Lines of people seeking aid long

They line up hours or even a day in advance, fighting the late-night and early morning cold and sometimes each other.

Hunkered under coats, winter hats and blankets, the dozens of people who can be found each weekday outside the Clark County Social Service building, on Pinto Lane near Martin Luther King Boulevard, are here because of a shared basic need: They don't have enough money to make the rent.

The tanking economy and skyrocketing unemployment have increased the numbers of those seeking emergency rental assistance designed to prevent homelessness. That increase is creating headaches for social service workers and sowing discord among those waiting for help.

"It is a nightmare," 51-year-old Gail Faubion said early Thursday while waiting on a bench outside the building, rolling her own cigarettes. "I've been coming here every day for two weeks. All this trouble, just to have to come back again the next day."

Faubion and others told of hours-long cross-town bus trips to get a good place in line, nights spent camping in the parking lot, and squabbles over who was there first.

"It started getting bad lately," said Jocelan Fox, 42, who was hoping to get a $400 check to pay her already late December rent. "People sneak ahead in line."

Nancy McLane, the county's social service director, acknowledged the frustration.

"We have to turn people away because we don't have anybody who can see them," she said. "We can only fit in so many people per day for processing."

The county has issued nearly 11,700 checks for rental assistance so far this fiscal year, up by about 30 percent from last year, McLane said.

"Sometimes people have to come back three or four times to get in. We've been trying to address it, but we're not getting more staff."

Some people have become so desperate they camp outside the building overnight.

"We don't want them here," McLane said. "It's not a safe place for them to be."

In order to encourage people to go home, the department has decided that beginning Monday it will at closing time each evening compile a waiting list for the next day.

The office typically closes at 5 p.m., or later "whenever the line justifies" it, McLane said.

Previously, the waiting list wasn't started until 10 p.m., when night-time security officers showed up at the building. That waiting list helped, but some people still chose to camp out.

"We were concerned to see children out there" so late, McLane said.

The department had to increase security months ago when people started showing up at 3 a.m., then at midnight or even earlier to wait in line.

"They need to take appointments," said Shaheed, 60, who declined to give his last name. "Otherwise, it's the same thing over and over again."

Shaheed, who said he lost his job as a taxi driver in June, began his bus trip from North Las Vegas to Pinto Lane at 1 a.m. on Thursday, he said.

The county so far has spent about $4.7 million of the $10.7 million in its rental assistance program budget for this fiscal year, which ends June 30.

People "basically have to be destitute" to be eligible for the program, McLane said. They also must provide a variety of documents including proof they reside in Clark County, proof of income and proof that there is a landlord willing to accept the amount the county offers for both rent and utilities, which ranges according to family size. A family of four would be eligible for about $800 in assistance, McLane said.

Assistance is given for no more than three months in a 12-month period.

The county recently learned that it will lose the $400,000 it had left in this year's low-income housing trust fund because of state budget cuts. The county sub-grants the money in that fund to nonprofits that run their own emergency rental assistance programs.

"It's scary," said Gina Gavan of HELP of Southern Nevada, which relies on help from the county to fund its own rental assistance program. "Everybody's worried."

Gavan said the nonprofit helps 85 families a month avoid homelessness. HELP's emergency assistance program is on track to run out of money in April, she said. The agency isn't sure what it will do if there are more cuts next year.

"When you start to think about all this, it becomes really frightening," Gavan said.

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