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The rising number of unhoused and the lack of affordable housing are problems that many cities and states struggle with. It’s not an issue that comes up a lot when politicians hit the campaign trail, maybe because it seems so difficult, and because it’s controversial.

Kendra Still’s career as a Nevada state trooper unexpectedly ended after 14 years when she was injured in a crash with a wrong-way driver on the 215 Beltway. Still, now the Nevada Department of Public Safety’s wellness program manager, is helping institute a new resiliency training program designed for the highway patrol. The first session of the program, developed by 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ’s Tourist Safety Institute and the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs, was hosted Wednesday by 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ professors Steven Pace and Nicholas Barr.

By the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether governments can ban the homeless from sleeping in public spaces. Homeless populations are growing nationwide, closing in on 1 million people total. On any given day, 6,000 people are homeless in Clark County. And the county says in a year, up to 16,000 people will be unsheltered. What happens, then, if the Supreme Court agrees with the ban, which sprung from an ordinance in Grants Pass, Oregon?

After the Henderson Police Department started enforcing a public camping ban that passed in June, arrests of homeless people were not significantly higher than the last two years, according to city records.

Copeland, like many other unsheltered locals who sleep on Las Vegas streets, alleys or sidewalks face possible arrest under a camping ban the city implemented in 2020.

Nevada’s unhoused population has grown, but experts say statistics don't give an accurate view of the complex nature of homelessness.

Homelessness isn’t a modern problem. It goes back at least 2,000 years. The Bible and Quran talk about it, with both stressing the importance of charity for the homeless. In 2023, though, people wonder if charity is enough. In modern times, states fund job training, hoping that putting people to work will overcome economic need, which often leads to homelessness.

The homeless crisis in Western cities has a scope of challenges that require dense cooperation between various nonprofits, government, health care, service providers and business interests, according to a 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ roundtable discussion on the topic Wednesday organized and sponsored by Nevada Women’s Philanthropy.