LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – A years-long battle to clear a homeless encampment on Boulder Highway continues.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s Southeast Area Command and Clark County Code Enforcement assisted a cleanup crew to clear the lot near Russell and Boulder Highway Wednesday morning.
“I don’t think it’s right, because we got no warning, no nothing, they just came out here and then this,” Chuck, who lives in the encampment, says.
Nearby business owners say the encampment has been problematic for years.
One of those owners, Dave, says he doesn’t want to include the name of his business out of fear of retaliation. Only a chain link fence separates his business from the encampment.
He says people who live there have thrown guns over the fence, trespassed on his property, and yelled at his employees.
“The homeless is a huge problem here. They come and clean them out, and they come right back,” Dave says.
According to Clark County, Code Enforcement has opened 15 cases for homeless encampments in the lot since 2020.
The nearly 30 acre lot is privately owned according to a Clark County GIS web mapping site. FOX5 has reached out to the owners asking about the cleanup and their plans to develop the property and have not heard back.
County officials say in general for private property, when code enforcement receives a complaint about a homeless encampment, they give property owners 30 days to fix it and post a notice on the lot. If it’s not fixed after 30 days, they have the authority to fix it themselves.
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