Louis Lacey, director of crisis teams for the social services nonprofit HELP of Southern Nevada, was once among the estimated 7,900 people who now make up Las Vegas’ homeless population.

Now 28 years sober, he’s spent more than two decades helping others navigate the difficult road to stability.

“If somebody did not go out of their way to help me, I don’t know where I would be right now. I know it wouldn’t be good,” Lacey says. “We have a moral obligation to help those individuals. We can’t just give up or turn our backs on them.”

Lacey’s 29-member team regularly ventures out into Las Vegas’ many tunnels, washes, abandoned buildings, vacant lots and the surrounding desert to provide homeless outreach services.

On March 26, he brought his expertise to a town hall at the Flamingo Library, where he joined Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom, local law enforcement officers and dozens of residents to discuss the area’s recent struggles with an influx of homeless encampments around the Flamingo Wash basin.

Segerblom, who organized the town hall, told attendees that increased enforcement on the Strip after the pandemic and the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix in 2023 have “pushed people” toward the neighborhood, which is centered around the intersection of Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway. He also echoed nationwide concerns over a lack of affordable housing units, which has contributed to a precipitous rise in unhoused people that reached “record levels” in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

“This problem for this neighborhood and all around didn’t just happen overnight. It’s happened over many years. We have a country that chews people up and spits them out, and then there’s no place for them to go,” Segerblom said.

In an hour-long listening session that he dubbed “trial by fire,” Segerblom cited increased collaboration between the county, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, UNLV police, HELP of Southern Nevada and other stakeholders, plus hundreds of millions of dollars of recent investment into Clark County’s affordable housing stock and homeless services centers as big steps toward curbing the surge.

A trio of Tamarus Street rental property managers told him the recent homeless migration drives prospective tenants away, causes property damage and attracts squatters to their vacant units.

“Just this morning, I had an older couple and entered the unit not knowing they were there. Thankfully, they were peaceful and left,” Tamarus Park Apartments manager Matthew Kailimai said.

Another attendee, area landlord Rich Amerson, tells the Weekly he was threatened after he offered help to one homeless individual who frequents the sidewalk near his property. Kailimai and Andover Place Apartments manager Mary Faumuina cited similar interactions.

“She’s always there on the sidewalk or sleeping in my bushes. When the LVMPD comes out and asks her to move, she’ll go 50 feet away and come back later,” Amerson says. “Others will bang on my tenants’ doors at three in the morning. ... Unfortunately, some of my tenants are not using their heads and let them in. When they do, they reflect it back on me and ask why it isn’t more secure.”

Segerblom touted his county camping ban ordinance, which went into effect February 1, as one “major change” in the county’s ability to tackle business owners’ concerns. The policy makes it a misdemeanor to camp, lay down, sleep or store personal property in public places and carries a penalty of 10 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,000 if convicted. It also requires officers to help facilitate access to nearby shelters and services before they can make an arrest, and prohibits them from doing so if there are no open beds available at local shelters.

“If she’s sleeping on the sidewalk, we have the power to arrest her. We didn’t have that two months ago,” Segerblom said, though he added that incarceration carries too high a cost to justify mass arrests.

Instead, Segerblom said the county first prioritizes connecting homeless individuals to ancillary services and programs that help them access mental health and substance abuse treatment, financial aid, legal services and more.

That’s where Lacey’s unit—in partnership with the LVMPD’s Homeless Outreach Team—comes in. LVMPD South Central captain Landon Reyes says officers take a three-pronged approach to outreach that includes educating homeless people about the resources that are available to them, issuing warnings for noncompliance, and, if all else fails, enforcing the camping ban.

Lacey says the camping ban creates “some challenges,” but adds that “the idea is not to punish people, it’s to get them to accept services.”

“We engage with those individuals with the intent of creating an authentic and genuine relationship with them. We meet them where they’re at and try to get them to be an active participant in their own recovery and exit from homelessness,” Lacey says. “This is obviously contingent upon them agreeing to accept help, and that doesn’t always happen instantaneously. Sometimes it does take some persistent engagement to make that happen.”

According to the Southern Nevada Homelessness Continuum of Care, which administered a HUD-mandated point-in-time count of all homeless residents on a single day in January 2024, Las Vegas’ tally of 7,906 represents a sharp increase from the 5,283 counted in 2020. In surveys conducted during the count, hundreds of subjects identified as having mental illness and substance use disorder.

The next count won’t come until 2026.

By then, Segerblom expects the county will have made significant strides toward addressing the issue. Just last week, he and his fellow commissioners allocated another $45.4 million to construct five affordable housing projects that will add a combined 590 new low-income housing units in Clark County. According to the county, each development has committed to allocating at least 10% of units for extremely low-income households (earning 30% of area median income or less than $28,000 annually).

“It takes money, it takes taxes, it takes time, but we are actually building stuff. ... We have, I think, 3,000 people that we paid to house,” he said. “You don’t see it here, because you’re right in the epicenter of what’s going on, but the truth is, we have made a significant dent in homelessness around the county.”

Continued collaboration is paramount, however. Segerblom said he intends to host a follow-up town hall for the area later in April. Until then, he told residents to keep sharing their complaints through the county’s FixIt app.

“We all have our silos. You call this place, you call that place, and no one’s talking to each other. What we’re trying to do is say, okay, we’re all here together,” he said.

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