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StumbleDAILY MEMO: The homeless:
Street sweeps won’t solve street sleep
Once again, a homeless camp vexes Vegas, but key leaders are treating the symptoms rather than pursuing long-term solutions
A homeless man camps with others Thursday along Foremaster Lane between Las Vegas Boulevard North and Main Street. A kind of tent city has occupied Foremaster for decades, to the chagrin of business owners and city officials.
Friday, April 17, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Sun Archives
- Metro rethinks 'Don't feed homeless' (4-14-2009)
- Growing homeless settlement vexes business, Goodman (4-3-2009)
- LV City Council addresses homeless issues (3-18-2009)
- Despite pressing needs, wishes are modest (12-22-2008)
- Annie Wilson, Metro Police's liaison to the homeless (12-10-2008)
- First things first: For homeless, a home (4-22-2008)
Beyond the Sun
The recent public bloviating about dozens of unbathed and often stoned, drunk and insane people sleeping on Foremaster Lane downtown is a rerun.
Once again the spotlight is on a small number of homeless men and women in tents, and no one asks what has worked to get thousands of others off the streets.
Once again we have Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman suggesting that the city force homeless people away from Foremaster and into someplace, anyplace. Until Metro Police pulled back on the practice, we also had beat cops using warnings and citations as tools to get rid of churchgoers who feed homeless people.
In 2001 Goodman suggested busing the homeless to a former prison in Jean, 25 miles south of Las Vegas.
A year later Metro cleared a camp on the same Foremaster Lane, after Goodman declared the area a health hazard. The camp relocated blocks away. Private groups donated a portable toilet, brooms and garbage bags, to avoid the health hazard. Goodman objected that the portable toilet blocked the sidewalk.
In 2004 and 2005 there were more sweeps. And on it has continued, years of push and pull, mostly centering on the same few downtown streets.
Logic is lacking in these circular turns of events, as Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, pointed out in response to Metro’s recent push against churches. Peck recalls Metro harassing groups in 2005 for feeding the homeless in Huntridge Circle Park, a few miles from Foremaster. The ACLU successfully sued to have the ordinance prohibiting the feeding overturned. One argument at the time was that the groups with food drew homeless people away from services available downtown. But for the past few months Metro was driving good Samaritans from downtown as well.
Meanwhile, in 2005, a coalition of groups got $4 million from the state Legislature. They applied the principles that a Las Vegas group, Straight from the Streets, has proved effective: Get people into cheap housing quickly, make help for addiction and mental illness readily available, and be flexible, as opposed to heavy on house rules.
At least 165 homeless individuals and families moved into apartments or houses through the program, according to Linda Lera-Randle El, founder of Straight from the Streets and a member of the coalition.
This approach, called “housing first” by some, has received a lot of attention under Sam Tsemberis’ direction in New York, where a project called Pathways to Housing has successfully housed hundreds of hard-core homeless men and women since 1992.
Tsemberis points out that cost-benefit analyses will always favor getting people into housing first, rather than offering piecemeal services or police sweeps. Studies show that one chronically homeless person can cost taxpayers $40,000 to $200,000 a year, counting jail time and emergency room visits.
Tsemberis also notes that people’s values drive such actions as feeding the homeless and needn’t be challenged. “Give the sandwich, don’t give the sandwich — that’s not the issue. It’s a distraction.”
Philip Mangano, who as executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness is the nation’s homeless czar, says communities should “sustain their focus” on what works. “Punitive approaches do not work,” he adds. Neither does forcing homeless people to do something — “it doesn’t stand up in court.”
Mangano thinks leaders in the Las Vegas Valley need to “recalibrate,” by which he means taking stock of positive results and of changing conditions on the ground, including federal stimulus money for helping the homeless.
Tsemberis is perhaps more direct: “We already know the solution ... We just need the political will.”
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One solution that might be considered is giving the homeless a one time one way Greyhound bus ticket home. Especially for those from out of state.
Bus ticket rarely works, major cities have tried it before, the homeless are in Las Vegas because this is where they want to be. Every major city has a homeless element and they struggle to find ways to deal with it. A whole lot of these people choose the homeless lifestyle. Some just have mental issues others addictions. With the economy the way it is others are forced into the homeless lifestyle and those are the ones services need to try and help. You can't help them all and some don't want help. While Oscar seems to hate the homeless I think he may have the right approach, force them into the services provided so they can determine whats best for each circumstance. Las Vegas does have services even if you are required to quit drugs and drinking. Its sounds like a good idea to get them off the dependence of chemicals to me.
I agree with LasVegas2009. I have worked at rescue missions and found that many homeless people are willing to accept food, clothing, and a hot shower, but like living on the street. Some don't want any help. Straight from the Streets is doing the best that they can to solve the problem.