An Engagement Toolkit to Center Unhoused Stakeholders in the Design and Programming of Open Space

Abstract

As the number of unhoused individuals grows throughout the United States, authorities from over 100 different cities have responded to some of the heartbreaking challenges of extreme poverty with criminalization. The most recent process of criminalization has focused on limiting the use of public facilities and rights of way by unhoused individuals as a response to concerns raised by housed community members and business owners. This is problematic given that the public input that city officials receive tends to overrepresent white property owners and underrepresent all other stakeholders of the built environment. This toolkit seeks to assist the City of Las Vegas and other local jurisdictions expand their engagement efforts regarding the design and programming of open space to include unhoused individuals and elevate their roles as stakeholders with untransferable rights to public facilities. Using the case study of the 2018 closure of the Huntridge Circle Park in Las Vegas and in collaboration with advocates of the Nevada Homeless Alliance, this toolkit compiles history and existing survey data to help planners and other city leaders create meaningful engagement and co-develop solutions that effectively respond to the needs of all users of public space.

Over half of unhoused individuals counted every year in Southern Nevada are experiencing houselessness for the first time that year, suggesting that their entry into the regional homeless system and the growth of the count itself should not be attributed to substance use or individual physical and mental health problems. Existing research has attributed the rising number of unhoused individuals in American cities to rising rents instead. This toolkit discusses houselessness within the broad context of housing insecurity in Las Vegas and the multiple systemic barriers that limit housing opportunity and choice for individuals who do not have the social and financial networks to overcome housing crises.