I hear it everywhere I go in Assembly District 9.
Neighbors who love this community are watching tent camps grow on sidewalks and in front of small businesses throughout the Las Vegas area.
They're worried about it spreading to their own neighborhoods. And most of them feel like they can't say anything without sounding heartless.
I understand that fear. Nobody wants to seem like they don't care about people who are suffering.
But caring about our neighbors and caring about people living on the street aren't in conflict. We can hold both at once.
Here's the hard truth.
Clark County is spending millions of dollars a year on homelessness, and the problem keeps getting worse, not better.
That's not compassion working. That's a system failing the very people it claims to help.
A meal and a cot for the night doesn't treat addiction. It doesn't get someone off the street for good. It just extends the cycle another day.
And every day that cycle continues, we're not just failing our neighborhoods. We're failing to save lives that could be saved.
That's why I keep coming back to what I saw at Vegas Stronger. I toured their facility earlier this year with CEO and co-founder Dave Marlon.
I met men working to rebuild their lives from the ground up. I saw real treatment, not just a place to sleep. Trauma-informed care. Cognitive behavioral therapy. Medication-assisted treatment.
Long-term recovery plans built around the person, not a funding deadline.
Marlon has spent years working on this problem from the ground up, and he's put it better than I could. “Compassion and accountability must go together.”
That's not a slogan. That's the whole answer.
It means we stop measuring success by how many meals get served or how many beds get filled for a night. Those are outputs.
What matters are outcomes: how many people actually get off the street and into treatment or stable housing, for good.
It means we meet people where they are, literally.
Outreach teams going directly into encampments and public spaces, connecting people to care in the moment, instead of waiting for someone in crisis to find their own way to help.
It means rethinking how giving works, too.
A traceable voucher that leads to a bed, a meal, and behavioral health care does more good than cash that can just as easily fund the addiction keeping someone on the street.
And it means enforcement has to be paired with an actual path forward, not just a punishment.
When cities and counties enforce camping rules, that only works if there's a shelter bed and a treatment option on the other side of it.
Otherwise we're just pushing the crisis from one jurisdiction to the next.
As an Assemblywoman, I'll fight for policy that reflects all of this.
That means directing homelessness funding toward programs that can prove real outcomes, not just activity.
It means clearing the barriers that keep proven organizations like Vegas Stronger from expanding their reach.
And it means never treating addiction like a moral failure instead of the disease it is, while still expecting people to engage honestly with their own recovery.
Our neighbors deserve safe sidewalks and thriving small businesses.
The men and women living in those tents deserve a real chance at getting their lives back.
Those two things aren't in tension. They're the same fight.
Las Vegas doesn't need more slogans. It needs the courage to fund what actually works, and the honesty to admit that what we're doing now isn't working.
I'm ready to have that fight in Carson City.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. Digital technology may have been used in the research, writing, or production of this article. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
