North Las Vegas attracting more homeless

An invisible line divides Las Vegas and North Las Vegas.

But many homeless people who live on central valley streets know exactly where each city begins and ends.

That is because cash-strapped North Las Vegas lacks the resources to regularly roust the homeless, clean out their encampments and make them move along.

"Those who don't want to be bothered just cross the line" into North Las Vegas, said Marc Washington, part of a team of Las Vegas police officers tasked with enforcing the law and reaching out to the down-and-out in the homeless corridor near Las Vegas Boulevard and Owens Avenue.

Washington's daily patrol -- which includes shooing trespassers from businesses and privately owned lots -- stops at the dividing line. City of Las Vegas crews who clean up the area also stop there.

The number of homeless people living on the streets in and around the area, officially called the Corridor of Hope, more than tripled since 2009, according to a January homeless count. Officials say more of them are crossing the street to camp in North Las Vegas, where those who can't -- or don't want to -- get into crowded shelters are more likely to be left alone.

"This is the most homeless we've seen," said Steve Rehberger , beautification team supervisor for North Las Vegas. His team, charged with cleaning up blighted areas of the city, "can't do routine, proactive cleanups anymore like we could when we were fully staffed," he said.

North Las Vegas struggled with plummeting revenues as the economy collapsed, trimming more than $60 million from the city's general fund budget and cutting or freezing about 1,000 positions.

The beautification team, part of the city's public works department, was cut from 18 workers to seven.

Previously, the team cleaned up around the homeless corridor once a week, Rehberger said.

"Now, we're probably doing it once a month."

Las Vegas crews, meanwhile, have continued to clean up their portion of the area regularly.

North Las Vegas' police department never had a team specifically devoted to enforcement and outreach around the homeless corridor, said Tim Bedwell, a department spokesman.

But "in the past, we had more officers involved," he said. "It's less of a priority for us now because our resources are slimmer."

North Las Vegas police officials have argued that the department is understaffed, and budget cuts have made things worse.

To keep the homeless out of the area would require them to patrol all day long, Bedwell said. "As soon as we stopped it, they'd move back in there."

Charities that provide services to the homeless in the corridor also have been making do with decreased funding and fewer resources.

And shuffling the homeless from place to place does nothing to get to the root of the problem, said North Las Vegas City Councilman Robert Eliason, whose ward borders the homeless corridor.

"It's a Catch-22," he said. "We shoo them away, and then where do they go?"

About two years ago, Las Vegas officials, police, area business owners and social service workers joined forces to disband a tent city hundreds strong that had sprouted on sidewalks along Foremaster Lane and Main Street.

They erected metal barriers along the sidewalks to prevent camping, saying many of the displaced homeless were steered into transitional or permanent housing. But others said the homeless simply took up camp a few blocks down the road -- many of them in North Las Vegas.

They "just came into our backyard," said Joseph Stamis, an executive director for Jerry's Nugget casino near Owens in North Las Vegas.

The problem has grown worse in the past year or so, he said, especially on a 20-acre empty lot kitty-corner from the casino.

"It's tough when you have an influx moving in" from Las Vegas, Stamis said. "They are setting up tents, makeshift houses, and camping. It's terrible for us, because we try to keep our property looking nice. That's hard to do when you have homeless people wandering in and washing in the bathroom. It hurts business."

Stamis has complained to the city about the problem.

"They come up with very good short-term solutions," he said. "They say, 'We're going to go clean up the lot this day.' Two days later, it's back in disastrous form. There needs to be a long-term solution."

Eliason helped organize more than 2,000 volunteers who cleaned up the lot in October. "No trespassing" signs also were posted there some time ago, but most were quickly torn down.

"I don't know if even putting up a fence would help," Eliason said. "It's a tough issue, especially now."

Jerry's Nugget offered to split the cost of a fence with the lot's owners, Stamis said. "They weren't willing to incur the expense."

The owner of the lot referred questions to the property's manager, who did not return a call seeking comment.

North Las Vegas Mayor Shari Buck noted that the city contributes funds to regional efforts to help the homeless, but as a city, "there's only so much we can do."

North Las Vegas "would like to have the resources we used to have, of course," she said. "Someday we'll get back there. But now it's a matter of distinguishing between wants and needs and what we can actually afford."

When police kick homeless people out, they "just go to another place, just shift jurisdictions," Bedwell said. "I honestly don't know what the answer is going to be."

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@review journal.com.