Las Vegas to expand medical respite care for unhoused

By Michael Lyle

Nevada Current

If people experiencing homelessness don’t have a place to go while recovering from an illness or after medical treatment, more often than not it will lead to wounds that never heal or them reentering a costly cycle of emergency room visits, said Arcelia Barajas, the Neighborhood Services Director with the City of Las Vegas.

That is if they receive medical treatment in the first place.

The City of Las Vegas is expanding its Recuperative Care Center, located near downtown within the Corridor of Hope where homeless services are located, to offer medical respite care to unhoused people who are injured or dealing with an illness not deemed serious enough for a hospital stay.

“Folks being discharged from the hospital that have nowhere to go often have recurrences quickly because they aren’t able to recuperate,” Barajas said.

If they get a new infection on an open wound, it would likely lead to “another trip back into the emergency room to get mended and released.”

“Oftentimes it turns into a cycle where they have that continued intake into the hospital to get things addressed,” she said. At the care center “they are able to fully recover and prevent recurrence from happening.”

City officials broke ground on the new facility Monday.

When the Recuperative Care Center reopens later in 2026, it is expected to nearly double its current capacity with 76 beds and a second floor mental health unit.

Las Vegas City Councilwoman Shondra Summers-Armstrong said on Monday the expanded center “fills a hole that exists in our social safety net.”

“Homelessness itself causes and exacerbates existing medical conditions and it makes adherence to treatment very difficult,” she said

The center connects unhoused people to primary medical care and behavioral health that “decreases hospitalization utilization thus improving efficiency and reducing costs to our health care system,” Summers-Armstrong said.

State lawmakers passed legislation earlier this year that enables the city to seek a waiver form to expand Medicaid to pay for medical respite care for unhoused people. The waiver approval process usually takes two years, city officials said.

However, the tax and spending bill signed into law by President Donald Trump last month makes major cuts to the social safety net, including Medicaid, starting in 2027.

Barajas wasn’t sure how the scope of those cuts would impact efforts to expand Medicaid to cover respite treatment.

“We are waiting to see what the direction is from the state on the Medicaid side,” she said.

The city first began offering medical respite care in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the city was able to expand to a 40-bed facility.

The city contracts with the federally qualified health center, Hope Christian Health Center, to operate services.

City officials told state lawmakers earlier this year that the facility served 1,115 patients, with the majority referred by hospitals.

While the new building is being constructed, medical respite services are temporarily being offered at the Health and Wellness Center within the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center.

The center has only 19 beds and is typically at capacity, Barajas said.

“What we are doing is working hard to get people into housing quickly once they are ready to be released so we can bring in new folks,” Barajas said.

In addition to expanding capacity for medical respite care, the city wanted to build a new center to provide mental health services. Barajas said they still aren’t sure how many beds the mental health unit will have when completed.

Mayor Shelley Berkley said she “can’t imagine anything worse” for people who are unhoused than not having a place to heal after an illness.

“We will do everything we can to ensure those who are unhoused and have medical issues have a place to recuperate,” she said.

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Michael Lyle (MJ to some) is an award-winning journalist with Nevada Current. In addition to covering state and local policy and politics, Michael reports extensively on homelessness and housing policy. He graduated from UNLV with B.A. in Journalism and Media Studies and later earned an M.S. in Communications at Syracuse University.