LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Residents around UNLV voice concerns about homeless people moving into their neighborhoods when campers inside the Flamingo Wash will be forced to move.
The massive cleanup will start at 5 a.m. on Tuesday. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police will go into the wash with firefighters and order people to clear out. Crews will be wearing masks and HAZMAT suits.
According to flood control officials, the $15 million improvement project will last about a year. Improvements will include adding barriers to keep homeless from returning to the wash.
This year alone, LVMPD officials said the encampments around the Flamingo Wash have been cleared 49 times.
Residents packed a town hall in the library off Flamingo Road, voicing frustrations about the chronic problems and crime from encampments in the wash. They are concerned that the homeless will relocate into their neighborhoods.
“They’re all going to migrate. Four times I’ve been broken into,” one frustrated resident said loudly to county officials.
“We’re spending millions to get [the homeless] out of where they shouldn’t be,” another resident said.
“It’s a real issue. Something needs to be done to get them out of the city,” said an apartment manager who said he is frustrated with the chronic break-ins.
Police explained how officers will clear people out of the wash and offer help and social services.
“We still have to provide resources. We still have to provide them the ability to accept those resources and go into shelters… If they don’t, then we will go along the lines of enforcement. The enforcement does start with the citation and moves along to an arrest,” said Administrative Lt. Erik Perkett.
FOX5 has told you how apartment managers have called for crackdowns on encampments around the university to keep their communities safe.
Commission Chair Tick Segerblom explains that crackdowns have worked to get campers away from the area east of the library.
“Now with this new project in the wash, we’re going to see the the issue escalate. I want to try to get ahead of it,” Segerblom said. “There’s lots of big rocks in there. We’ll take those out and line them with concrete. So in that process, the people going to have to leave, and that includes the tunnels that are connected to the wash, right there.”
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