23-05-2025
Las Vegas nonprofit assisting homeless population displaced by storm drain project
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A local nonprofit is working with those displaced by a storm drainage project that is pushing them out of the tunnels they use for shelter.
HELP of Southern Nevada is a nonprofit working with Clark County to assist people experiencing homelessness throughout our area.
HELP's outreach director Louis Lacey said crews work face-to-face with people experiencing homelessness seven days a week. He said they've already seen success with assisting people from the wash project, for example, a woman who said she was tired of battling addiction.
'Yesterday we found her and she's like, 'I'm ready,'' Lacey said. 'She literally reached in her pocket and said, 'Here is my bag of drugs,' and we're like, 'Awesome, can you throw those away?' and she threw her drugs away, and she got in the vehicle, and we took her to Crossroads.'
On Thursday morning, Lacey's crew got to work fast. Within the span of two hours, they handed out water, Narcan, and got a woman off the streets and into a hotel.
As they arrived on scene, the woman recognized HELP's crew from an earlier visit.
'We could get you to a place that you could lay your head and take a shower and go to work,' Lacey said to her. 'How long do you think you need?'
The woman said she recently started a new job, but doesn't have enough money saved for her own place. HELP staff loaded her belongings into a car and brought her to a downtown Las Vegas hotel. Lacey explained to her that HELP will stick with her, walking her through the process of getting her own housing and navigating support services.
He said this is what happens when someone accepts help quickly. In other cases, it can take repeated tries, but they don't give up. Lacey was homeless decades ago and is dedicated to offering others the assistance he was once given.
'We don't know how often it's going to take for us to come to get and meet with somebody, to get them to go, 'ok, I'm ready to accept help,' Lacey said. 'For some people, it may be one time, for other people it may be multiple times, right, and for some people, unfortunately, they may choose to never accept help. But, we're going to reach out to all the individuals that we can, and we're going to try to get as many as we can off the streets and into some kind of housing situation.'
You can request HELP crews to come to any area through their support portal.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
