Goodwill, school aid homeless youths

Goodwill of Southern Nevada parked a trailer Friday on the campus of Cimarron-Memorial High School, where the homeless population has doubled over the past year to 112 students.

As part of a pilot program with the Clark County School District, the trailer will become a public donation site. Goodwill will pay the school $500 a month to keep the trailer on the school parking lot off North Tenaya Way near Lake Mead Boulevard.The proceeds will go toward buying food and supplies for homeless youth, said Cimarron-Memorial Principal Joe Caruso.

The school stocks a pantry in a recreation room where homeless students can go after school to microwave some Asian-style noodles, lounge with a book or log onto a computer for a couple of hours.

"With that $500, we'll have the discretion to go out and buy what we need," Caruso said. "I mean, how many people think to give us razors?"

In these hard times, the School District's overall population of homeless students has surged almost 13 percent while total enrollment is only up 1 percent over last year.

There are 522 more homeless youth this year for a total homeless population of 4,588. The district serves 309,893 students in grades K-12.

Still, Cimarron-Memorial's growing homeless population might seem at odds with its location in northwestern Clark County.

Students tinker with robots as an extracurricular activity. Whole Foods, the upscale retailer of organic vegetables and vegan pizza, sponsors the football field.

But Caruso knows of homeless families living in cars. Many students are "couch surfers," roaming from one friend's house to the next.

Homeless students do a good job of blending into the crowd at a school with more than 2,700 kids. Kevin Martin, 18, a senior and treasurer for the student government, said homeless kids "look the same, like everybody else. I myself cannot identify them."

Robin Thomas, the student activities director, was surprised to learn that an athlete was homeless.

Cimarron-Memorial makes every effort to protect homeless students' anonymity because the kids "want to stay as normal as possible," Thomas said.

Kathy Topp, a Goodwill spokeswoman, hopes the on-campus Goodwill donation center can make a positive impact on the economy.

It will employ three workers to staff it seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. to collect donations of "gently used" clothes and household goods.

The nonprofit depends on the sales of these donations to fund its programs. In 2010, the Goodwill career center found employment in Clark County for 1,050 job seekers.

"All these opportunities were made possible because people cleaned out their closets," Topp said.

Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal .com or 702-374-7917.