Officials support homelessness plan

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Friday, June 17, 2005 | 11:02 a.m.

Elected officials from around the Las Vegas Valley appeared to support the outline of a regional plan to reduce homelessness that was presented in a meeting Thursday by Clark County Manager Thom Reilly.

The plan is expected to be voted on in late July by the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition, a body made up of local governments. Thursday was their first look at the plan, which, if approved, will be the first region-wide attempt to tackle the issue.

"We have to have a careful, well-thought out plan -- otherwise what we'll have is recidivist homeless," Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams said in support of the plan.

Even Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said he would get behind the plan, saying "it's better than nothing," though he also added that more needed to be done "right now."

Goodman spoke at the meeting of additional approaches he'd like to see implemented, including a law that would allow authorities to assume guardianship of homeless people who "can't take care of themselves."

The document as Reilly presented it hinges on 10 priorities that will then guide how tens of millions are spent on helping the homeless -- including $4.2 million recently approved by the state Legislature.

Those priorities include:

The meeting occurred on the last day of a 60-day effort to help hundreds of people in a camp on Wilson Avenue downtown, many of whom have been swept from one camp to another for years.

That effort was referred to as a learning experience that would guide the final drafts of the plan.

Though about 129 people were helped into some kind of housing during the 60-day period, up to 300 people were still in the camp hours before the meeting.

Goodman suggested that he had heard from Metro Police that "criminals" were taking refuge in the camp.

"We should arrest all those people since we have them all together," he said.

Linda Lera Randle-El, director of a nonprofit organization called Straight from the Streets who had helped at least 15 people find housing during the effort, said the plan should include the "type of intensive case management" she had done in the camp.

Reilly said that a study prepared by the county showed that $5.8 million spent during a three-year period went to 113 chronically homeless people -- similar to those on Wilson Avenue. Put another way, 55 percent of all funds spent during that period went to only 4 percent of the population served.

The plan needed to ensure that funds achieved better results, he said.

Gerald Schmidt, a man who lived with depression for nearly seven years on the street until Lera-Randle El helped him into an apartment, said the key was one-on-one persistent help.

"You need teams of people going out there and talking to people like me over and over -- and don't give up."