Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Heat a different animal’ for Las Vegas homeless

City moving residents indoors to cooling station at Dula Community Center

Cooling Shelter Opened for Homeless

Yasmina Chavez

A man rests at the Dula Community Center Monday, July 12, 2021. The community center was turned into a cooling center for people trying to get out of the record-breaking heat.

Cooling Shelter Opened for Homeless

The Dula Community Center was turned into a cooling center for people trying to get out of the record-breaking heat Monday, July 12, 2021. YASMINA CHAVEZ Launch slideshow »

When homeless resident Doug Cullins arrived Sunday afternoon at the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center in downtown Las Vegas to get out of the scorching summer heat, he noticed paramedics were at the entrance tending to someone who had become ill because of the elements.

A few hours later, and with temperatures well over 110 degrees, Mullins saw a different set of paramedics transporting another homeless person in an ambulance. The 56-year-old admitted wondering to himself, “Could I be next?”

“We are dropping like flies because of this heat,” he said.

Cullins and other homeless seeking reprieve at the courtyard were transported Sunday afternoon to the indoor Dula Community Center, where nearly 90 of them spent the night in the gymnasium complete with air conditioning, cold water to drink and mats to sleep on.

With an excessive heat warning in effect through 8 p.m. Monday, city of Las Vegas officials made the decision to give homeless clients the option to move on from the courtyard — the shaded, outdoor home base for many in the Corridor of Hope. The case workers vital in helping residents secure health services and aid through welfare also transitioned to Dula.

“Most of the guests were grateful for the opportunity to get the reprieve and we were happy to offer it,” said Jocelyn Bluitt-Fisher, a community services administrator for the city.

Bluitt-Fisher said cooling mechanisms at the courtyard were able to lower temperatures by about 20 degrees, which simply wasn’t sufficient during the heatwave that has hampered many communities throughout the West and led to wildfires in California and Oregon.

When Las Vegas temperatures reached 116 degrees Saturday, NV Energy sent out an emergency notice to customers asking them to conserve energy between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. by turning off lights and unplugging appliances. The heat also led to flight delays at McCarran International Airport.

The effects of the heat were so bad at the homeless courtyard that clients continued to complain that the bottles of water being distributed by officials were hot. It’s impossible to cool down when putting warm fluids into a warm body, resident Keenan Brown Sr., 66, said.

Despite having a cool compress around his neck and wearing light clothing, Brown was experiencing headaches and felt rundown, symptoms of heat stroke.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life,” Brown, who has lived in Las Vegas for nearly three years, said about the unbearable conditions. “You try everything to stay cool but you just can’t get accustomed to the heat.”

Cullins said there was no trick to staying cool because “this heat is a different type of animal. It’s impossible to survive without help.”

Bluitt-Fisher said officials were still determining when to close community center as a cooling station, saying it would be operational at least through the end of Monday. Temperatures overnight were forecast to remain in the triple digits until 11 p.m., before moving to an overnight low of 89 degrees around 90 at 6 a.m. Tuesday. The high temperature forecast for Tuesday is 108 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

“This is an unprecedented thing in Las Vegas,” Bluitt-Fisher said. “We have had this many record high temperatures, especially with it not cooling off at night (because of) temperatures in the triple digits. We decided it was too hot to have people sleeping outdoors.”

Dula had a little more than 100 clients early Monday afternoon. The Salvation Army arrived to provide assistance, including food.

Dula can accommodate up to the 300 clients, Bluitt-Fisher said. City marshals and outreach teams are directing the homeless to the center, although 150 of the homeless remained Sunday night at the courtyard, she said.

“The heat was a concern and we decided to do this as a solution,” she said.