Nevada Cities Pass Punitive Anti-Homeless Laws

At least seven Nevada jurisdictions have adopted or expanded regulations that criminalize homelessness since 2023, reports Michael Lyle in Nevada Current, despite mounting evidence that camping bans do not address the root causes of homelessness and make outreach less effective. More cities in Nevada and around the country are expected to pass ordinances prohibiting sleeping outside in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson.

According to Lyle, “From August 2023 to September 2024, the Henderson Police Department issued 150 citations or arrests among 99 people for camping or sleeping in a public right of way.” Henderson, a suburb of Las Vegas, passed a camping ban in June 2023. Yet the city’s police department said they do not transport people they cite to shelters, “as the shelters are all located out of Henderson’s jurisdiction.”

Even when there are shelter beds “available,” they are often far out of reach for some unhoused people. In one example, a woman who received a citation for sleeping outdoors was over 17 miles away from the nearest shelter bed.

According to former state Sen. Dallas Harris, who sponsored a ‘Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights’ that failed in the state legislature, “There were not enough of my colleagues who were willing to make a statement and stand for homeless people and take what might be a hit, unfairly so, of course, based upon this idea that homeless encampments would sprout up, or whatever the cost that they felt might be associated with supporting what I thought was a fairly simple piece of legislation.”