In Las Vegas, the city’s homeless residents are among the most vulnerable to illness and death from the scorching weather.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Heat is again scorching parts of the West this weekend, with warnings in Oregon, Washington, Montana, California and Nevada. In Las Vegas, homeless people are especially at risk. And as KNPR’s Anne Davis reports, efforts to help only go so far.
UNIDENTIFIED OUTREACH WORKER: Hello in camp. Anybody home? Help of Southern Nevada.
ANNE DAVIS, BYLINE: Last week, in a dusty field in North Las Vegas, a group of outreach workers picked their way through a small homeless encampment. At 10 a.m. It was 109 degrees.
UNIDENTIFIED OUTREACH WORKER: How you doing? You guys need some more water?
DAVIS: The heat was precisely why the team was out there. They work for Help of Southern Nevada, an organization that provides resources to unhoused people. They go out year-round, handing out water and resource lists, and they also help transport people to shelters and cooling centers.
UNIDENTIFIED OUTREACH WORKER: You guys all good, right?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. We’re good.
UNIDENTIFIED OUTREACH WORKER: All right, look, here. I want to give you this list of cooling stations. There you go.
DAVIS: Heat can be really dangerous to unhoused people. They can get heatstroke, heat exhaustion, dehydration or pavement burns.
LOUIS LACEY: I personally know of a homeless person that got third-degree burns on her leg, and she lost her leg. That happens.
DAVIS: Louis Lacey runs this team and has been working in homeless outreach for almost two decades.
LACEY: Also, if you are intoxicated and you pass out in the sun, and there’s nobody there to wake you up or – you’re going to die.
DAVIS: Last week’s heat wave was extreme. It broke an all-time high at 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Lacey says it was seriously hazardous for people living outside, but even the more moderate temperatures the city is expected to see this weekend put them at risk. The outreach team regularly meets people like Mario Lopes, who says he’s lived on the streets on and off for 30 years. He says he used to be a member of the Navy. Now his summer days are spent trying to stay cool.
MARIO LOPES: Water, ice, you know, stuff like that. You know, I’m a disabled vet, so I’m trained to survive under any condition.
DAVIS: Lopes says he already got sick once this month from the heat. He put ice under his arms and lay down until he felt better. But with a lot of summer left, he’s worried about getting sick again – or worse.
LOPES: Yeah. I’ve had a few friends die out here, you know, in their tents, not coming out of their tents, and it gets really hot. And nobody checks on him, and then they end up dead.
DAVIS: Lacey’s team is one of only a handful of local organizations that do this kind of heat outreach work on the streets of Las Vegas. But Lacey says it’s hard to get people to accept any services besides water. They don’t want to leave behind pets or property, and shelters might be far from where they have family connections or community.
LACEY: You may have individuals that are away on the other side of town, and we’re saying, hey, uproot all your stuff, and then go to the shelters. They’re going to decline.
DAVIS: The group will be out again this weekend doing what they can to help people stay cool.
For NPR News, I’m Anne Davis in Las Vegas.
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