Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

About 125 homeless displaced

On the first business day following Las Vegas' five-day effort to find housing for people camped under a downtown bridge, about 125 people who had remained at the site were forced to move by state Department of Transportation crews who cleaned off the sidewalks.

Bob McKenzie, spokesman for the transportation department, said this morning he wasn't sure if the clean-up had been coordinated with the city effort.

"I don't know if they (Las Vegas) knew we were going to put them (the homeless) off (the property)," McKenzie said this morning.

City officials were in charge of last week's relocation effort. It involved the city, county and state agencies working together to "provide them (the homeless under the bridge) with housing and other services," according to a Jan. 10 press release.

But by Friday, only 45 residents of the homeless camp had been helped into temporary housing. About three times as many remained under the bridge.

Las Vegas spokesman David Riggleman did not return calls Tuesday or this morning seeking comment. Trina Robinson, who coordinated the city effort last week, said this morning she had been instructed "not to talk" to the Sun.

Riggleman had told the Sun last Thursday that there were no plans in place to clean out the camp on Wilson Avenue and F Street after the outreach effort was completed.

McKenzie said his staff had told people at the camp since last week that the state was going to clean up the site on Tuesday. He said his staff and Metro Police told the people under the bridge "you have to leave -- you have to find shelter" Tuesday at about 8 a.m.

But area shelters have been reporting that all their beds were filled in recent weeks. Clark County used a municipal building for homeless men and women who couldn't find shelter for the first time Jan. 7 and 9 when the winter weather was at its worst.

McKenzie said Tuesday's clean-up was needed for public safety. The site was declared a health hazard by Clark County Health District in August because the homeless were urinating and defecating in the area around the camp.

"We need to do whatever we can to help the homeless," McKenzie said. "But we need to take care of public safety first."

But those who were displaced, as well as their advocates, counter that the homeless are members of the public too and forcing these people out from what was serving as a roof over their heads makes them less safe. So does throwing away all of their worldly possesions, including their tents and blankets, they said.

Many of the people who had been camped out under the bridge came back from seeking work, housing and food Tuesday to find that all their stuff was gone -- from sleeping bags to family photos. The sidewalks under the bridge were still damp Tuesday afternoon, apparently from being hosed down.

Linda Lera-Randle El, director of Straight from the Streets, a nonprofit organization that has been working to help people under the bridge for months, said moving along those who had been left at the site was "like penalizing the homeless for the shortcomings of the city, county and state."

A volunteer from her group had delivered about 30 blankets to the camp Monday night, many of which were removed Tuesday morning, she said.

Greg Payne, 60, had been trying to find housing since the city arrived Jan. 10 to its temporary offices in a trailer behind the Las Vegas Rescue Mission, and returned from his fourth trip to Clark County Social Service Tuesday surprised by the loss of his possessions.

Tuesday he found a place -- but lost it to someone else from the camp who arrived while he was making a trip back to the county office for some paper work needed to secure the room.

Payne got off a bus near the bridge Tuesday about 3:00 p.m. to find that his tent, clothing, sleeping bag, Bible and pictures of his 11-year-old son, Greg, and 9-year-old daughter, Shanna Michelle, were all gone.

"I guess I have to find another place to go," he said.

Liz Gallagher, 52, had spent two weeks under the bridge. She didn't go to the trailer last week because she said her lack of identification would make her ineligible for services.

"If you don't have ID they don't want to help you," she said.

She left the bridge at about 6:15 a.m. Tuesday to get some coffee and returned at about 1:40 p.m. to find her things gone.

"I said, 'Oh Jesus,"' she said.

The day's events had already stirred a homeless economy of sorts, as Gallagher paid $3 of the $3.85 she had in her pocket to another man at the camp for a sleeping bag to replace the one she had lost.

Nearby, Anthony Wimberly, 50, traded a television set he had in a shopping cart with another man who drove up with a mattress and a folding chair.

Wimberly said he "was gonna try and move back in (under the bridge) later."

But Mark Esparza, another who tried unsuccessfully last week to find a vacancy somewhere under the county's rental assistance program, said he was heading elsewhere Tuesday night.

"I'm thinking they're going to be hardcore," he said.

"I don't want to go to jail."

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