The massive homelessness is destroying downtown Las Vegas

By Perly Viasmensky
Many people are wondering why so many businesses in downtown Las Vegas are closing their doors. Well, first because even if you are willing to hire someone, nobody wants to work; but even though there are many homeless people who might be willing to work, they are depend on government checks. (Some of the homeless would better off staying in their own cities instead of coming to Las Vegas.)
Many homeless simply don’t like to work, and if you hire them they may never show up.
The homeless need to stop harassing the customers of those businesses asking for money every time they see someone approaching their doors.
Under Nevada state law, it is prohibited to solicit money from others within 20 feet of a door, ATM or bank. Those who give money to the panhandlers are also violating state law in Nevada.
Most law enforcement officials are sympathetic to the plight of panhandlers and often give them multiple chances. Repeat offenders
cannot only be cited under state law, but may also face jail time.
Law enforcement can be as sympathetic as they want with the panhandlers, but unfortunately, they are also sympathetic with career
criminals, the ones who vandalize businesses denying the owners of a livelihood when they walk away with computers, printers and everything else necessary to conduct business, but the businesses believe that soon they will be robbed again.
Those who do the robbing believe they cannot be arrested because of COVID. And if they are arrested, there is always a good judge that allows them to go free.
This is not only a matter of concern to law enforcement officials; city councilmen and -women should be involved in these matters, which are also affecting small businesses in the City of Las Vegas that are losing customers because they feel threatened by the homeless people to whom the authorities are so sympathetic.
A woman alone is not even safe to rent a truck for her moving needs. On Thursday, November 25, Thanksgiving Day, a young woman renting a U-Haul truck at 8:00 in the morning was approached by a number of homeless people that came around her like vultures, asking for money, harassing and intimidating her. Needless to say, that woman made it very clear that she will not patronize that downtown business ever again and/or recommend the place to friends or relatives for being unsafe.
That customer made it very clear in her comments to U-Haul Corporate office: Comments: “The rental and process were great, it was just the actual location for pick up was not. I had a few homeless around the rental truck, one actually following to the truck and asking for things, was not comfortable there.”
That small business pays the consequences. Another customer lost because every day there are more homeless people camping on the sidewalk across the street from that business and even in the parking lot of the business itself.
The Councilwoman of Ward 3 totally ignores the problems her constituents are facing, at least the problems and/or needs of the
ones that voted for her. If anybody calls her office, she is always “in the field,” but we have no clue where the field is, definitively
not downtown Las Vegas.
There are new faces of homeless people on a daily basis, suggesting they are coming from out of town, specifically California. The biggest problem is that they are totally disrespectful and especially unsanitary when they defecate on the street or in the parking lot,
expecting businesses to clean up after them.
Law enforcement officials can be as sympathetic as they want, but they can’t ignore the fact that 99.9 percent of those homeless people are recipients of a monthly government check. If they cannot find a rental apartment because it is true that landlords don’t want to rent to them, at least they can try to rent a motel room. They can then try to stretch the money as much as possible on necessities and other things instead of wasting it on things such as booze and/or drugs.
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Perly Viasmensky is the General Manager of the Las Vegas Tribune. She writes a weekly column in this newspaper. To contact Perly Viasmensky, email her at pviasmensky@lasvegastribune.com.