Editorial: Inhumane treatment

Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005 | 9:06 a.m.

All of last week the city of Las Vegas led an effort that ostensibly was to find housing for homeless people who had been camping underneath a downtown bridge. About 200 homeless people had been seeking refuge in a camp they had set up on Wilson Avenue and F Street, an encampment that the Clark County Health District in August had declared a health hazard because people living there had been urinating and defecating on nearby streets and sidewalks behind the Las Vegas Rescue Mission.

We say ostensibly because last week's outreach effort, which included county and state agencies working with the city, was an embarrassment. Only 45 residents of the homeless camp received help getting into housing. They were given a month's worth of rental assistance from Clark County. But at least 125 people were still camped out on Friday after the outreach effort had ended.

Making matters worse, on Tuesday crews from the state Transportation Department forced the homeless people to leave the camp so the crews could clean the sidewalks. A Transportation Department spokesman said people at the camp had been told last week about the cleanup and that they would have to find shelter elsewhere. But, as the Sun reported Wednesday, area shelters have been saying that all their beds had been filled -- so there was nowhere for these people to find refuge.

The way that City Hall treats homeless people -- and now we can add the state Transportation Department to the mix -- can best be described as inhumane. We have got to find the right way to help the homeless. A start would be for the city to treat them as fellow human beings.