Sunday, July 25, 2010

Homeless in Vegas

Quotes from July 25, 2010 article in Las Vegas Sun by Stepanie Tavares Couple looks to future after leaving desert homeless camp.

"They guess they’ve each applied for more than 100 jobs. They’ve been turned down each time. Businesses would rather hire workers with more stable lives."

"...because being enclosed with strangers at shelters made them feel trapped, the couple began living in a homeless camp in northwest Las Vegas.

'It was scary,' she says. 'But I was too scared of the homeless shelters, and there didn’t seem to be anything else for us.'~"

A niece who lives in Vegas said temperatures there soared to 110 degrees the other day. The article does mention severe temps in winter and summer ~ being able to survive that without shelter must be a horror. Would hate to be homeless in Vegas; homeless in Long Beach was hard enough.

The homeless woman mentioned how long it takes to get ready to apply for jobs while living on the streets. In her case, it took two hours by bus to get to the nearest facility where homeless can shower and do laundry. I had an issue with applying for jobs when first homeless and sent to a shelter in Los Angeles. I would have, perhaps, a two hour window to get to potential job sites and back downtown to catch a bus back to L.A. Woman said she and her husband applied to over 100 each ~ I may have applied for less than a dozen.

She says the shelters made them feel 'trapped' ~ good a word as any for my experience. Felt like being in jail ~ except for being able to leave and never return. I suffered a lot of anxiety when staying in shelters ~ lost my Long Beach winter shelter privilege when I left one morning.

Took those tales offline. After being bothered all night by a woman high on crack cocaine ~ I needed to get out of there ~ NOW ~ I asked permission to leave ~ denied. Another peer was granted permission to leave. No, had to wait upon a bus, that might take us to the Multi-Service Center on Sante Fe before returning to downtown Long Beach ~ to drop us off ~ 4 or 5 blocks from where the temp winter shelter was located.

It made no sense to me, that we had to take the bus those few blocks or not be allowed in the shelter and especially since I was on the verge of flipping, not being allowed to walk out. No sense at all. Yes, trapped may be a very good word to describe the experience.


http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jul/25/bouncing-back-life-tent/

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