Housing found for some homeless

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Monday, Jan. 17, 2005 | 10:49 a.m.

A week-long effort to get homeless men and women out from under a bridge on Wilson Avenue and F Street downtown moved 45 people into housing, according to Las Vegas officials.

The majority of those people appear to have one month's worth of rental assistance from Clark County, according to Darryl Martin, director of Clark County Social Service. Martin spoke of his agency's participation in the effort before a final tally was made of all the services provided during the week.

A complete explanation of the week's effort, including its cost, wasn't available because the Las Vegas public information office sent out a press release but didn't return calls from the Sun.

About 75 sleeping bags and bedrolls and 23 tents remained under the bridge Friday afternoon at 5 p.m., even as the temporary office Las Vegas created to help them in a trailer around the corner closed its doors. That means at least 125 people were still in the camp -- several of the tents were for at least four people each.

Linda Lera-Randle El, director of a nonprofit organization called Straight from the Streets, said this morning she helped four people find rooms and another get a bus ticket out of town over the weekend, but the camp under the bridge pretty much "looked about the same" this morning as it had before the city launched its effort.

The city's press release Friday said 204 people filed through the makeshift office staffed most of the week by personnel from at least six public and private agencies.

As the week wore on, most of those men and women saw they would not be eligible for any form of housing, or found that there were no apartments available despite being eligible for county rental assistance.

Still others were told they couldn't be helped because they weren't sleeping under the F Street bridge, but rather found themselves homeless under some other bridge or in a lot somewhere. Several who arrived in mid-week said they were told they couldn't be helped because they hadn't arrived when the project began at the trailer Monday.

Some of those still under the bridge Friday night were figuring out other solutions, like getting money donated from a private agency for a bus ride out of town.

James Bosurgi, 47, had been under the bridge on and off nearly four months after arriving in Las Vegas eight months ago.

Part of that time, Bosurgi was in a lot on Owens Avenue next to the Salvation Army where there was another camp of more than 100 homeless men and women until it was broken up by a Las Vegas order to the lot's owner shortly before Christmas.

Bosurgi had been through the trailer and filled out some forms but said he was told that having lost his identification in the streets would hamper agencies obtaining him housing.

The only means of identifying himself, he said, was a rumpled ticket Metro Police had given him in November -- for sitting on a bus bench. "By his own admission he is not going to take the bus," the ticket said.

"This is like the Twilight Zone," Bosurgi said of his efforts to get out of homelessness in Las Vegas. "You can come in, but you can't leave."

Bosurgi said he left his home in Jacksonville, Fla., because of a divorce he endured in May. Straight from the Streets was paying for his trip back to Jacksonville on a bus leaving Friday night.

Lera-Randle El said she bought bus tickets for 12 people from the camp Friday who had no other way to get out from under the bridge.

The Las Vegas-led effort to focus on the camp resulted from months of planning. The Clark County Health District declared the area around the camp a health hazard in August. People living there were using the streets and sidewalks behind the Las Vegas Rescue Mission to urinate and defecate, causing members of the community to complain.

The city and the mission have attempted to keep the area clean since that time, but city officials said they also wanted to get the people in the camp into housing. The mission loaned the city the trailer for the project.

The week began with the county's computers not working. By Tuesday, even though some of the people filing through the trailer were eligible for county rental assistance, no apartments or motels with landlords willing to participate in the county program were available.

By Thursday, most of the agencies had left the trailer, officials said.

North Las Vegas Housing Authority was a late addition to the mix, but its staff could only get three people into housing immediately, under a program funded by the Internal Revenue Service.

Five others may be eligible for another program, pending a criminal background check, the results of which won't be known until Tuesday, said Sherri Campanale, property manager for the housing authority.

Otherwise, most of the housing authority's programs are full and with waiting lists, she said.

"I can't offer them anything other than filling out paperwork," Campanale said.

"We have requirements for our programs and can't put them (the people in the camp) before anyone else," she added.

Martin, of Clark County Social Service, said he thought the week was a good trial run.

"As difficult as it was, we got through to a lot of people," he said.

He said county workers who assessed people for housing also attempted to determine if the homeless people applying suffered from addictions or mental illness, since his agency doesn't provide services to help with those problems.

"Hopefully, other agencies can pick up the slack," he said.

As night came at the camp Friday, Jay Charnell, 48, was heading to a room nearby that he had gotten for a month through the county. He was grateful to be out of the cold but not too optimistic about his future.

Without a phone or money, he was unsure of his prospects of finding a job in the coming weeks.

"Where do you think I'm going to be in 30 days?" he asked, then answered his own question by pointing back to the bridge.

At the same time, he wanted to share his good fortune, however temporary.

He said he couldn't bear to see a couple who he had made friends with spend another night under the bridge.

"I'm going to take them with me," he said.

"What else can I do?"