Countering Vegas’ reputation

By Timothy Pratt

Sunday, May 3, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The irony is not lost on Las Vegas resident Tony Sipich.

He traveled to New York on Saturday as one of 10 finalists chosen among 4,200 nationwide in the “For All the Ways You Care” contest.

Contest sponsor CVS/pharmacy paid for the trip and had $10,000 waiting for Sipich as a finalist, plus $25,000 more Monday if he’s chosen as the winner. Sipich is also scheduled to appear on “Good Morning America.”

What does the 33-year-old do to deserve all this? He feeds the homeless. He does this in Las Vegas, where:

• Mayor Oscar Goodman and some other officials have tried to blackball feeding the homeless as akin to enabling an addict, an act that does nothing to solve the underlying problem.

• The City Council voted unanimously in July 2006 to outlaw feeding the homeless in parks, and the ACLU spent 14 months in court challenging that ordinance, succeeding in late 2007.

• Metro Police recently threatened to cite people feeding the homeless downtown, until Deputy Chief Gary Schofield quashed the policy last month.

The National Coalition for the Homeless placed Las Vegas among the “top 5 meanest cities to the homeless” twice in the past six years.

Some of these events gained the city global ignominy when detailed in The New York Times, USA Today and on BBC, Fox News and CNN.

How does Sipich feel to be grabbing the headlines now with good deeds done for the downtrodden instead of the contrary?

First he laughed, recalling life several weeks ago, before Metro’s recent turnaround, when feeding the homeless could result in a warning or a ticket for any possible infraction police thought might stick — illegal parking, blocking the sidewalk.

Then Sipich turned sober, saying that being chosen a finalist and appearing on national TV might “get out the message to change things.”

“It legitimizes and justifies what we do. It helps the people we’re trying to help,” he added. Told of the contest, Schofield, who said a few weeks ago that arresting everybody wouldn’t solve homelessness, noted that “anytime people who want to help get recognized for their work, that’s a good thing.”

Sipich has been doing the work since he was 19, when he got into the pest control business and saw that restaurants that were his clients had a lot of leftover food. Nearly five years ago he started Homeless Helpers of Nevada, the organization he still runs. It does more than hand out sandwiches, including giving homeless mothers diapers.

He said he would use the $10,000 to “catch up on some bills” because his pest control business is as slow as many other businesses right now, and his work with Homeless Helpers is pro bono.

“It’s definitely ironic,” he said of his finalist status. “Up to now, there’s been one side of the story,” that Las Vegas is mean to the homeless. “We’re trying to get out the other side.”