By the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether governments can ban the homeless from sleeping in public spaces.
Homeless populations are growing nationwide, closing in on 1 million people total. On any given day, 6,000 people are homeless in Clark County. And the county says in a year, up to 16,000 people will be unsheltered.
What happens, then, if the Supreme Court agrees with the ban, which sprung from an ordinance in Grants Pass, Oregon?
Merideth Spriggs, executive director of Caridad, which helps people who are homeless, talked about the issue of mental illness. Nationwide, it’s estimated 25 percent of the unsheltered have serious mental health issues. But the country has seen a massive decline in beds for the homeless. In 1970, she said, the number was 500 beds per 100,000 people; today it’s 21 beds per 100,000.
She added that if the Supreme Court decides with Grants Pass, “we’re going to go off a cliff.”
“I’m fearful that … it’s only going to get worse and we're going to see more working individuals and more families than we already are seeing on the streets.”
James Reza has co-owned a business in downtown Las Vegas for 16 years. It’s gotten better in the Arts District where he’s located, but he thinks that’s because more businesses are there now. “It’s pushed a lot of them away from developed areas,” he added. “Things are a lot better, but that doesn’t mean it’s better necessarily for the homeless population.”
He said the culture and people of Las Vegas—not government—will ultimately forge the paths for those who are homeless, adding that most of the solutions offered these days “don’t really target the root of the problem.”
Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom’s District E includes much of downtown. He said a Supreme Court decision to ban homeless sleeping could have a two-fold effect. One, the threat of arrest, he said, might enable someone to get to one of the county’s Navigation Centers, which provide resources. Second, though, it would take police officers off the street and away from other duties.
“That’s half a day,” he said, adding the potential cost for jailing the homeless. “We definitely don’t want to arrest the person if there’s a way to avoid it.”
UNLV Social Work Professor Nick Barre said there is evidence that some types of help work to reduce homeless numbers: veteran homelessness has fallen 53 percent since 2010. “Tthat shows us that the problems are solvable and we can’ make a huge dent if everyone pulls together and makes it a priority.”
He added a caveat: “Unless we introduce some kind of regulatory strategy for managing the housing that we do have and building additional housing, and we interrupt the pattern of increased costs and the privatization of housing resources, we're going to have a real problem and no amount of police intervention, or mental health treatment or substance use treatment is going to fix that.”
Guests: Nick Barr, professor, UNLV social work; Tick Segerblom, commissioner, Clark County; Merideth Spriggs, founder, Caridad; James Reza, downtown business owner
