By Ricardo Torres-Cortez
Las Vegas Review-Journal
LAS VEGAS — A task force of first responders and county workers will begin to clear out a Las Vegas wash of its homeless population early Tuesday and go into an underground area they’re generally not allowed to fully enter because of unknown, dangerous conditions, according to officials.
Around 5 a.m., crews will begin conducting a sweep through a portion of the wash near Flamingo and Cambridge roads, and police and firefighters in hazmat suits will move into the enclosed part, Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Erik Perkett said during a contentious neighborhood meeting Monday night.
“They will have all the (necessary) equipment,” he said. “They’ll send in robots …to test the methane pockets that are in there.”
Perkett said they don’t know what they’ll find in there but that it’s an uninhabitable place.
More than 120 locals packed a nearby public library for an informational event hosted by Clark County Commission Chair Tick Segerblom.
Perkett and Segerblom tried to tamp high emotions from attendees, who shouted out of turn and spoke over each other as they complained about the homeless population in their neighborhood.
The residents said the outsiders were intruding on their property and alleged that some were committing crimes against it.
A county camping ban, which went into effect in February, is not working, the residents said.
The ordinance banned camping around trails, parks, underpasses, washes, tunnels and other public places the homeless community congregates or sleeps.
It allows for jail sentences of up to 10 days for repeat offenders who refuse move or accept social services.
Metro police is tasked with enforcing it, but the residents remarked that the people ordered to move often return as soon as police leave.
The $15 million project to revitalize and clean the wash will include paving an unpaved portion of it, Segerblom said. Construction was expected to last a year.
‘Did not happen overnight’
Segerblom said he took responsibility for the homeless crisis in his district, which includes east Las Vegas, but that it “did not happen overnight.”
“This wash, these tunnels over here have never been cleaned,” Segerblom said. “The fact that this guy is willing to risk his life to go in there for you and me is significant,” he said about Perkett and his officers.
“This is a change in philosophy that we are starting right now,” he said.
The homeless people in the area have been warned that the operation is happening and that social services providers will be there to offer resources to those who haven’t moved, said Louis Lacey , director of HELP of Southern Nevada’s homeless response teams.
An attendee who only identified himself as a homeless man approached the podium and said that he hadn’t harmed anyone and that he’s currently trying to get out of the streets.
He said that the outdoor Courtyard Homeless Resource Center and shelter near downtown Las Vegas is usually packed and doesn’t protect its inhabitants from the weather elements, he said.
A point-in-time census last January counted 4,202 people living on valley streets, according to the Southern Nevada Homelessness Continuum of Care.
Experts warn that the figure, a 7 percent increase from the previous year, is likely an undercount.
Evelyn Pacheco said that the issue was a big concern for her as an Army veteran.
“It’s not just, ‘we’re going to go in there and clean up,’” she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal about the county’s approach.
“What about the mental part? These people have been living (underground),” she added about the social services the displaced population would need.
“For them to come in tomorrow at 5 in the morning, you’re going to push them. Where?”
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