A homeless person rests in the shade against a building wall near downtown Las Vegas Nov. 18, 2017.
Sunday, June 4, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Related Coverage
CARSON CITY — A new approach to serving Las Vegas’ homeless population calls for the construction of a facility that offers comprehensive on-site services needed to rebuild someone’s life such as medical and mental health care providers, job training and more.
A proposal was introduced Saturday in the Nevada Assembly seeking funds for the project, a public-private partnership to bring the state’s first far-reaching program aimed at reducing homelessness.
Assembly Bill 528 would create a nonprofit that would be the lead partner in establishing a campus with a number of social and economic services as well as access to hot meals, hygiene facilities and clothing.
The bill creates a program to provide matching funds up to $100 million for the establishment of such a facility and a nine-member board to govern the partnership. The project must be at least $175 million, according to the bill, and the lead partner will pay the initial $25 million.
“We feel this is a worthy project that could make a real difference,” Nevada Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, D-Las Vegas, told the Assembly Committee on Ways and Means while introducing the bill. “I think you’re going to hear excitement about this concept from local governments and the private sector as well. This is really intended to be all hands on deck.”
The proposal has the undisclosed financial backing of many resort companies in Las Vegas, including Boyd Gaming, Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International, Red Rock Resorts, South Point, Venetian and Wynn Resorts, the Nevada Resort Association said Saturday night.
“Assembly Bill 528 is a historic investment by the state, local governments and private industry to create a life-changing campus that will provide much-needed wrap-around services to those experiencing homelessness and help reduce the number of families and individuals without shelter or support,” association CEO Virginia Valentine said in a statement.
No location has been determined for the campus, which would also feature centralized governmental services such as ID procurement, transportation coordination and mail delivery, as well as transitional and permanent housing solutions.
It would establish a campus similar to that of San Antonio, Texas-based Haven for Hope. That outfit became fully operational in 2010, and sought to connect homeless services the city and local nonprofits were offering but were too far apart geographically or were “administratively disconnected” from each other, according to the organization’s website.
“This bill reflects the collaboration of the public and private sector working together to make a very significant difference to address one of the most critical issues facing our community,” said Erik Hansen, the chief sustainability officer for Wynn Resorts. “Bringing together nonprofit organizations and government agencies — that have the expertise in providing essential services and support mechanisms to those experiencing homelessness — in a comprehensive campus setting has the potential to have an enormous profound and lasting impact.”
In a statement, Boyd Gaming officials said the proposal would expand extensive support services to at-risk individuals and families.
“We are eager to help break the cycle through the creation of a comprehensive facility that would provide essential services to those experiencing homelessness,” the company said.
A litany of affordable housing and homelessness advocacy nonprofits testified in support of the bill. The measure is also endorsed by UNLV, Clark County, Metro Police, the cities of Henderson and North Las Vegas, and others. Nobody testified in opposition.
“This is something we long though we’ve needed in Southern Nevada,” said Joanna Jacob, a lobbyist representing Clark County. “Not one entity can do this alone.”
Jeremy Aguero, principal analyst at Applied Analysis, helped present the bill alongside Yeager and said the development will be a vital lifeline for the homeless here and will complement — and possibly incorporate — existing services throughout the valley.
“I don’t want to suggest to you this is necessarily an economic development project in the traditional sense, it’s more of a community development project,” Aguero said. “(This is) looking for the intersection between challenges that we face socially, in terms of homelessness, folks that are at-risk of becoming homeless, and our need to have additional workforce and give people the opportunity for self-sufficiency, training, and making sure that they have stable living conditions.”
Haven for Hope is regarded as a model for effectively addressing homelessness.
A fact sheet released by Haven for Hope in 2019 shows that more than $100 million went into constructing its campus. The private sector paid for $60.9 million, while the remaining came from the city of San Antonio, Bexar County and the state of Texas.
The Texas group states it placed 1,003 clients in permanent housing during the last fiscal year, and that 91% of those who have found permanent housing through Haven for Hope have remained there after one year.
At a roundtable discussion last month addressing homelessness throughout the valley, UNLV social work professor Nicholas Barr, who specializes in youth and veteran homelessness, estimated there are 5,645 homeless people living in Clark County.
That number, however, is likely a vast undercount of those in the valley considered “housing unstable” — those who might stay with someone a few days at a time before finding another dwelling elsewhere, or who sleep in their car.
“If you put skyrocketing rents together with low wages and a lack of mental health services, this is the inevitable outcome,” Barr said May 18 at the discussion hosted by Nevada Women’s Philanthropy. “It’s not as if we just have more people using drugs or have mental illness.”
A handful of nonprofit and governmental service providers for homeless populations are spread across Clark County — most notably is Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, and the city’s own complex called the Corridor of Hope, which can house up to 500 people.
While independent nonprofits would likely continue to maintain their own facilities, such a one-stop destination could provide a shared intake and offer services for homeless people such as basic health care, access to the DMV, mental health care, veterans’ services and legal services, as well as additional living facilities.
“(This project) has to be reasonably expected to actually help with the homelessness challenge and to stem the tide of homelessness of those that are either homeless or are at-risk of becoming homeless,” Aguero said. “The idea here is not to come in and replace (existing) services, but to build and leverage those important services that are being done to promote internal collaboration.”
That resort community certainly shares that mindset.
“The complexity and scope of the homelessness problem in Southern Nevada, one so significant many of us witness it every day, calls for innovative solutions,” said Craig Billings, CEO of Wynn Resorts. “This bill and its proposed program, a campus offering comprehensive on-site services via a public-private partnership, is a step in right direction to help those living on the margin reintegrate into our community.”
Officials from the South Point echoed the sentiment, saying "homelessness affects the health and well-being of our entire community, and it is within our power to change the way we address it, and even end it. The funding will create a non-profit organization that will coordinate and deliver in a single, transformational campus the full scope of services required to reduce homelessness in Southern Nevada.”
Lawmakers are working throughout the weekend ahead the end of the legislative session on Monday, and still have several high-profile bills to advance.
Among them, two omnibus budget bills — including one vetoed Thursday by Gov. Joe Lombardo to fund state agencies for the upcoming biennium — as well as proposals to expand the state’s film tax credit program and a funding bill for a possible MLB stadium on the Strip to house the Oakland A’s.
Yeager has said previously the budget remains lawmakers’ top priority, and that the budget would need to be fully signed into law before auxiliary bills are advanced.
“I don’t know how we pass any of those bills because we don’t have a budget,” Yeager told reporters last week. “We don’t know how much money we have. We will have to forgo doing very, very important things.”
