‘Navigation Center’ for housing insecure in Las Vegas celebrates anniversary

A pair of roommates at Clark County’s Navigation Center, which offers temporary shelter and social services for those who are housing insecure, said Wednesday that they had found a sense of stability and a blueprint there to get back on their feet.

Steven Martin, 26, wants to go to barber school and find a permanent place to live with his fiancée, he said. The couple fell on hard times after they moved to Las Vegas and lost their jobs.

Justin Golden, 37, said he wants to be there for his newborn child.

“It’s a good environment, they show me respect,” Martin said about the resource hub. “I hope to go to the next step.”

The trio was loitering in parks when outreach teams separately contacted them a few weeks ago and convinced them to seek help at the center, the two men said.

Clark County renovated the old east Las Vegas motel and turned it into a 70-bed complex. For two years, it’s served as an intake facility where people admitted can stay for a month.

Social workers guide them through programming to help them find more stable — and eventually — permanent housing, officials said.

Guests have access to telehealth and mental health and pharmacy services “along with individualized case management,” according to the county.

Anniversary celebration

At an event Wednesday marking the hub’s two-year anniversary, County Commission Chair Tick Segerblom said nearly 1,800 others like Martin and Golden had received help there since it opened.

“This is our first entry point for people who are homeless or unhoused or are in a crisis stage,” he said. “We have a place where they could stay, a room, shower and food.”

People admitted have access to wrap-around services, and the county tracks their progress.

“This gives them a starter point where it’s one piece at a time, one barrier at a time,” said Clark County Social Service Manager Brenda Barnes. “And it just makes it less overwhelming for the people that we serve.”

The Navigation Center is administered by WC Health, a county contractor.

An hourslong census of Southern Nevada’s homeless population in 2024 tallied 7,906 people living on the street or staying in public shelters. That marked a 20 percent increase from the previous year and considered the highest count in a decade.

The figures track with an upward national trend, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

HUD mandates the count in order for jurisdictions to qualify for certain federal grants. The census wasn’t conducted this year, but the next was scheduled for 2026.

Model to replicate

Segerblom said he hopes that the Navigation Center model is replicated throughout the valley. The county already has acquired other shuttered motels. The upcoming $200 million Campus for Hope complex will operate similarly.

“It’s a model for how we can deal with the biggest issue in my district, which is the unhoused,” Segerblom said.

During a series of townhall meetings this year, he has fielded concerns from constituents about homeless people intruding in east Las Vegas residential neighborhoods.

The resource center is an option for the people encountered on the street. The Metropolitan Police Department also refers and transports people there.

Officials have noted that funding a person’s stay at the center costs less than if they were taken to jail.

The biggest hurdles keeping people off the streets permanently are a shortage of affordable housing and the possibility of cuts to federal funding that reimburses the county for some of the social services, Segerblom said.

“We’re all terrified, frankly,” he said about the cuts. “All of this is on a house of cards.”

‘Going in the right direction’

Martin and Golden spoke to reporters about their struggles living homeless in brutal conditions such as extreme heat.

“You don’t want to eat in the heat, you have no appetite,” Golden said.

Martin had lost more than 20 pounds since he and his partner landed on the street about a year ago.

“I lost my job and went downhill after that,” said Martin.

He described feeling lost before he met the social workers and said he didn’t know such a program existed.

“I’ve been better since then,” Martin said.

Golden said that staff at the resource hub had helped him get copies of his Social Security and identification cards.

“I know I’m going in the right direction instead of being out there knocking people over, getting in trouble,” he said. “There is stability and a type of structure here.”

Golden said he longs to find a home to call his own after living outdoors or couch surfing for seven months.

“It’s a mental thing,” he said, “Some people are comfortable there, and some people are not. I’m one of the ‘nots’ that are comfortable with that situation.”

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.