EXCLUSIVE: 'They want to round us up and cage us.' Outrage as new Las Vegas law sees the homeless fined $1,000 or arrested for camping in public when shelter spaces are available - and even police are ignoring the ruling dubbed a 'war on the poor'
www.dailymail.co.uk
A hooded figure slumps on the stone ledge and casts a bulky silhouette against the sandstone frontage of downtown Las Vegas's Regional Justice Center.
All along the sidewalk, hugging the vast building's walls, or out by the benches amid trees that landscape its façade, people are sleeping. They bloom out of the darkness, barely discernible at first among the heaps of fabric and jumbles of possessions that draw the eye from one onto another and then another.
It is 2am on Saturday February 1, and it's cold. Across town, the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center is posting that it has 201 free mats on which any of these homeless people could sleep, which means that, for the past two hours, every person sleeping here has been committing a crime.
Last November, Las Vegas City Council made it illegal for homeless people to sit, camp or sleep in public places when there are spaces available at approved shelters. Those doing so risk misdemeanor penalties of a $1,000 fine, arrest and up to six months in jail.
According to Mayor Carolyn Goodman the ordinance 'demonstrates compassion,' and aims to 'connect the homeless with services,' not throw them in jail.
But critics say this is a 'war on the poor' that criminalizes homelessness and is as unforgivable as it is immoral.
When the ordinance was passed homeless advocates threatened legal action and protesters waved placards in front of City Hall, calling for 'Homes not Handcuffs.'
But after all the grandstanding and politicking, when the criminal penalties were finally enforced on Saturday, the only ones left on the street were the homeless. And that isn't set to change any time soon.
Because the police don't answer to the City and, DailyMailTV has learned, that officers tasked with enforcing the ordinance have effectively been given the order not to.
Despite the end of a three-month grace period, officers on the streets have been directed to issue warnings – not citations - for the next three weeks and not to make any arrests unless a person becomes belligerent.
Police will be kept appraised of available beds via an automated system updated by staff at the four approved shelters every two hours from 6pm through to 4am or until their beds are full.
By 4am on the first night of the 'enforcement' there were still 206 beds available. By 4am on Sunday there were 176. And on both nights a far greater number of people slept on the streets undisturbed.
A police source told DailyMailTV, 'We honestly don't know how it's meant to work or how it can be enforced. We can't force people into shelters, we can give them a nudge, we can tell them to move on but if they're back in the same place twenty minutes later? We're not arresting them.'
One officer on the ground, who declined to be named, told DailyMailTV, 'We're not going to start going around town, rounding up homeless people and arresting them. That's not what we do, we don't have the time and we're not going to start now.'
Officer Larry Hadfield spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told DailyMail.com, 'Our priority remains violent crime. Homelessness is a community issue – you can't arrest a community issue. You have to help folks get out of the life they're in.
'That's always been our approach. This was blown out of proportion by some people promoting it who weren't listening to what we were saying, so it just had to play itself out.
'I think we disappointed a lot of haters this weekend, but we are not going to arrest homeless people because that doesn't fix the problem. That's a Band-Aid.
'The ordinance is just a tool that we may have to use if all other efforts fail, but I don't see enforcement being part of what we do moving forward because it's not going to solve the problem.'
There are fewer than 2,000 beds in the City's approved shelters and 13,871 homeless people in Southern Nevada. Figures vary but on any given night there are between 5- 6,000 people without a permanent home in and around city lines.
The last available 'Point In Time' census conducted by Clarke County on January 23, 2019 recorded 5,530 homeless that night. Sixty percent of those were without shelter, a figure that includes people who slept in the City's Courtyard Resource Center.
According to the City's literature this center is a 'secure, safe place,' for the homeless to sleep and counts as one of its 'approved shelters.' It is part of a $16million commitment made by the City in 2017 to improve services for the homeless.
Construction on stage one began last year with a $10million injection of funds. A free-standing shelter that can house 800 is projected for completion in 2021.
But so far there is little to see but stretches of razed ground around the unprepossessing Courtyard itself.
There are 12 porta-potties to service the 300 or so that come through the courtyard daily. Bottles of water are handed out but no food and there are no beds, blankets or pillows, just mats on the ground - 450 at maximum capacity. They are laid out each night, barely a foot's breadth apart on a patch of ground that is open on all sides but roofed by the raised apartment block under which it is tucked.
There are just 19 affordable housing units for every 100 that need them here in Las Vegas. These apartments once housed women and children. Today they are condemned. Riddled with black mold and asbestos their empty windows look out onto the homeless below.
This is the City's 'Corridor of Hope,' though in truth it feels more like a cul-de-sac around which those unfortunate enough to find themselves circle.
By mid-morning small groups of homeless people sit along this stretch of Foremaster Lane. They are flanked on one side by the Courtyard and on the other by Catholic Charities – another of the City's approved shelters that provides beds for an average of 500 men a night.
A retractable steel gate was installed across the closest intersection a couple of months back.
'It seems like they want to round us up and cage us,' says 37-year-old Bruce, pointing to the unforgiving barrier. 'What does that look like to you? This isn't a shelter. It's a ghetto.
'Homelessness is an aesthetic problem. We don't look good. This is a big money town and they don't want people to see us.'
Bruce came to Las Vegas from San Diego in 2018. He hitch-hiked, 'just me, a sleeping bag and some ramen,' to be with his younger brother who served in the Army.
He said, 'I was going to start afresh. But it didn't work out that way.'
- In November, Las Vegas City Council made it illegal for homeless people to sit, camp or sleep in public places when there are spaces available in shelters
- Those doing so risk misdemeanor penalties of a $1,000 fine, arrest and up to six months in jail
- Critics say it is a 'war on the poor' that criminalizes homelessness and is as unforgivable as it is immoral
- But Mayor Carolyn Goodman says the ordinance 'demonstrates compassion,' and aims to 'connect the homeless with services,' not throw them in jail
- DailyMailTV learned that officers tasked with enforcing the ordinance have effectively been given the order not to and been directed to issue warnings and not arrest unless a person becomes belligerent
- One officer told DailyMailTV, 'We're not going to start going around town, rounding up homeless people and arresting them. That's not what we do, we don't have the time and we're not going to start now'
- 'It seems like they want to round us up and cage us,' says 37-year-old homeless man Bruce. 'Homelessness is an aesthetic problem. We don't look good. This is a big money town and they don't want people to see us'
Las Vegas' homeless sleep undisturbed as police ignore new law
In November, Las Vegas City Council made it illegal for homeless people to sit, camp or sleep in public places when there are spaces available in shelters.
A hooded figure slumps on the stone ledge and casts a bulky silhouette against the sandstone frontage of downtown Las Vegas's Regional Justice Center.
All along the sidewalk, hugging the vast building's walls, or out by the benches amid trees that landscape its façade, people are sleeping. They bloom out of the darkness, barely discernible at first among the heaps of fabric and jumbles of possessions that draw the eye from one onto another and then another.
It is 2am on Saturday February 1, and it's cold. Across town, the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center is posting that it has 201 free mats on which any of these homeless people could sleep, which means that, for the past two hours, every person sleeping here has been committing a crime.
Last November, Las Vegas City Council made it illegal for homeless people to sit, camp or sleep in public places when there are spaces available at approved shelters. Those doing so risk misdemeanor penalties of a $1,000 fine, arrest and up to six months in jail.
According to Mayor Carolyn Goodman the ordinance 'demonstrates compassion,' and aims to 'connect the homeless with services,' not throw them in jail.
But critics say this is a 'war on the poor' that criminalizes homelessness and is as unforgivable as it is immoral.
When the ordinance was passed homeless advocates threatened legal action and protesters waved placards in front of City Hall, calling for 'Homes not Handcuffs.'
But after all the grandstanding and politicking, when the criminal penalties were finally enforced on Saturday, the only ones left on the street were the homeless. And that isn't set to change any time soon.
Because the police don't answer to the City and, DailyMailTV has learned, that officers tasked with enforcing the ordinance have effectively been given the order not to.
Despite the end of a three-month grace period, officers on the streets have been directed to issue warnings – not citations - for the next three weeks and not to make any arrests unless a person becomes belligerent.
Police will be kept appraised of available beds via an automated system updated by staff at the four approved shelters every two hours from 6pm through to 4am or until their beds are full.
By 4am on the first night of the 'enforcement' there were still 206 beds available. By 4am on Sunday there were 176. And on both nights a far greater number of people slept on the streets undisturbed.
A police source told DailyMailTV, 'We honestly don't know how it's meant to work or how it can be enforced. We can't force people into shelters, we can give them a nudge, we can tell them to move on but if they're back in the same place twenty minutes later? We're not arresting them.'
One officer on the ground, who declined to be named, told DailyMailTV, 'We're not going to start going around town, rounding up homeless people and arresting them. That's not what we do, we don't have the time and we're not going to start now.'
Officer Larry Hadfield spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told DailyMail.com, 'Our priority remains violent crime. Homelessness is a community issue – you can't arrest a community issue. You have to help folks get out of the life they're in.
'That's always been our approach. This was blown out of proportion by some people promoting it who weren't listening to what we were saying, so it just had to play itself out.
'I think we disappointed a lot of haters this weekend, but we are not going to arrest homeless people because that doesn't fix the problem. That's a Band-Aid.
'The ordinance is just a tool that we may have to use if all other efforts fail, but I don't see enforcement being part of what we do moving forward because it's not going to solve the problem.'
There are fewer than 2,000 beds in the City's approved shelters and 13,871 homeless people in Southern Nevada. Figures vary but on any given night there are between 5- 6,000 people without a permanent home in and around city lines.
The last available 'Point In Time' census conducted by Clarke County on January 23, 2019 recorded 5,530 homeless that night. Sixty percent of those were without shelter, a figure that includes people who slept in the City's Courtyard Resource Center.
According to the City's literature this center is a 'secure, safe place,' for the homeless to sleep and counts as one of its 'approved shelters.' It is part of a $16million commitment made by the City in 2017 to improve services for the homeless.
Construction on stage one began last year with a $10million injection of funds. A free-standing shelter that can house 800 is projected for completion in 2021.
But so far there is little to see but stretches of razed ground around the unprepossessing Courtyard itself.
There are 12 porta-potties to service the 300 or so that come through the courtyard daily. Bottles of water are handed out but no food and there are no beds, blankets or pillows, just mats on the ground - 450 at maximum capacity. They are laid out each night, barely a foot's breadth apart on a patch of ground that is open on all sides but roofed by the raised apartment block under which it is tucked.
There are just 19 affordable housing units for every 100 that need them here in Las Vegas. These apartments once housed women and children. Today they are condemned. Riddled with black mold and asbestos their empty windows look out onto the homeless below.
This is the City's 'Corridor of Hope,' though in truth it feels more like a cul-de-sac around which those unfortunate enough to find themselves circle.
By mid-morning small groups of homeless people sit along this stretch of Foremaster Lane. They are flanked on one side by the Courtyard and on the other by Catholic Charities – another of the City's approved shelters that provides beds for an average of 500 men a night.
A retractable steel gate was installed across the closest intersection a couple of months back.
'It seems like they want to round us up and cage us,' says 37-year-old Bruce, pointing to the unforgiving barrier. 'What does that look like to you? This isn't a shelter. It's a ghetto.
'Homelessness is an aesthetic problem. We don't look good. This is a big money town and they don't want people to see us.'
Bruce came to Las Vegas from San Diego in 2018. He hitch-hiked, 'just me, a sleeping bag and some ramen,' to be with his younger brother who served in the Army.
He said, 'I was going to start afresh. But it didn't work out that way.'
