I left the Super 8 Motel the following morning after getting directions for the Salvation Army. I had called them and found they offered beds for only $8 a night. With my limited funds, I sure couldn't stay in my present lodging. What seemed cheap at $39/night only a few hours ago now became an unaffordable extravagance.
I caught a bus headed north, toward downtown Las Vegas. This was an area I visited infrequently, and was always depressed by the plethora of low budget extended-stay motels that lined both sides of the street. You could see vagrants wandering about, some homeless people huddled in doorways or next to fire plugs. The overall feeling of the downtown area is one of a grittiness and despair that isn't normally linked to "fabulous" Las Vegas, Nevada. Safe to say, the chamber of commerce doesn't add images of this location to their brochures.
Transferring buses and heading east, I was taken into a part of Vegas that I had never traveled to: North Las Vegas Blvd that extended into the city of North Las Vegas. Drive a few miles to the south and this same Las Vegas Blvd widens and transmogrifies in to the world famous Strip. In this part of town, as you cross Foremaster and Owens, things aren't quite so glamorous. Remember that feeling of self-consciousness and shame I mentioned earlier about dragging around my luggage. I lost those feelings the moment I stepped off the bus.
As I searched for the Salvation Army homeless shelter, I had a chance to scan my new environs. It looks like an industrial area, with several open lots and road and sidewalk construction going on a various locations. There are some abandoned lots and buildings, as well as a few active businesses like a paper company located across from the Salvation Army itself (which is located right next to a Union Pacific overpass.) There's also a large cemetery in the area, which looks uncharacteristically green, peaceful and orderly, given the surroundings.
(An aside: For some reason, there's a large black rooster that roams a part of the cemetery located right by a street corner. I was curious enough to ask a groundskeeper one day:
"Why is there a black rooster in this cemetery?"
Without blinking he said, "Why shouldn't there be a black rooster in this cemetery?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I. Now fuck off."
Well, I couldn't argue with his logic. The rooster remains there to this day.)
Perhaps the most striking thing about this area of town is the pervasiveness of homeless people. Simply put, they're everywhere. Pulling along luggage or boxes of their possessions they wander about, sit on curbs, congregate on street corners, or hang out in front of buildings. While many buildings and businesses don't permit this, you have to realize that this are of the city is vastly different in character from other parts of the metropolitan area.
The influence of Catholic Charities is considerable, due both to aiding the unfortunate and the physical presence of its buildings. It's actually something of a self-contained complex, that holds all types of social service offices from welfare to food stamps. They offer aid for rent and utilities with families, and the elderly and/or disabled getting priority. Cafeterias, laundry services, and apartments are also located there. Their most important service seems to be the free nightly beds offered to the indigent.
Men line up on Foremaster Street around 5 pm and at 6, representatives from Catholic Charities come out and start selecting who can go in for the night. Those with physical problems are given priority, and space is limited to the first 200 men. No pay beds are available. This is one reason I went to Salvation Army; once you pay for a bed there, it's yours until 5pm the following evening. If it isn't paid up by then, then confiscate your stuff and rent the bed to someone else.
At 6am, the men have to leave Catholic Charities with all their possessions. It's not unusual to see the same group of guys wandering around the general area, towing along their stuff, counting down the hours until they can have another shot at a bed for the night. Many of these men fit the homeless stereotype: Their clothes are filthy and ragged, hair and beards wild and unkempt, skin streaked with dirt, most of their teeth gone, and they stink. They can often be seen relieving themselves in the street in broad daylight. (If pets require pooper scoopers, shouldn't humans?) In other parts of the city this would likely draw stares, and provoke calls to the police. Here, it's just a matter of fact.
People with shopping carts full of junk can be found on nearly every street corner around here. It's as though they have created a type of impromptu village, using the carts as barricades and pulling tarps overhead when it starts to rain. Likewise, you can see certain homeless people at the same location every day, many of whom exhibit prounced mental problems. Often they scream and shout to an invisible adversary. Other times, they pontificate about some unknown subject so loud and so long that they rupture their vocal cords.
Heading east on Owens, is Shade Tree, a shelter for homeless women. For the most part this shelter seems to be quieter and engender less activity than some of the others. It could be because of the presence of children. In the neighborhood are several cheap apartment complexes, a newer senior citizen village, and some low-income housing sponsored by Salvation Army.
Speaking of the Salvation Army, that's the subject of our next chapter. I'd continue, but again, time is running short here at the library. If anyone out there has a web book (that works) drop me a line: "Will work for laptop".
In the meantime, I'll leave you with this observation: One thing I've found is that most of the homeless have an insatiable appetite for cigarettes. Bad enough they smoke constantly but they smoke the nastiest, vilest form of tobacco ragweed it's been my misfortune to experience in a second-hand capacity. And although I am a lifelong non-smoker I can truly say this without prejudice: if people smoked rhinoceros turds, it must smell like the stuff smoked by the homeless.
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