Wednesday, July 19, 2006 | 7:39 a.m.
Were you one of the 100 good citizens who attended the Southern Nevada Regional Planning / U.S. Housing and Urban Development Summit on Homelessness held in September 2001? You will remember that Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman praised all who attended for being good citizens and participating in 10 focus groups.
It only took a few weeks before he made the statement in the Los Angeles Times that he wanted to run them out of town "like the old Wild West sheriff." About a month later he was quoted in the Las Vegas Sun as saying, "Las Vegas has gained a reputation as having a heart that reaches out to the homeless, and that is unacceptable to me. The homeless are coming here in droves. We have to stop that."
The mayor does not realize how his harmful and hurtful rhetoric is unproductive, but it does demonstrate his true bias against the homeless. Five years later he, the City Council and the city attorney are continuing their punitive campaign against the homeless.
We were not told the truth in the SNRPC / HUD summit because the goal wasn't to help the homeless but to limit services to them in Ward 5, and to disperse them into the Las Vegas Valley. The problems in Circle Park are a symptom of this policy.
I hope the 100 good citizens will phone Mayor Goodman and attend the next City Council meeting to express their displeasure with this punitive policy.
Frank Perna, Las Vegas
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