Jon Ralston on the Family Promise eviction, the latest humiliation of the homeless by the mayor and City Council

Sunday, May 21, 2006 | 7:38 a.m.

"I have met and spoken with these souls and they tell me that they're in Las Vegas because they are fed well here and nobody bothers them. Well, they bother me and they bother those who are truly in search of assistance - robbing, killing and raping each other. This problem began before this council's watch. But now it is on our watch and only a weakling mayor and council would not seek to manage such ailing beasts."

- Mayor Oscar Goodman, State of the City speech, 1/18/02

Most of you reading this will not be affected by what I am about to tell you and too many of you will not care. And that is exactly why The Insensitive Mayor and The Prostrate Council think they can get away with it.

His Honor's "out of sight, out of mind" attitude toward the homeless has been similar to his feelings about West Las Vegas, which he and the council have ignored as they lie down for developers in their redevelopment efforts a few miles away.

But that not-so-benign neglect reached its nadir last week when Goodman, ever the P.T. Barnum of City Hall, preened and postured even as he allowed the city to kick a homeless service provider out of a desolate West Las Vegas quadrant to make way for ... for what?

The council, less a voice of reason named Steve Wolfson and with a pained Lois Tarkanian acquiescing, excised a group called Family Promise from a site where it has operated unobtrusively for a decade. As he oversaw the preordained decision, despite dozens of supporters of the program pleading for mercy from the merciless mayor, Goodman made a promise to Family Promise, saying he had a plan to find another location after the six-month eviction order was approved.

Really? If not there, where? After stigmatizing the homeless during his tenure, after the council majority rationalized the decision because of serendipitous complaints from neighbors who aren't really neighbors, how do they get any other area to accept Family Promise?

It was nothing short of sickening to watch Goodman and his accomplices gush about Family Promise and its tireless, brave director Terry Lindemann and the wonderful work it does, how important it is, and so on. Just not in that area of West Las Vegas.

But why not? Because the city, in inventorying its records, decided to make all nonprofits obtain a business license and thus new zoning, which forced Lindemann to apply for a change. And suddenly the so-called neighbors are upset and hectoring Councilman Lawrence Weekly, who represents the area.

Weekly, a devout man and usually stalwart voice for the downtrodden, was AWOL for the last few weeks as this unfolded, and then he acted during the meeting as if he were the one being crucified.

This story reeks of hypocrisy and irony as Weekly pandered to fellow African-Americans whose plight the council has ignored for years, all the while providing sops and empty promises. The council can't find a grocery store for West Las Vegas, but it can find the time to boot a nonprofit group that bothers no one and helps many.

After all of the phoniness, Wolfson crystallized the inanity of what was happening.

"What's the harm in letting them stay?" Wolfson asked, posing the obvious question the others had ignored in their rush to push out Family Promise. "In my opinion, very little."

Wolfson pointed out some inconvenient facts to his colleagues, who surely were furious he had the temerity to tell the truth and not pave the way for whatever development the rest probably have in mind for the area that will be more profitable than Family Promise. Wolfson showed that there are "more vacant lots than nonvacant lots" in the area - I wonder who might want to build on those?

"This is not a situation where there are rows and rows of houses complaining," Wolfson declared. "There are not a lot of homes." Wolfson also reminded his colleagues that there is "not much in and out traffic in this facility," so "who is getting hurt by letting them stay?" No one, of course.

"For God's sake," the frustrated councilman finally offered, "nobody complained until two months ago. They have been operating in the same place for 10 years."

And last week the City Council continued to operate the way it has for the Goodman Era, with a lack of compassion, an abundance of weakness and promises made to be broken.

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