Shelter program gets $200,000 lift

For many years the Las Vegas City Council has run its Weather Shelter Program for the homeless. In turn, homeless people and their advocates use the public hearing associated with funding the program to grouse about how much more work needs to be done.

On Monday, before the council voted unanimously to award $200,000 to three area shelters that provide respite from extreme weather, area homeless men, along with their supporters, told the board they are being continually dogged by city marshals and Metro Police.

"The marshals go out of their way to harass the homeless," said Gary Peck, executive director of the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Peck thanked the council in advance of the vote for funding the program but urged that steps be taken to "stop criminalizing homelessness."

Michael Buckley, who told the council he is homeless, said he was arrested May 25 and June 30 near St. Vincent's shelter on vagrancy-related charges -- first by Metro and then by city marshals.

"The officer told me, 'We are going to make an example out of you,' and booked me for trespassing," Buckley told the four council members, including Mayor Pro Tem Michael McDonald, a Metro Police officer. Mayor Jan Laverty Jones was absent.

Buckley said he spent one night in jail and was released the next day. On June 25, in Municipal Court, the charges were dropped. Buckley's next arrest was five days later on pedestrian-obstruction charges. It netted him seven days in jail. He was released July 7 and the charges again were dropped.

Law-enforcement officials, under great pressure from business owners and residents, have long used loitering laws to get undesirable people off the streets for a short while.

City officials, however, pointed out that Monday's council action was a positive one to address the homeless problem -- and it is not the only such action taken by the city.

"Last year, the city spent $3 1/2 million in federal and city money (to address homeless issues)," Sharon Segerblom, director of the city's neighborhood services department, told the council.

She challenged other local government entities to follow suit. The city has long had difficulty getting Clark County and surrounding municipalities to help finance its homeless programs because the majority of the homeless population stays inside Las Vegas city limits where the bulk of the services and shelters are.

The shelters funded Monday didn't get as much as they had asked for.

Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, which operates the St. Vincent's shelter, received $74,000 of the $124,414 it sought. The Salvation Army got $66,000 of the $81,691 it wanted. The Shade Tree shelter got $60,000 of the $82,639 it applied for.

Segerblom said the funds are meant to provide not only shelter but also cots, toilet paper and soap for the homeless.

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