didn't really have a change of heart," Fritsch said. "We just saw (the center) needed some help and that it was an important service," he said.

Paul Brown, Southern Nevada director for PLAN, a nonprofit, was one of the group that pitched a plan for North Las Vegas to pay $40,000 to help keep the center open another year.

The amount was based on a scenario where the center would cost $480,000 to run over 12 months and North Las Vegas would pay an amount proportional to its population, Brown said.

Fritsch said he has met with members of the North Las Vegas City Council and that they back the idea. The council will vote on the proposal May 21.

Steve Kirk, a Henderson councilman and a member of the Southern Nevada Homelessness Task Force, said that his city probably will not follow in North Las Vegas' footsteps.

"All of the services that the center provides are already provided by the city of Henderson," Kirk said.

"We are willing and want to work on homeless issues, but in this case it's a duplication of services."

Kirk also said that "not many" homeless people go from Henderson to downtown Las Vegas seeking services.

But Brown, of PLAN, said that homeless people in Henderson do use the services, and that he is trying to arrange a meeting with officials from that city in the coming weeks.

The Crisis Intervention Center was built as a one-stop shop and it housed more than 40 public and private agencies to help the homeless more than seven years ago when MASH Village opened, a campus with an emergency shelter, transitional housing and a clinic on site.

But MASH pulled out last fall due to a lack of funding. Only eight agencies, plus Catholic Charities -- who stepped in to run the center -- continue to offer the services to the homeless.

A patchwork of funds kept the Crisis Intervention Center open from October to March and Las Vegas and the county each paid $80,000 to keep it open through June.