Homeless battling valley’s heat wave

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Thursday, May 26, 2005 | 11:03 a.m.

Stumps.

That's what is left of the trees that offered shade in years past on two streets near downtown where hundreds of homeless people still gather.

Their absence was conspicuous as the Las Vegas Valley suffered its sixth straight day of 100-degree heat Wednesday, providing a cruel commentary on life in the streets when it gets hot.

Curiously, one of the two streets -- Wilson Avenue, site of a homeless camp with up to 300 people -- had its trees cut down during the recent heat wave, though county workers who have been working in the area did not know what agency was responsible for the act.

In any case, the absence of relief for the region's homeless raises a perennial issue for local governments, whose emergency shelter plan for extreme weather conditions was developed in the last two years.

But the plan only considered what low temperatures in winter would set in motion funding for emergency shelter, and set no threshold for high temperatures in summer, said Darryl Martin, director of Clark County Social Service.

"This heat has caught us off guard," he said.

Larry Jensen, of the National Weather Service, said recent temperatures have been about 10 degrees higher than what is considered normal for this time of year.

Martin said the regional committee on homelessness, which Clark County Manager Thom Reilly leads, will hold a special meeting June 16 to amend the plan and consider what weather conditions would require governments to open daytime shelters in private or public buildings.

The lack of immediate action on opening up additional shelters prompted Denise Beckwith, outreach medical case manager for the Healthcare for the Homeless Clinic on Wilson Avenue, to forecast darkly that there may soon be "dead bodies out there."

The comment is not far-fetched, given that at least 13 homeless people have died since 2002 at least in part due to the heat, according to coroner's records.

Beckwith said she had to call an ambulance four times to Wilson Avenue between Monday and Wednesday to help patients suffering from heat exhaustion and chest pains that she said could have been caused by the heat.

In this context, the trees that were once on Wilson Avenue, where the homeless camp is, and on Owens Avenue, across the street from the Salvation Army, have been sorely missed.

North Las Vegas officials cut a tree down on Owens during a cleanup of the area April 20, trying to landscape the area to make it less likely that the homeless will gather there, Tim Bedwell, spokesman for the North Las Vegas Police Department, said.

Paula Haynes-Green, regional homeless services coordinator, said that county workers currently on site at the Wilson Avenue camp saw trees on that street being cut last week and earlier this week.

Meanwhile, Maj. William Raihl, Clark County coordinator for the Salvation Army, said "every inch of shade is full" inside and outside the daytime shelter at his organization's campus on Owens near A Street.

The day shelter is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., he said, and about 200 people have been using it daily since the temperatures have climbed.

Almost every one of the chairs in the day shelter -- spaced a foot apart from each other -- is being used, he said. "It's tight here and there needs to be more daytime shelter."

Haynes-Green said she had not been told that the two shelters on Owens Avenue -- the Salvation Army's and the appropriately named Shade Tree, which only takes in women and children -- were unable to meet the need for refuge from the heat.

Martin said plans to fund additional daytime shelter were scheduled for July 1.

Still, he said Reilly is "prepared to call some sort of emergency" if necessary and the county "will be monitoring the situation."

David Buer, a Franciscan brother who until last year lived in Las Vegas and lobbied local governments every year to fund additional shelter in extreme heat and cold, said that having a winter plan in place was progress from improvising measures each fall, but that the desert heat also needed to be reckoned with.

"There's no question that more daytime shelter is needed," he said, on a quick visit to the Wilson Avenue camp before heading back to Arizona, where he is now based.

Meanwhile, people living on the streets of the valley improvise sources of water, including friendly gas station managers, clinic doctors and the shelters.

Even water was somehow elusive this past week, as donations of dozens of cases were somehow mislabeled and wound up not being handed out to people in the camp, Haynes-Green said. That problem was solved yesterday, she said.

Otherwise, the mission is to seek shade, though some, like Anthony Hayes, who sleeps in a tent on Wilson Avenue, see the search as futile.

"Shade is illegal in this town," he said.