Some homeless finding their way off the streets

Monday, May 23, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.

One woman looked out into the near triple-digit heat from her sidewalk tent, poured some iced tea-looking drink into a cup and spoke of a property deed she's awaiting in order to get off the streets.

The story fell apart after a few sentences, shortly after she said she hadn't sought help because authorities wouldn't know how to contact her if she left the homeless camp on Wilson Avenue.

Then a man down the street laid out a more logical sequence of events.

It began when he stepped into a Clark County-donated, air-conditioned trailer parked on Wilson -- ground zero in a first-ever, on-the-spot 60-day effort by the county, Las Vegas and nonprofit groups to clear out the controversial camp just west of downtown Las Vegas off Bonanza Road.

He was told he qualified for rent assistance from the county -- $369 a month. But Friday, three weeks later, shirtless and sweating, he was still in his tent because he couldn't find any landlords willing to take so little.

For whatever reason -- or as many reasons as there are people in the camp -- halfway through the program that began April 20 there were still about 110 tents and lean-tos lining the sidewalks behind the Las Vegas Rescue Mission, shelter for 250 to 300 people.

When the 60 days are up, those still on the street will be told to leave -- which won't be the first time for most of them, since many have been shooed from one place to another for months or even years.

But still, some of those involved in the effort saw progress and said more people were working closer together and harder than ever before to solve the problems caused by the ebb and flow of camps in the area.

"We did not go into this with specific numerical goals," said Rev. Charles Bowker, chairman of the Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition, the lead agency on the effort.

Bowker said the idea was to help as many as possible.

And Paula Haynes-Green, hired last year as the Las Vegas Valley's first regional homeless services coordinator, said, "We never represented that this would solve all the needs of all the homeless people in the valley."

Also, both mentioned several obstacles, including new people coming to camp in the area because of the help being offered and fewer volunteers than expected despite a number of planning meetings in the weeks leading up to the effort.

They also said that the agencies involved, while providing much-needed services, could not do the intensive one-on-one work needed to get many of those camped on Wilson to even walk into the trailer.

"Many of these people are resistant to services," Haynes-Green said.

And, finally -- and apropos of the the man who was offered rental assistance he couldn't use -- the two officials referred to the valley's well-known weak spot, the lack of affordable housing.

Several of these obstacles were apparent when Las Vegas led a much shorter effort to clear out the camp during five days in January, which only resulted in one of five people getting into housing, most of which was temporary, officials said.

This time around, 228 people had applied for rental assistance this time around and 70 had already been given the money to get into housing, Haynes-Green said. It is unclear how many of those 70 people might need additional help with problems such as addictions or mental illness in order to have some chance at staying in the housing.

Linda Lera-Randle El, director of Straight from the Streets, a nonprofit organization involved in the effort, said that the 12 people her organization had gotten off Wilson and into housing in recent weeks needed intensive case management.

The group she had helped included a 5-year-old boy and his father, she said. Several of them were so unaccustomed to living within four walls that she found them camped out again on Wilson only days after helping them, and had to coax them back into housing.

Haynes-Green said 67 people in the camp were denied rental assistance because they were already receiving income from other sources, such as Social Security. It is unclear what will happen to them in the coming weeks.

The rest of the rental assistance applications were still up in the air -- which may mean that those people qualified but couldn't find housing for $369 a month.

Another group of people -- 19 -- asked to be sent home, and the county paid for their bus tickets.

Lera-Randle El said she had also sent three people home.

The county gave medical help to 41 others. And other agencies were still compiling their numbers, Haynes-Green said.

In the stinging heat on Wilson Avenue on Friday, there were those who hadn't sought help -- like the woman who was convinced a property deed would arrive any day.

There were those who tried to get help -- like Ihovsany Prats Betancourt, arrived from Cuba 14 months ago, who entered the trailer to seek help with recovering documents he had lost authorizing him to work in the United States.

He found that no one spoke Spanish. He walked out. He is still camped on Wilson.

"We need more Spanish translators," Haynes-Green said.

And there were those, like Eric Pigott, who had been offered too little help -- $369 a month.

As for what will happen to them all in a month, when the trailer is hauled away, Bowker said he hopes to avoid "another sweep." There have been at least four sweeps downtown since December.

"What you're probably gonna have is another encampment somewhere."