Letter: More local input needed to write homeless plan

Tuesday, April 19, 2005 | 9:08 a.m.

It is hard to understand how the April 8 homeless conference in Las Vegas, featuring representatives from nine states, could have been coordinated without more local participation. Why was Oscar Goodman the only mayor in attendance?

Phil Mangano, executive director of the federal Interagency Council on Homelessness, travels about the United States trying to get cities to adopt 10-year plans to end homelessness. He and other attendees stayed at the Ritz-Carlon Hotel, Lake Las Vegas. They were transported to the conference in downtown Las Vegas by limousine, at a cost of more than $600. Why didn't they stay downtown, in the area of the homeless corridor? Why didn't they have Paula Haynes-Green, our regional homeless coordinator, set up a tour of homeless areas?

Many local professionals and interested citizens are working together on solutions to the homeless issues. Mangano and the others could have been made aware of the local efforts to do something more than sit behind closed doors and babble. They could have felt the passion of many volunteers, local charities, churches, nonprofits and advocates of Las Vegas who are in the streets of Las Vegas daily trying to end homelessness.

We are now quickly moving downward to seven years left to end homelessness, according to the Mangano and Bush administration time line. It is going to be hard to accomplish this if a closed-door meeting with only a few select few people invited is their anticipated format for a successful outcome in ending homelessness.

BEV CAMPBELL

Editor's note: The writer, a 25-year resident of Las Vegas, is an advocate for the homeless. She is affiliated with Straight from the Streets, a nonprofit organization that works to better the lives of homeless people.