Las Vegas homeless camps just move when outreach comes, but proposal might change that
But trash and unsanitary conditions are becoming a bigger priority as residents go to elected officials demanding action.
The problem exists all over the valley, and one state lawmaker is drawing attention to east Las Vegas. Democratic Assem. Erica Mosca lives on the east side, and her passion on the subject showed on Thursday as she presented a bill that would eliminate one barrier that's holding up progress.
Mosca fought back tears as she called the east side 'a forgotten community.'
Clark County homeless census shows 20% increase in a single year
'But I live on the eastside because it reminds me of how I grew up and is a place where I'm comfortable with my identity and where I could build a home,' Mosca said.
She is sponsoring Assembly Bill 263 (AB263), and she picked up some co-sponsors at the hearing who don't just appreciate her efforts — they see some of the same problems in their districts.
Mosca worked with Clark County Commission Chair Tick Segerblom on AB263, a bill with a simple goal: allow outreach teams to cross lines on a map. When outreach teams arrive, the camps sometimes just move to an area that's out of the county's jurisdiction. At that point, the outreach team can't do anything.
The camps go over or through fences, often into land controlled by the Nevada Department of Transportation. In Mosca's district, that means tents and makeshift shelters along Interstate 11/U.S. 95. between Charleston Boulevard and Boulder Highway. But it happens throughout the valley.
The bill would allow county teams to go into NDOT rights-of-way to finish the job. It would also direct resources to help in areas like the one she represents, Assembly District 14, which runs along East Charleston. More generally, 'near schools, parks and senior housing in areas of the county in which pervasive poverty, unemployment or economic distress exist.'
Segerblom emphasized that it's about more than simply busting up homeless camps.
'We are bending over backwards to provide resources, rehabilitation, anything that people need. But at the end of the day, these camps become just so large that they become very unsafe and very unsanitary,' Segerblom said.
Mosca said constituents aren't just alarmed by the homeless problem. They don't think government is doing enough to help.
Mosca showed a photo that her husband took on Tuesday along with a personal video of cleanup efforts. She said she took part in the work over the past year and a half with 20 volunteers. They did more than a dozen cleanups. She also took part in two town hall meetings, two ride-alongs with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and meetings with nonprofits. She toured several city and county facilities that work to help homeless individuals.
Residents want change after increase in homeless encampments in east Las Vegas valley community
She proudly talked about how they are involved in working alongside constituents and outreach teams. She described her husband's effort to help a homeless man who had overdosed at Winterwood Park next to Wengert Elementary School. And she showed more photos from the cleanup efforts.
'The one on the right, I cleaned up all of that because it's the number one thing that my constituents talk to me about,' Mosca said.
'It's a very political statement to make, but I know in places like Summerlin, maybe Damonte Ranch, I don't know, but higher income places don't look like this. And that's really what this bill is about.
AB263 would only affect Clark County. Segerblom said the county already has outreach teams so there's really no additional funding required.
Las Vegas homeless count moves to every-other-year schedule after population hits 10-year high
Lawmakers asked if the bill might be the start of more cooperative efforts to address homelessness, citing the limited effectiveness of each city working in silos.
More than a dozen people testified in support of the bill. Notably, the City of Las Vegas was neutral, a spokesperson saying the city has spent millions on efforts similar to the county's, supporting five outreach teams.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
16 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump is undermining his own law that prevents mass atrocities
The Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018, which overwhelmingly passed across party lines in the House and Senate, institutionalizes atrocity prevention in the U.S. government. This includes legally mandating an interagency atrocity prevention coordination body, requiring training for foreign service officers on the prevention of atrocities, requiring an atrocity prevention strategy and, critically, annual reporting to Congress on the government's efforts. But this law is being ignored, to America's detriment. Democratic and Republican administrations have agreed for almost two decades that preventing mass atrocities around the world is a central foreign policy interest of the United States. In 2011, President Obama declared mass atrocities prevention a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States. In 2019, the Trump administration stated that it 'has made a steadfast commitment to prevent, mitigate and respond to mass atrocities, and has set up a whole-of-government interagency structure to support this commitment.' In 2021, President Biden said, 'I recommit to the simple truth that preventing future genocides remains both our moral duty and a matter of national and global importance.' Preventing genocides, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing is so central to America's own values, interests and security that in 2018, Trump signed the Elie Wiesel Act with strong bipartisan support. This law was groundbreaking, making the U.S. the first country in the world to enshrine the objective of presenting mass atrocities globally into national law. Yet today, this law and the work it advanced are under dire threat. What will Congress do about it? Mass atrocities are an anathema to American interests. Large scale, deliberate attacks on civilians shock the conscience. They undermine U.S moral, diplomatic, development and security interests. Preventing mass atrocities not only advances American interests, but it also strengthens our international cooperation and global leadership while advancing a peaceful and more just world. Most importantly, America should help prevent mass atrocities because it can. It has the tools and capabilities to help protect civilians and prevent the worst forms of human rights violations. It cannot do this alone, as there are many reasons why atrocities take place, but it can have an impact. And in today's world, this work is more important than ever. While the nation's atrocity prevention systems aren't perfect and there are certainly failures to point to, there has also been important progress and successes that risk being erased, making it even less likely that the U.S. will succeed at its commitment to protect civilians and prevent atrocities. The Trump administration should have submitted its Elie Wiesel Act annual report to Congress by July 15 — this didn't happen. The report is a critical tool for communicating to Congress and the American people what the U.S. is doing to advance this work. It is a mile marker for what has been done and what the needs are. It creates an opportunity for experts outside of government to weigh in. And it allows Congress to conduct oversight over the implementation of its law. But not only was the report not submitted by the normal deadline, nearly all of the U.S. government's atrocity experts have been subjected to reductions in force, forced to accept reassignment or retirement or placed on administrative leave. Key offices in USAID, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Intelligence Community and more have been eliminated or hollowed out. Without these experts and the offices that employed them, the U.S. lacks the expertise and systems to, at a minimum, fulfill its legal mandate under the law, let alone to effectively prevent, respond to and help countries recover from mass atrocities. In response to this glaring violation of U.S. law, a group of former civil servants who served as the experts on atrocity prevention in the U.S. interagency wrote a shadow Elie Wiesel Act report, which was presented to congressional staff in a briefing last month. These are the people who served in the Atrocity Prevention Task Force and who, under normal circumstances, would have written the annual Elie Wiesel Act Report. Civil society also would have made key contributions, both during the writing and roll-out of the report. None of that is possible now. But the work and imperative to prevent atrocities is still critical. When it enacted the Elie Wiesel Act, Congress knew that 'never again' doesn't happen simply because good people serve in government. True atrocity prevention requires institutionalization and incentivization in our governance system in order to compete with other, very legitimate foreign policy objectives. So why isn't Congress acting when this administration has completely destroyed the ability to address these core national security issues? We hope lawmakers will read this shadow report and critically engage with the questions that it raises. Why has the U.S. government's ability to prevent mass atrocities been attacked? How does this breakdown affect U.S. interests? What does this mean for countries around the world? What can be done to protect what's left and rebuild? And what is Congress willing to do about it, in defense of the law it passed and in line with its oversight duties? To do any less is to abdicate the promise of 'never again.' The world deserves better. And so do the American people. Kim Hart was the global Human Rights team lead at USAID and part of USAID's Atrocity Prevention Core Team. D. Wes Rist was an Atrocity Prevention policy advisor in the Department of State's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. Both were government employees until April and served in both the Trump and Biden administrations.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
'They're trying to rig the system': Sen. Padilla says Dems should fight fire with fire
California's Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla said his party should be willing to fight fire with fire, in light of Texas' potential, controversial gerrymandering plans. "If Republicans were confident on their policy agenda, they'd be eager to defend it with the people and to defend it at the ballot box next November," Padilla said in an Aug. 3 interview on NBC's "Meet the Press." "But they know they're in trouble," he continued. "And so they're trying to rig the system to hold on to power." The California senator was referencing Texas Republicans' proposed new map of their state's congressional districts, following President Donald Trump's urging that the GOP find a way to flip as many as five seats in next year's midterm elections. "Just a very simple redrawing, we pick up five seats," Trump told reporters on July 15. Padilla likened Trump's ask of Texas Republicans to his request during his first term in office that a top Georgia official "find 11,780 votes" to put him over the top in the Electoral College for the 2020 election. Redistricting in the middle of the decade, rather than every ten years after new census data is collected, is rare. And the pushback from Democrats across the country has been widespread. Blue state leaders have threatened tit-for-tat responses, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has suggested redrawing his state's map to counteract Texas' efforts. (Newsom faces the challenge of a bipartisan redistricting commission, which oversees California's maps, unlike Texas, where lawmakers dictate the boundaries.) Some California Democrats are wary, warning that a redistricting arms race could spiral and erode trust with voters. In response to those concerns, Padilla told NBC he believes it's appropriate for the Democrat-controlled state to evaluate its options. "The ideal scenario," he said, "is for Texas to stand down. They don't have to do this; they shouldn't do this. But if they were to go forward and deliver Trump his five additional Republicans ... the stakes are simply too high" for Democrats not to respond. Padilla also addressed recent comments from his fellow Democrats about the state of politics and American democracy, including Sen. Cory Booker's call for his party to "have a backbone." "It's time for us to fight. It's time for us to draw lines," Booker said from the Senate floor on July 29. Asked whether Booker's defiant approach was the appropriate stance for Democrats under the Trump administration, Padilla said, "Look, I think the extreme way in which this administration is conducting itself calls for higher and higher profile ways of pushing back." After announcing that she would not be running for California governor in 2026, former Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on CBS's "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert. In her interview on July 31, Harris told Colbert, "Recently, I made the decision that, for now, I don't want to go back into the system. I think it's broken." Padilla agreed, in part, with Harris' take, saying, "I think the system is under duress." "Democrats are doing our part to try to stand up and push back," he added.
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
DNC chair says Democrats ‘absolutely' ready to fight back against GOP redistricting
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin said on Sunday that Democrats are 'absolutely' well positioned to fight back against Republicans redistricting efforts. Martin was asked in an interview on NewsNation's 'The Hill Sunday,' whether Democrats are 'really in a position to fight back on this,' considering states like California would likely need to change the law would likely need to change for Democrats to undertake the same effort. 'Absolutely we are, whether it's in the courts, whether it's organizing on the ground, which we've been doing,' Martin said in the interview. Martin said he views the redistricting effort as unconstitutional but said Democrats are ready to play the Republicans's game. 'The reality is what we've seen already is a craven power grab, an unconstitutional power grab, in my mind,' Martin said. 'Look, the Constitution says very clearly that we have a decennial census. We draw the lines after that. The state legislatures are allowed to do that, but it does not give them the power to essentially redraw the lines whenever the hell they want to do it. And what Texas is doing right now is a craven power grab.' At the same time, he added, 'We're going to fight fire with fire.' 'If Texas wants a showdown, which they clearly do, we're going to give them the showdown,' Martin said. Martin said he's talked to Democrats around the country about potentially undertaking similar redistricting efforts. 'And I've talked with a number of Democratic governors around the country, and as you can tell, they're already preparing to follow suit here.'
