Definitive Southern Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness Unveiled at 2nd Annual Youth Homelessness Summit

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
[email protected] 
702-969-2196

Kristin Koca
Las Vegas Sands Corp.
[email protected] 
702-414-3218

SOURCE Las Vegas Sands

Related Links

http://www.sands.com