New homelessness law the topic at Democratic luncheon
The featured speaker at Monday's Democratic luncheon will be Sondra Cosgrove, PhD, professor of history at the College of Southern Nevada, former president of the League of Women Voters of Nevada, and founder and executive director of both Fair Maps Nevada and Vote Nevada.
Dr. Cosgrove will lead an hour-long discussion of Assembly Bill 528, signed into law by Gov. Lombardo on June 15th. Sponsored by Assembly Speaker Steve Yaeger and enjoying and nearly unanimous bipartisansupport in both houses, this bill is officially described as follows: "Establishes a program to provide matching funds to certain qualified projects related to the prevention of homelessness and provision of assistance to persons who are experiencing homelessness." Dr. Cosgrove will address how this measure is expected to be implented, and how it might eventually impact counties not named Clark. She will appear via Zoom from Las Vegas.
Based on San Antonio’s Haven for Hope model of social services, this ambitious project requires the state, counties, municipalities, nonprofits, and the business community to all contribute to the effort. Private partners will contribute $100,000,000 and the state, counties, and municipalities will split a matching $100,000,000. At this point no sites to provide services have been selected, but the Grant Sawyer property in Las Vegas has been mentioned.
Representatives of many major gaming companies, such as Caesars, MGM, Boyd, Wynn, and Station Casinos testified in support of the bill, stating their commitment to join the partnership. The Resort Authority, Vegas Chamber of Commerce, UNLV, and nonprofits such as NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) also spoke in support.
Sondra Cosgrove spoke in support and mentioned that Vote Nevada's neighborhood chat groups discussed ensuring individuals with severe mental illness are taken care of as close to where they are as possible. They also discussed the possibility of using empty commercial properties for that purpose.
Sponsored by the Democratic Men's Committee, this event is scheduled for 1:00 PM on Monday, June 26th, and can be attended either in person at Black Bear Diner, inside Max Casino, or online via Zoom. The presentation will begin after all the lunch orders have been taken, around 1:30. Those wishing to be on distribution for luncheon Zoom links should contact Rich Dunn at richdunn@aol.com.
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