Las Vegas Group Launches Weekly Cleanup Initiative in City’s Tunnel System

Austin Wyrick, a Las Vegas resident, is determined to clean up the city's washes and tunnels, places often deemed unremarkable but where many unhoused people live. Inspired by his own past battles with addiction, homelessness, and estrangement from family, Wyrick is now putting his experience to work as part of a cause that cares for human dignity as well as environmental responsibility.

“I hate trash, I mean. If we look at our city, we have such a beautiful city, but unfortunately, it's just riddled with trash,” asserted Wyrick. It has taken two decades for him to truly see the beauty of Las Vegas.

Wyrick leads Pick it Up Las Vegas, a grassroots group cleaning areas near Flamingo Road and University Center Drive every Saturday for the past five weeks. To him, everyone deserves a clean environment, no matter their situation, and that it is important to build relationships with the people who live in the tunnels, some for years.

His broader vision is to raise private money to pay unhoused people to participate in cleanup efforts, transforming volunteerism into opportunity. Their latest cleanup was Saturday, March 29, but Wyrick and his staff plan to keep going and encourage future community involvement.