Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

HELP reaches out to growing homeless population in Henderson

City helps agency land $25,000 grant to expand its efforts

Helping Homeless in Henderson

Steve Marcus

Louis Lacey, left, director of homeless response teams for HELP of Southern Nevada, walks with Christopher Jaynes, a homeless man, in Henderson Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. HELP of Southern Nevada arranged for a motel room for Jaynes.

Louis Lacey often starts his day on the streets of Henderson handing out bottles of water to homeless residents battling the elements.

Helping Homeless in Henderson

Christopher Jaynes, a homeless man, poses outside his motel room in Henderson Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. HELP of Southern Nevada arranged for the motel room for Jaynes. Launch slideshow »

Most of Southern Nevada’s estimated 5,000 homeless population congregates near downtown Las Vegas, where there are more resources available to them. But the need expanded to Henderson during the pandemic, and Lacey’s crew with HELP of Southern Nevada has already made a connection with more than 1,000 individuals.

The city of Henderson this month helped coordinate for the group to receive a $25,000 grant to expand its outreach. Inflation, high rent and unemployment have residents stretched thin, Lacey indicated.

“We want to do the best job with the most people and with the resources that they have generously allocated, and we want to do the best for the city, for our community partners; and most importantly we want to help as many people as we can,” said Lacey, the director of crisis teams at HELP of Southern Nevada.

The funds come from an Emergency Solutions Grant that was awarded to Henderson by the Nevada Department of Business and Industry’s housing division, city officials said. The division of housing said on its website that the funds — given to the division by the federal government — were meant for nonprofit agencies and local governments to assist homeless individuals.

“HELP of Southern Nevada has extensive experience working with other jurisdictions within the county and has already established a framework for homeless assistance in our area,” said Madeleine Skains, a public information officer for the city of Henderson. “The funds were distributed to HELP of Southern Nevada so they can continue their work throughout Henderson.”

The organization offers a number of housing assistance programs, including family housing services, a homeless youth center and homeless response teams. Lacey said the homeless response teams are comprised of four employees who go out in pairs four days a week for 10 hours a day to connect with people in Henderson without homes.

Sometimes they visit new areas of the city to connect with new faces, but many of the people they see are familiar. Lacey stressed that doing repeated check-ins — which he calls the “multiengagement process” — and building trust is key.

“Because it takes a minute for individuals that have been homeless to trust anybody, sometimes they just want to see that you are for real and they want to know that they can trust you,” Lacey said.

The city turned to HELP of Southern Nevada to enhance the efforts of its Henderson Homeless Response Team in late 2021.

HELP of Southern Nevada has visited homeless encampments 220 times in making contact with 1,203 individuals in Henderson, the agency said. It has delivered 1,870 bottles of water, 148 hygiene kits, 200 bus passes and more to those people with whom it has made contact. The agency has arranged for health care for 125 people with chronic conditions and made referrals for 153 individuals needing mental health care.

Although Henderson may be seeing a sudden increase in unhoused individuals, homelessness in Southern Nevada has long been an issue.

In February 2020, 5,083 people in Clark County were experiencing homelessness according to the Help Hope Home’s Homeless Point-In-Time Count and Survey. The majority of these people — roughly 51% — are unsheltered and living on the street, in vehicles, in the desert, or within encampments.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found 582,462 people nationally were experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2022, according to its Annual Homeless Assessment Report. Homelessness among people in unsheltered settings increased by 3.4%.

In the Las Vegas area, the annual homeless census in 2022 accounted for 5,645 homeless people, an increase of nearly 600 individuals since 2020 to catch the eye of residents.

A few residents lined up to speak at a Henderson City Council meeting earlier in the month urging cityofficials to get involved, and described that they had seen “human feces, needles and other trash left behind” in their neighborhoods.

“In Henderson, there’s no place for these people to go,” resident Sarah Hardy told the council. “I would like to see a facility built in Henderson that we could send them to that treats addiction, helps with mental health care and gives them general resources.”

Henderson has no plan to build an outreach center for unhoused residents in the city, officials said.

For now, Lacey wants to continue meeting homeless members of the Henderson community and connecting them with resources so they “have the best chance of being successful” in seeking treatment or stable housing.

“It’s usually just the right person at the right time that can offer assistance and change somebody’s life in a meaningful way,” Lacey said.