Metro’s commitment to homeless questioned

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 | 9:30 a.m.

The Metro Police Web site link to its community policing program aimed at helping the homeless features information that is four years out of date, prompting private advocates and public officials alike to question the department's commitment to the issue.

"This concerns me ... it shows nobody's paying attention (to homelessness)," said Darryl Martin, director of Clark County Social Service.

"And Metro's a vital part of ... trying to deal with this problem," he said.

But Officer David Fricker, who works in Metro's community policing program and is the acting sergeant at Downtown Area Command, said the Web site was not as important as the work done by officers on the beat -- including the two currently on the HELP team. Fricker's brother, Sgt. Eric Fricker, directs the HELP team; he is currently on vacation.

"Which would be better -- to have a supervisor or sergeant looking at a Web site or try to be out in the field, helping the people?" Fricker said.

The out-of-date information includes a list of resources to help the homeless that was last updated Mar. 31, 2000, with two listings for MASH Village, a downtown campus that closed its doors in 2002.

A number of services listed are no longer offered, others are newly being offered at certain places but are not on the Web site list, and a whole category of services -- for homeless youth -- are not mentioned at all.

The list doesn't mention that meals are served at Catholic Charities, for example, and includes the VA Medical Center, which is closed.

The Web site also lacks information more recent than 2000 about the team itself. The site notes that the team won an award that year. But in April 2003 the team was reduced from four to two members, and that's not on the Web site.

"You can't have a HELP team without helpful information," said Linda Lera-Randle El, director of Straight from the Streets, a nonprofit organization that helps the homeless.

The failure to update the information on the Web site "says they're not interested," she said.

Shawna Parker Brody, analyst with the Clark County Resources Management Division, said that nonprofit organizations "need up-to-date, accurate information about the homeless. For a highly visible public agency that has so much interaction with the homeless to have outdated information is not helpful." Parker Brody has worked on the region's applications for federal grants to help the homeless for the last five years.

But Fricker said officers on the beat know about services for the homeless, and hand out a card with current information on places people can look to for everything from a meal to shelter.

Several people who work with the homeless said they had wondered if Metro's HELP team still existed.

"What has happened to them?" said Kathleen Boutin, executive director of the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth, who said that HELP team members used to attend her organization's board meetings, but hadn't in about two years.

Boutin said that the team was "once active and instrumental in developing our organization," which was founded in 1999.

She also pointed out that there are more services for homeless youth than there were in 2000.

"There's a whole plethora of services ... that there should be information about" on the Web site, Boutin said.

Lera Randle-El said that the HELP team has been a valuable resource for those who seek out the homeless on the streets and washes of the Las Vegas Valley, often in remote locations.

"For an advocate, it was phenomenal to be able to walk hand in hand with a patrol officer," she said.

The long-time advocate said that the current climate on the streets -- which has included a push by the city to seek lengthier sentences for repeat offenders of misdemeanor crimes, a group that includes some homeless people -- makes her avoid Metro more than in the past.

"I'm back to where I once was -- afraid to go to Metro if I have someone who needs assistance," she said.