From Deseret News archives:
Feeding homeless is a losing bet in Las Vegas
City's ban on free meals in parks dismays advocates
The "Park Closed" sign was posted last week, after a fight between two homeless men turned deadly, and city officials, led by Mayor Oscar Goodman, took the unusual step of closing the park. They called it a safety hazard.
Others, who point out the park is a hangout for homeless people, read the move differently. Advocates say it's another maneuver in Sin City's ongoing war against its poor.
"There is a brokenness here, it's a brokenness," said Julia Occhiogrosso, an advocate for the poor with Catholic Worker. "The whole sense of this ancient act of hospitality, the sense that to be human is to help each other out, it's under siege."
Las Vegas, known as the land of fast money and cheap living, has for years grappled with how to handle those who don't strike it rich — one of the many growing pains in a region that expands by more than 5,000 people a month. A January 2005 census counted 14,500 homeless people in southern Nevada.
No one has made more news and sparked more debate on the issue than the outspoken Goodman, a former mob lawyer with a flair for the dramatic.
His city's boundary stops short of the big-ticket glitz of the Strip, and Goodman has sought to extend the prosperity northward by cleaning up and revitalizing Las Vegas' aging downtown.
The mayor once proposed moving the homeless to an abandoned prison 30 miles outside the city, and he's talked about his desire to move those who are healthy but refuse help "as far away from Las Vegas as possible." Goodman once accused Salt Lake City officials of busing its destitute to his town but later apologized.
Under Goodman's watch, the city has conducted massive sweeps of homeless encampments but also has tried to better coordinate its regional resources and outreach.
Goodman and city officials say they're struggling to deal with the chronically homeless, often the mentally ill and substance addicted, who refuse shelter.
The current battleground is in public parks.
In August, the Las Vegas City Council banned sleeping within 500 feet of feces — an administrative blunder, officials admit, that has since been repealed. (Still, three homeless men were arrested under the law, and the city is investigating why the men were "mistakenly charged.")
In July, Las Vegas became one of the first cities to make it illegal to feed the poor in parks — a reaction to a homeless advocate who frequently bought homemade spaghetti, vegetable soup, sandwiches and water to the now shuttered Huntridge Circle Park.
