Lack of transparency, rushed process at heart of Campus for Hope lawsuit

Architect’s rendering of Campus for Hope project on on Charleston Boulevard in Las Vegas. (Overland Partners)

Two Las Vegas residents are asking a Clark County District Court to halt the construction at Campus for Hope, a 20-acre campus backed by the gaming industry and expected to include 900 residential beds for the unhoused or those at risk of being homeless.

The lawsuit was filed Monday by James Root and Matthew Wambolt, who live less than a mile from the proposed development. They believe the campus will negatively affect their “quality of life, safety, and home values.”

“This isn’t about (being) anti-homeless,” Wambolt said during a press conference Tuesday. “This is simply about the state proving to the citizens and the taxpayers in this community that this is the right location for this proposed campus.”

Root and Wambolt are asking the court for an injunction on construction and to mandate “necessary and appropriate studies,” including looking at alternative locations.

The lawsuit was filed one week after Gov. Joe Lombardo signed a bill exempting the Campus for Hope from the oversight and involvement of the State Public Works Division. That bill, which was introduced during the last week of the legislative session, was pitched as a way to expedite the development of a much-needed project. But opponents see it as indicative of a troubling lack of transparency that has defined the project since day one.

Campus of Hope is expected to be located at 6161 W. Charleston Blvd, near Jones Boulevard, on what is currently known as the Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services campus. Expected to cost $200 million to stand up, the project will be funded by $100 million provided by the State of Nevada and $100 million privately fundraised by the Campus for Hope Foundation, a nonprofit that was established for this project and whose board is composed solely of gaming executives.

The lawsuit notes Campus for Hope will be located within two miles of 21 schools and numerous churches.

Along with the Campus for Hope nonprofit, the lawsuit names the State of Nevada, Clark County, the City of Las Vegas, and Las Vegas City Councilman Brian Knudsen as defendants. Knudsen represents the city ward where the campus is planned and participated in what Root described as a “contentious meeting” about the project earlier this year.

A lack of transparency has been a criticism of the Campus for Hope project from the start. The project’s first public pitch was on the third-to-last day of the 2023 Legislative Session, where a bill to greenlight and commit $100 million in public funds to the project was fast tracked by lawmakers. That bill was sponsored by Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, a Democrat from Las Vegas.

Eighteen months later, in December 2024, Yeager and other lawmakers appeared to learn key details about the project for the first time during a meeting of the Interim Finance Committee, which handles money matters in between sessions. The issue only came up because the governor’s office needed IFC’s permission to reallocate funding for a project that was being canceled in favor of the Campus for Hope plan.

During that IFC meeting, several lawmakers raised concerns about the location.

The Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) approved Campus for Hope’s application to access the $100 million in public funds in January 2025.

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No public meeting or disclosure was required, but the Nevada Current reported the details of the application, which included plans for taxpayers to foot 92% of ongoing operational costs and plans to ask the state to deed them the land. (The latter plan appears to have been scrapped in favor of a long-term, $0 lease, which was approved by the state Board of Examiners last month and is up for approval by the IFC on Wednesday.)

The Current in February also reported that a youth behavioral health provider feared they would soon shutter because county and state officials had provided them no details on relocation.

In April, Campus for Hope President Kim Jefferies, Knudsen, and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill spoke with residents at a community meeting about the “transformational comment.” But the outreach, it appears, did not help.

“Campus for Hope leadership has met all the state and local requirements for the construction of the facility,” reads an emailed statement provided to the Current by a spokesperson for the project. “We will continue to meet all those requirements, without exception.”

The nonprofit is “a partner to the community,” the statement continued. “We have held meetings, met with local businesses and nonprofits, and will continue to do so.”

Gov. Lombardo, who signed the 2023 bill greenlighting the campus and whose “chief innovation officer” is working on the project, has previously acknowledged the vocal group of residents opposed to the project. During an unrelated press conference last month, he referenced Campus for Hope and said he believed a lot of the “angst” from local residents comes down to “a lack of communication.”

Lombardo and the Campus for Hope spokesperson both noted that the existing mental health campus offers similar services as those planned for Campus for Hope, just not at the same scale.