Peter

Maryland Parkway winds its way south through Las Vegas, an asphalt river of stench, heat and homelessness.

A 25-yard section of U.S. Highway 95 crosses over the parkway and creates a sliver of shade below. Here, in the 116-degree July heat, Frank Cozza and a dozen other homeless people try to survive in their open-air encampment.

“I was arrested five years ago for driving while intoxicated,” Cozza said. “Went home, stayed drunk and called in sick every day for the next week.” At that time, Cozza worked as a union representative at a Nevada air force base. “Lost my job. Blew all my money on drinking and started living out in the desert. Then I ended up out here,” he said.

He looked around at his homeless campmates. “And now I got no way back.”

National problem, local pain

Nationwide census statistics confirm Cozza’s Nevada-based plight. Last year, homeless Americans across the nation totaled 582,462, a number that has nudged downward only slightly over the past decade.

Worse, the number of chronically homeless (that is, those who, like Cozza, live unsheltered on a long-term basis) has actually risen nationwide each year since 2016.

Similar statistics emerge from Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. According to a recent Clark County census, 5,645 chronically homeless people lived on the Las Vegas streets in 2022, while 14,000 experienced at least some degree of homelessness in 2022.

Two examples of Las Vegas’s response to homelessness

These sobering numbers seem accurate to Catrina Grigsby-Thedford, executive director of the Nevada Homeless Alliance. Along with her executive position and several advanced degrees, she describes herself as an ex-felon who is in long-term recovery.

“All people experiencing homelessness are vulnerable,” Grigsby-Thedford said. “Homelessness is a crisis and a traumatic situation for youth, veterans, women, those with a disability, elderly, families and individuals.”

To help these groups, the Nevada Homeless Alliance provides shelter, advocacy and information to get people back on their feet.

The alliance also provides direct forms of assistance: it helps people obtain government identification, helps pay their rent and helps pay for their car repairs, a common, costly obstacle to people seeking to get back into the job market.

But despite the efforts of her alliance, Grigsby-Thedford thinks that homelessness in Las Vegas demands more effort, particularly from the city and county. “We need all hands on deck,” she said. “This is a community problem that needs to be solved by the system.”

This call-to-arms is shared by Kathleen Miller, executive director of Living Grace Homes. LGH is a Las Vegas area charity that assists pregnant, homeless women between ages 14 and 24. Miller’s passion is clear when she speaks of the need to provide young mothers-to-be with clean, safe shelter.

Most of LGH’s clients are walk-ins. “They google ‘pregnant and homeless’ and we come up on the top of the list,” Miller said. She said that LGH provides these women with immediate shelter and medical help, especially prenatal care. Miller also said that these women needed education: 70% did not have a high school degree.

A particular obstacle for LGH’s women is law enforcement, which Miller described as harsh. “The fines for driving without insurance are very high here,” she said. “Young women who can’t pay sometimes have to do prison time.” Miller stressed that women who were young, pregnant and homeless were already traumatized. Jail only made their trauma worse.

A return to the streets

Back under the Maryland Parkway bridge, Frank Cozza agreed with Miller’s view about the local police. “They’re always doing sweeps through here, taking away my stuff,” he said. “We’re not hassling people, not begging for money. But I got no rights, so what can I do?”

Cozza, still shaded by the overpass, looks out at a man who sips from a water bottle and tries to dry a piece of fabric under the blazing sun. Cozza shook his head. “There’s no fixing this,” he said.

But then he smiled. “At least I have some freedom.”

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