Fertitta center that helps homeless, others to be closed

A one-stop shop for social services that helps the poorest valley residents in the downtown homeless corridor will close this month, leaving the scores of homeless who frequent it each day no choice but to stand in long lines at already overcrowded alternate locations for help.

The Fertitta Community Assistance Center, located at the Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada campus near the intersection of Main Street and Owens Avenue, will close July 15, charity and Clark County officials said today.

“I’m just devastated,” said Phillip Hollon, residential services director for Catholic Charities. “We spent years getting people accustomed to coming here for help, and now that is coming to a complete halt.”

The charity leases the 7,000-square-foot center to Clark County Social Service for $173,000 a year, the county said. The county operates a satellite location offering rental assistance and other help in the center.

In a statement today, the county said closure of the center is necessary because of $9.3 million in cuts to its 2009-10 Social Service budget used to fund non-medical programs that help adults who are either homeless or destitute.

Those cuts are part of “more than $180 million over the next two years” the county is losing “because of legislative decisions to take money from the county to offset state budget shortfalls,” the statement said.
Such cuts “will have devastating impacts on our community,” the county said.

The cuts include eliminating 33 part-time Social Service positions on July 15, including six positions at the Fertitta center. Those cuts will save $320,000 this fiscal year, the county said.

The cuts come at a time when the county’s Social Service department is experiencing unprecedented demand for services.

From 2007 to 2008, the department saw a more than 30 percent increase in client traffic from the homeless, senior citizens and others seeking rent, utility and health care assistance, the county said.

Those who visit the county’s other social services facilities, such as the one on Pinto Lane near Martin Luther King Boulevard, face long lines and lengthy wait times each day.

The Fertitta center opened in July 2005 as a replacement facility for the old MASH Village Crisis Intervention Center, which closed in 2002 because of a lack of city money.

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.