Homeless men, among an estimated 14,500 in Southern Nevada, look for day labor jobs Wednesday on Bonanza Road near the Interstate 15 overpass. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

If you can't make it in a place known for its low unemployment, its lack of state income taxes and its $1.99 steak-n-egg breakfasts, you probably can't make it anywhere.

At least that's the idea that has helped make Nevada the second fastest-growing state in the nation.

But a new report issued on Wednesday by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a nonpartisan advocacy group, belies that stereotype.

The percentage of Nevadans who are homeless, 0.68 percent, ranks highest among U.S. states and is more than double the national average, the report said.

The majority of the state's homeless people live in Southern Nevada.

Advocates for the homeless say people who are down on their luck often are drawn to the area by dreams of cheap living and easy-to-find, lucrative jobs. Many of them instead end up on the street.

"When we look at Las Vegas, we see the pot at the end of the rainbow," said Charles Desiderio, a spokesman for the local Salvation Army. "The streets are paved with (casino) chips. Everything is inexpensive, colorful, glamorous. Jobs are plentiful. In reality, they aren't as plentiful as people would like to believe."

The report, which uses data collected by the Department of Housing and Urban Development from service providers throughout the country, lists Nevada's homeless population as 16,402 as of January, 2005. That number includes 12,198 from Southern Nevada, according to the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Commission's Committee on Homelessness.

Social service providers estimate the number of homeless people in Southern Nevada alone to be around 14,500.

They attribute the high number of homeless to unrealistic expectations and a lack of affordable housing.

"Our ad campaigns lead people to believe this (Las Vegas) is the gold strike," said Linda Lera-Randle El, director of the Straight from the Streets program that works with the homeless. "If you're not doing so well where you are and you read about us, you'll pack up the kids and grandma and head here. We are prosperous, but that doesn't mean everyone prospers."

Southern Nevada's already shallow pool of low-rent options has been shrinking. Several mobile home parks have recently closed or are scheduled to close, as have several low-rent motels.

"We have a lack of affordable housing programs for the working poor and the homeless," said Kathleen Boutin, director of the Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth.

She said a dearth of services for struggling young people contributes to the problem.

"Homeless youth become homeless adults," she said.

After Nevada, states with the highest share of their population homeless were Rhode Island, Colorado, California and Hawaii.

There were 744,000 homeless people in the United States in 2005, according to the report, which is the first national study on the number of homeless people since 1996.

California was the state with the most homeless people in 2005, about 170,000, followed by New York, Florida, Texas and Georgia.

The report said a little more than half of the homeless nationally were living in shelters, and nearly a quarter were chronically homeless.

A majority of the homeless were single adults, but about 41 percent were in families, the report said.

"Having this data brings all of us another step closer to understanding the scope and nature of homelessness in America, and establishing this baseline is an extremely challenging task," HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said. "Understanding homelessness is a necessary step to addressing it successfully."

HUD is preparing to release its own report on homelessness in the coming weeks, Jackson said. In the future, the department plans to issue annual reports on the number of homeless people in the U.S.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.