LAS VEGAS, Nov. 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nevada Partnership
for Homeless Youth (NPHY) and Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) today led
the community in debuting the region's first-ever plan to end youth
homelessness after a year-long community-driven effort to build a
comprehensive safety net for the region, which ranks among the
nation's highest in incidence rates for youth homelessness.
Unveiled at the second annual Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness
Summit at The Venetian® Resort Las Vegas – presented by NPHY and
Sands with support from the UNLV Greenspun College of Urban Affairs
and the Las Vegas Review-Journal – the Southern Nevada Plan to End
Youth Homelessness delivers a blueprint to address the critical
issue of youth homelessness in the Las Vegas Valley. The plan
outlines five key goals with associated strategies to reduce the
incidence rate to rare and brief occurrences that are immediately
and effectively addressed to keep youth off the streets
permanently.
Southern Nevada is currently
experiencing a youth homelessness crisis – according to data from
the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) 2017
Annual Homeless Assessment Report, Clark
County currently has the third highest number of
unaccompanied homeless youth, just behind Los Angeles and San
Jose, and the state of Nevada has the highest rate of unsheltered
unaccompanied youth with 89 percent staying in places not meant for
human habitation.
Mirroring research and proven protocols developed by the United
States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), the Plan's key
goals are:
- Goal One: The community identifies all unaccompanied
youth experiencing homelessness.
- Goal Two: The community uses prevention and diversion
strategies whenever possible, and provides immediate access to
low-barrier crisis housing and services to any youth who needs and
wants it.
- Goal Three: The community uses coordinated entry
processes to effectively link all youth experiencing homelessness
to housing and services tailored to their needs.
- Goal Four: The community acts with urgency assisting
youth to move into permanent or non-time-limited housing options
with appropriate services and supports.
- Goal Five: The community has resources, plans, and
system capacity in place to continue to prevent and quickly end
future experiences of homelessness among youth.
Plan implementation around these goals will concentrate on five
key focus areas: legislative/ policy solutions at the
local and state level, fundraising for programs and
services, public-private partnerships to integrate systems
and support, housing and service solutions, and systems
intersectionality to address the different ways that youth
interact with entities such as child welfare, juvenile justice and
education.
"This Plan encompasses our community's best resources and
thinking, proven practices that have seen success in other
communities, and most importantly, the real-life perspectives of
current and former homeless youth, which was imperative to
developing solutions that truly impact a population that often
hides and is reluctant to ask for help," said Arash Ghafoori, executive director of
NPHY. "This Movement will be successful when vulnerable youth
know they live in a community that won't let them disappear, but
instead supports them to create the lives they deserve to
live."
The Plan leverages a variety of data exploring youth
homelessness nationally and in Southern
Nevada, which includes a look at the intersections between
youth homelessness and the public school system, the child welfare
system, the juvenile justice system, and commercial sexual
exploitation. It also explores the causes of youth homelessness in
the region, outcomes in the current homeless services system, and
how often youth return to homelessness. The goals, objectives, and
strategies outlined in the Plan have been designed to address gaps
and weaknesses in the current system.
This comprehensive Plan is the result of a collaborative
community effort led by NPHY, Sands, the Southern Nevada Homeless
Continuum of Care, Clark County Social Service, the City of Las Vegas, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Greenspun College
of Urban Affairs, and Southern
Nevada's Youth Action Board, Young Adults in Charge
(YAC). Contributors included a wide range of service
providers, advocacy groups, philanthropic foundations, private
businesses and government agencies, including the Clark County School District — Title I HOPE,
Clark County Department of Family Services, and Clark County
Department of Juvenile Justice.
Representing more than 45 organizations and 180-plus hours of
meetings, the Movement to End Youth Homelessness begun at
last-year's Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit has
crystallized into this extensive plan, which is being jump-started
at today's Summit 18. Attendees are taking the first steps
toward materializing the plan with break-out sessions to build
action items around the Plan's five goals and key strategies.
Following the Summit, stakeholders will design and activate action
plans and timelines, with progress to be reported each year at the
Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit in November.
"While today marks a major step for the Las Vegas Valley, our
work has just begun," said Ron
Reese, senior vice president of global communications and
corporate affairs at LVS. "We continue to actively recruit
and enlist civic and business leaders and interested community
members to join the Movement. To ensure this plan delivers impact
and reaches the goal, every entity in our community – government,
business, service providers, public institutions and concerned
citizens – must commit to solving this problem. Our community's
most vulnerable youth deserve nothing less."
Community members interested in joining the Movement and getting
involved in the Southern Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness can
visit www.nphy.org/themovement.
About Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth
(NPHY)
NPHY is the most comprehensive service provider for
the thousands of homeless youth in Southern Nevada, serving hundreds of youth
through our core programs and touching the lives of thousands more
through outreach each year. NPHY's programs stabilize homeless
teens' lives, meeting their immediate needs and providing a safe,
supportive environment and a path to self-sufficiency. Through
our work with homeless youth, NPHY creates productive, healthy
adults who contribute to society. Strengthening and complementing
our high-quality direct services for homeless youth, NPHY is
dedicated to advocating for the Vegas Valley's homeless youth
population and serves as a leader in systems-level efforts to
eliminate homelessness among Nevada's youth. For more information or to
support our life-changing work for homeless youth, please
visit www.nphy.org.
About The Company
Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) is
the world's pre-eminent developer and operator of world-class
Integrated Resorts that feature luxury hotels; best-in-class
gaming; retail; dining and entertainment; Meetings, Incentives,
Convention and Exhibition (MICE) facilities; and many other leisure
and business amenities. We pioneered the MICE-driven Integrated
Resort model, a unique, industry-leading and extremely successful
concept that serves both the leisure and business tourism
markets.
Our properties include The Venetian and The Palazzo resorts and
Sands Expo in Las Vegas, Sands
Bethlehem in Eastern Pennsylvania, and the iconic
Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Through majority ownership in Sands
China Ltd., LVS owns a portfolio of properties on the Cotai Strip
in Macao, including The Venetian
Macao, The Plaza and Four Seasons Hotel Macao, Sands Cotai Central
and The Parisian Macao, as well as the Sands Macao on the Macao
Peninsula.
LVS is dedicated to being a good corporate citizen, anchored by
the core tenets of delivering a great working environment for
50,000 team members worldwide, driving impact through its Sands
Cares corporate giving program and leading innovation with the
company's award-winning Sands ECO360 global sustainability program.
To learn more, please visit www.sands.com.
Contacts:
Lanette Rivera
Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth
summit@nphy.org
702-969-2196
Kristin Koca
Las Vegas Sands Corp.
Kristin.Koca@sands.com
702-414-3218
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