Celebrating 10 Years of the Movement to End Youth Homelessness: A Look at Sands’ Commitment to the Issue

This week, Sands and Nevada Partnership for Homeless Youth mark their 10^th presentation of the Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit. Ending youth homelessness is a top corporate responsibility priority for the company’s headquarters, and the relationship with NPHY and its work to create pathways for youth in crisis is the company’s longest-standing community engagement initiative in Las Vegas.

The partnership between Sands and NPHY began in 2014. After three years of working together, the two organizations took their efforts to a new level with establishment of the Southern Nevada Youth Homelessness Summit in 2017. This first Summit launched the Movement to End Youth Homelessness in Southern Nevada, and it is now a statewide coalition. At this week’s Summit, Sands and NPHY will celebrate a decade of advocacy to build solutions for one of Nevada’s most critical issues.

Last year, the first statewide study on youth homelessness found that almost 3,000 unaccompanied youth in Nevada accessed homelessness services in one year. However, in examining how young people fall through system cracks, the study determined the truer number of young people experiencing homelessness in Nevada could be as high as more than 33,000 in a single year.

To combat these chronically high incidence rates, NPHY had come to Sands with a vision more than a decade ago. The idea was to create a Southern Nevada convening to rally the community around the issue, and Sands answered with the funding, venue and supportive resources to launch the annual Summits.

“I think Arash [Ghafoori, NPHY CEO] and I saw the world in a similar fashion,” Ron Reese, senior vice president of global communications and corporate affairs, said. “We saw what goals could be achieved and how to achieve them. I like to think we both think outside the box when it comes to finding solutions, and from a company standpoint, our founder Sheldon Adelson set a standard that you don’t just take the status quo for granted. He would look ‘status quo’ in the eye and say, ‘what could we be doing differently?’

“So what attracted me about convening and rolling it into launching a Movement was challenging the status quo … not just doing a gala or feel-good event, but creating something that would really change awareness and shape or influence policy. And now it’s grown into something I don’t think any of us would have imagined.”

As Sands and NPHY deepened their partnership through the Summits and Movement work, the company invited NPHY to join the Sands Cares Accelerator, its exclusive three-year membership program in which nonprofits work on a strategic capacity-building goal. NPHY entered the Sands Cares Accelerator in 2018 to focus on furthering its evolution by creating a new strategic plan that would maintain its critical contributions as a service provider for youth experiencing homelessness and build on its newly established leadership in policy and advocacy through the Movement to End Youth Homelessness.

At that juncture, Sands Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Randy Hyzak joined the NPHY board. When NPHY exited the Sands Cares Accelerator after its three years, Hyzak chose to remain on the board and has now served for eight years.

“I’ve stayed simply due to the cause NPHY serves,” Hyzak said. “The youth we serve didn’t ask for the situations they are in, and providing them the ability to work through it and come out on the other side with a path for the rest of their lives is simply beautiful to see. What I’ve enjoyed most about my work on the board is seeing the youth obtain high school diplomas, jobs, drivers’ licenses, paths to college – and witnessing the effort and dedication Arash and his team put toward these outcomes on a daily basis.”

In his role as the board’s treasurer, Hyzak has seen the evolution of NPHY and the Movement first-hand.

“Dealing with COVID over the course of 2020 to 2023 was extremely difficult for the NPHY team and the youth we serve,” he said. “Honestly, this took away from the long-term strategic planning and some of the Movement’s efforts, but it was necessary to deal with the day-to-day issues of serving youth amid this crisis. We’re back on the path to focusing on growing services for youth and making this statewide Movement and its Summits a success.”

Sands had hosted the annual Summits at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas until its sale in 2022, but the change in company direction did not alter its commitment to the Summit and Movement.

“When we sold our Las Vegas assets and didn’t have as large of a presence in the city, it could have been a natural time for us to leave this conversation,” Reese said. “Instead, we recommitted to this cause, the Movement and NPHY, and that speaks to what it means to us as a company and how critically important it is that our community and state confront the issue.”

Both Reese and Hyzak say that one of Sands’ primary roles is to be a leader for private sector involvement in the Movement – and that more involvement is needed.

“We need to grow corporate support from the Las Vegas community,” Hyzak said. “We’ve always been a leader in Las Vegas and despite only having our headquarters here now, it is still important for us to demonstrate that leadership. We need to determine how we get the rest of Las Vegas and Reno corporate citizens involved, whether it is from a financial or people perspective.

“If we don’t want an adult homeless problem, let’s start by eliminating youth homelessness,” he continued. “There are many efforts to tackle homelessness, but the thing I appreciate about NPHY and the Movement is that there’s a commitment to breaking the cycle for the youth who are interested, willing and able to take that step.”

 Reese agrees that Sands is committed to taking a leadership position on the youth homelessness issue.

“Every time we get a chance, we talk about youth homelessness,” he said. “If I’m speaking or Randy is speaking, we reinforce that we expect other parts of the private sector to step up and embrace this challenge. It’s important for the private sector to hear why Sands is involved. We need more private sector involvement and want to set the tone for that to happen.”

“I’ve lived in Las Vegas for more than 20 years and witnessed the boom,” Reese continued. “As people in our surrounding states saw Nevada as a cost-effective place to live, huge numbers moved here and that drove prices up, affecting housing affordability. With this rapid growth, it was impossible to keep up with services. Our state has lacked the proper resources for issues like youth homelessness, and at a time when there’s uncertainty around government-provided resources, it’s incumbent on the private side to be more involved than ever.”

Reinforcing that private sector involvement in the Movement and annual Summits has positive return, Reese says the Movement has done something really important that might not be recognized.

“What the Movement has done well, when society spends so much time divided, is that it’s brought together people who might not otherwise have a reason to be together to work on an issue that is critically important. I think that’s its greatest value.”

Hyzak agrees: “NPHY and the Movement have become a linchpin on youth homelessness and really a variety of youth issues, bringing together parties that may not otherwise have reasons to connect. If you’ve never been to a Summit, attend one and you’ll see a glimpse of the tremendous opportunity to eliminate youth homelessness in Nevada and beyond.”

To register for Summit 2026, visit nphy.org/summit26.