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Tuesday, July 16, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Catholic charities offers to run shelter

Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada was the only provider of services for the homeless to respond to a request for qualifications from Las Vegas officials to operate MASH Village.

"We said we would manage the Crisis Intervention Center if it was totally funded by the city," said Sharon Mann, spokeswoman for Catholic Charities. "We don't have the money to handle running MASH. But we recommended that the area for housing families be turned into a mental health facility."

The Crisis Intervention Center houses 30 social service agencies at a central site near Main Street and Owens Avenue.

Like a number of other area service providers, Catholic Charities officials said MASH Village, Southern Nevada's main service provider for the homeless and the only shelter for homeless families, is too big a project to take over in its entirety.

Its current operator, the Rev. Joe Carroll, in April announced he would pull out by Oct. 1, citing difficulties in fund raising and a reluctance by his San Diego-based parent company to continue subsidizing the project.

MASH officials have said the organization's annual operating budget is about $3.5 million, at least $400,000 of which is generated by fund raising. The rest comes from government grants and subsidies from the parent company.

Mann said Catholic Charities still is recovering from massive expenses for construction of the St. Vincent Plaza, scheduled to open next month. The $13.7 million facility will house 900 beds and a number of services, ranging from a residential work program to immigration and refugee services and a health clinic.

Mann said the project has about $1.3 million in cost overruns for which the charity still is raising funds.

City officials late Monday said they had not reviewed Catholic Charities' submission, which was turned in just before the 5 p.m. deadline.