Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit Tackles COVID-19, Racism

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 24, 2020 /3BL Media/ – Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth (NPHY) and Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) today announced that the fourth annual Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit will take place as a two-day virtual conference series with live events on Friday, November 13 and Friday, November 20. Themed “The Movement Fights Back,” Summit 2020 will address the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable youth and the role racism plays in perpetuating youth homelessness. 

“We must continue to make the Southern Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness relevant and resilient by addressing the impact of these issues on the lives of our youth,” said Arash Ghafoori, executive director of Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth. “These historic times have greatly exacerbated the challenges for young people experiencing homelessness, and it makes the Movement’s work harder – but even more important.”

In 2020, COVID-19 created new hardships for youth experiencing homelessness around housing, employment, education, healthcare and more. Additionally, the events of this year have put sharp focus on how systemic racism and oppression are shaping the youth homelessness crisis in our region and throughout the United States. Summit 2020 is focused on building responsive solutions to these developments in line with the goals outlined in the Southern Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness.

Summit 2020 will be a virtual event featuring two live panel discussions each week with topic-related informational and inspirational content distributed to attendees during the week leading up to the virtual panels. Live sessions will feature youth and experts addressing high-impact issues in a panel discussion format designed to propel solutions. Panels include:  

• What You Need To Know – A Conversation on Homelessness and COVID-19: 

10 a.m. – 12 p.m., Friday, November 13: Young people with lived experiences of homelessness and local and national experts on the COVID-19 pandemic will hold a roundtable discussion covering the real-world experiences and intersections of COVID-19 and youth homelessness, answering critical questions about how to support our vulnerable youth in our collective response to COVID-19.

• Be The Solution – Youth Homelessness and Anti-Racism: 10 a.m. – 12 p.m., Friday, November 20: Social justice and anti-racism experts will address how systemic racism creates and sustains youth homelessness and how the public, nonprofit and private sectors can incorporate anti-racist practices into our work to end youth homelessness

Summit 2020 is presented by NPHY and Sands Cares, the community engagement and charitable giving program of Las Vegas Sands, with support from the UNLV Greenspun College of Urban Affairs and the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Since its inception in 2017, the Summit has coalesced the Movement to End Youth Homelessness into an organized, community-driven response to the significant prevalence of youth homelessness in Southern Nevada, which is among the highest in the nation for the rate of youth experiencing homelessness. The Summit created the impetus for and debuted the Southern Nevada Plan to End Youth Homelessness, which is the community’s definitive guideline for driving toward the goal of making youth homelessness rare, brief, non-recurring and equitably addressed in our community.

The result of a collaborative community effort, the Movement to End Youth Homelessness is led by NPHY; Sands; the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Greenspun College of Urban Affairs; Southern Nevada’s Youth Action Board, Young Adults in Charge (YAC); and Nevada Homeless Alliance.  

Visit NPHY.org/Summit20 for more information and to register for the virtual conference series.

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 with and 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 Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS)

Las Vegas Sands is the world’s pre-eminent developer and operator of world-class Integrated Resorts. We deliver unrivaled economic benefits to the communities in which we operate.  

LVS created the meetings, incentives, convention and exhibition (MICE)-based Integrated Resort. Our industry-leading Integrated Resorts provide substantial contributions to our host communities including growth in leisure and business tourism, sustained job creation and ongoing financial opportunities for local small and medium-sized businesses. 

Our properties include The Venetian Resort and Sands Expo in Las Vegas and the iconic Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Through majority ownership in Sands China Ltd., we have developed the largest 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.

Sands is dedicated to being a good corporate citizen, anchored by the core tenets of serving people, planet and communities. We deliver a great working environment for our team members worldwide, drive social impact through the Sands Cares charitable giving and community engagement program and lead in environmental performance through the award-winning Sands ECO360 global sustainability program. To learn more, please visit www.sands.com.

Contacts:
Lanette Rivera
Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth
summit@nphy.org
702-969-2196

Kristin Koca
Las Vegas Sands 
Kristin.Koca@sands.com
702-414-3218