Rescue mission shuts down kitchen again

Monday, March 21, 2005 | 11:19 a.m.

For the second time in five months, the Las Vegas Rescue Mission, the only place in the valley that offers free meals seven nights a week, has shut its doors to the dining hall in order to drive away homeless men and women camping out nearby.

"It is with heavy heart that I am forced to make this decision," wrote Merlyn Sexton, executive director of the mission, in an e-mail announcing the shut-down, which began Thursday, to Las Vegas Neighborhood Services Department Director Orlando Sanchez.

The decision affects up to 250 people who eat at the mission every day at 5 p.m. -- up to 10 percent of whom are not homeless, but also low-income people who live near the mission at 480 W. Bonanza Road, according to Adrian Lee Noffsinger, manager of the mission.

Of the homeless people who do go to the meals, it is unclear how many sleep on Wilson Avenue behind the mission, a camp of about 100 people.

"The current situation is very problematic -- the homeless population is the largest I've seen it," said Harry E. Hinderliter, president of the mission's board, about the camp on Wilson.

"We're concerned about safety issues, waste issues -- there's a lot of problems on that street," Hinderliter said.

The board president said the decision would stand indefinitely, "hopefully to alleviate some of pressure on Wilson."

The various homeless camps in the area have been controversial at least since last summer, when Clark County and Las Vegas agencies, including the county health district and neighborhood services, became concerned about garbage, feces and urine on the streets and sidewalks.

In last Wednesday's e-mail to neighborhood services, Sexton said he thought the health district could act against the mission if the mess from the camp on Wilson wasn't cleaned up.

"The human waste is at the danger level that the Health Department talked of at our earlier meetings," he wrote.

"My fear is that the Health Department has every right to virtually close the Mission..."

At one point in November, the mission stopped feeding at nights for five days to see if the meals were responsible for drawing hundreds to sleep under bridges, in lots and on sidewalks in the area. When the camps didn't disperse, the city and the mission decided to work together to clean the streets.

Then Las Vegas moved into the area for five days in January, announcing an "outreach effort" to help people find housing. About one in four people were helped into temporary housing, mostly area motels.

After that effort, Nevada Department of Transportation moved through the camp under the bridge on F Street and Wilson and cleaned the sidewalks.

But most of the camp simply shifted locations, with many hopscotching around the corner to Wilson. Many tents in recent weeks line the very sidewalk where weeks earlier hundreds lined up in hopes of getting help from the Las Vegas effort.

At some point in mid-January, Las Vegas stopped cleaning the area. The mission continued its effort until Feb. 1.

"We stopped cleaning because we had an agreement with the rescue mission to have them take over cleaning," said Sanchez of neighborhood services.

Sanchez said he didn't know the mission had stopped cleaning the streets more than a month ago.

Noffsinger said the mission had suspended the cleaning because the city had stopped.

The combined efforts would cost about $40,000 a year if continued, according to city and mission officials -- or about 25 times what it would cost to rent a Porta-Potty in the area, an idea some advocates have suggested at the location and at other homeless camps in recent years.

But Hinderliter said he wasn't sure "that having a restroom there would work."

"Does that address the problem of them being there on Wilson? I'm not sure it does. Is there not a better, comprehensive solution?"

The mission board president said he would be talking to city officials in the coming weeks to discuss the issue. For the time being, he said, the mission would resume efforts to keep the streets and sidewalks clean at a price of $2,000 a month, Sexton wrote in his e-mail.

"These are complicated issues that need partnership between the community and the city," Hinderliter said.

Meanwhile, Ed Stanfield and Linda Munoz, who stood in front of their tent on Wilson shortly before 5 p.m. Friday smoking their hand-rolled cigarettes, said they would miss the nightly meals at the mission.

Dinner that night would be baloney sandwiches someone had left earlier, Stanfield said.

Inside the makeshift shelter made of plastic, with shopping carts as walls, the couple's 3-month-old daughter Destiny Stanfield slept. .

Ed Stanfield said his family had been homeless since the Sky Vue mobile home park downtown had been shut down nearly a year ago because of unsafe and unsanitary living conditions.

Since then, he said, they had been "in every shelter," each of which allows people to stay for a limited period of time.

He said a mission worker had told him that meals there would not resume "until we get off the street."

But he said the plan wouldn't work with them, as they hope to get veteran's and social security benefits resolved soon and get into housing.

Until then, he said, they would stay on Wilson, "because it's safer for us here -- there's safety in numbers."