storm drain living

One of the local news stations here in Vegas did a piece on the people that live beneath Vegas in the storm drains last night. I have seen other news features, on this subject, the most famous, entitled "beneath the neon" or" living beneath the neon".

Last nights piece had the reporter and cameraman enter one of the tunnels and meet and spoke with 3 different inhabitants. The first was a 53 year old man who has lived in the tunnel for 3 years. He said that he promised himself that once his kids were in college he would pack a bag and head to Vegas and live off the city. The second was a former construction worker who's last job was working on the Fontiane Bleu project and has lived in the drain since being laid off. The third a young fellow, I guess early 20's who came to Vegas "on vacation" and lost all his money.

None of these three folks looked like your stereo-typical homeless. They all appeared fairly clean, with clean cloths. They all had made some sort of domestic space in different sections of the tunnel. One had a mattress and desk area with shelving and a desk lamp. I don't know if the lamp worked or not and have no idea if there is power down there (I would think not since these drains get flooded during monsoon season). The younger fellow kept a daily journal.

I find these types of stories fascinating. The people stories themselves (I actually often take time to talk to some of the homeless folks and you would be surprised at some of the stories), as well as the things they do to create a make-shift domestic setting.

"Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas". You can buy the book used on Amazon for $2.75.

This has been discussed here before, and there are many youtube videos on the subject.

I have to wonder though: how many of these poor souls drown in the tunnels during one of Las Vegas' rare but violent torrential downpours?

Casualties of the post-modern age, I suppose.

Quote: kewlj

One of the local news stations here in Vegas did a piece on the people that live beneath Vegas in the storm drains last night.

I like "The Rant" on FOX5 when I need to feel bad about others lives.

Cold and dark in the winter, hot in the summer,
even in the drains. No electric, no modern
conveniences, no thanks.

I live in Austin Texas. Last year the City took a census of the homeless community. It was a voluntary gig so I volunteered for it. ( I work for the City) I found it fascinating and sad all at the same time. I had no idea the number of children who are homeless. The parents work and the kids go to school but they have no place to call home.

The experience completely changed my perception of who homeless people really are. The few we see begging for money on the roadside are truly the minority. And with the children counted, the average age of all homeless that we counted was something like 11 years old.

The experience changed me forever. I'll never sit in my comfy central Austin home and judge them ever again. The stories I heard were a mixture of determination to get out of this, to despair and just giving up. The mentally ill were also very well represented. They have nowhere to go. Our Governor and Legislature have seen to that by cutting funds year after year. Despite him bragging to the rest of the country how our economy is something to be coveted. We rank at the bottom nationally in education spending and have an uninsured population greater than any other state. If we don't lead the nation in unwed mothers now, we will soon.

It's just really sad to see people in this situation. For the most part the children gave the address of a shelter in order to be enrolled in school. I was shocked by the gravity of the situation, I really was.

I will volunteer for the next census as well. It is something everybody should do at least once in their life. I came away very grateful for the life I have.

Quote: texasplumr

I live in Austin Texas. Last year the City took a census of the homeless community. It was a voluntary gig so I volunteered for it. ( I work for the City) I found it fascinating and sad all at the same time. I had no idea the number of children who are homeless. The parents work and the kids go to school but they have no place to call home.

I was in Austin a couple years ago for several days (a college sports tourney of sorts). I was absolutely amazed at the number of homeless folks seemingly everywhere.

Quote: texasplumr

The parents work and the kids go to school but they have no place to call home.

.

If the parents work, why don't they get
a small apartment?

Minimum wage, which is what I'm sure they are earning, won't rent an apartment in Austin. With a 98% occupied rate rents are higher than ever.

Housing is so scarce and expensive. An example, we listed our house and it went live on Saturday 11-08-14. We had three offers and a signed contract Sunday 11-09-14 for 10% more than asking price. (We were in Vegas) It's ridiculous. We have another house to go to so we cashed in on the centrally located house while the prices are high.

Being cautious in making judgments based on limited information is a good thing. It is also good to use that same principal when considering how people choose to describe themselves, say in a few minutes to someone sent out to do a news story or a survey.

For years my line of work was running housing programs. A wide variety of housing programs, some of which might be used by middle income working class folks in fairly ordinary rental housing projects, some others for people with very specialized needs, and some were housing for homeless people, including some large shelter programs in a major urban area (not Las Vegas). Something one learns when you deal with folks over a significant enough time period so that you end up dealing with more than whatever surface narrative they choose to construct: People lie. They lie about themselves. Sometimes also to themselves.

A small random anecdote for illustration (which no doubt will make the dear departed Mr. Buzz foam at the mouth in anger in his absence): Fellow arrives at a shelter program on a referral from his probation officer; I'll call him "Leroy" here. I do this intake myself, since staff is tied up with another thing. Abbreviated version from my memory: "So, Leroy, what brings you here to be staying with us for a while?" "Well, ya know, the economy is bad and I can't get anyone to rent to me without much money 'cause they don't like homeless people." "Oh, say your P.O. mentioned you just spent a few weeks over in the jail; what was up with that?" "Eh, I had a bunch of traffic stuff." "Hmm, they kept you for a few weeks for traffic stuff?" "Yeah, you know, like speeding and they said I went through a light and stuff, and the cop didn't like me, and I don't have enough money to pay for fines and lawyers and stuff because the economy is bad and people don't like the homeless, ya know?" "Umm-hmm."

Well, at the time I was a mid-level County poverty-bureaucrat of sorts in the same County as his referring probation officer, so after getting Leroy settled in I found it rather easy to give his P.O. a ring for some background. And I was rather surprised to discover that Leroy was, in a sense, one of the more truthful people who'd come to that homeless shelter recently. Everything he said was completely true, just rather incomplete. He'd just neglected to mention that he'd committed those traffic infractions while leaving the scene of his attempted robbery of a local convenience store. That, and his prior string of arrests involving his longstanding use of crack.

Another somewhat broader anecdotal illustration. A police officer came to the shelter's office with a warrant from a judge seeking someone for something, who was believed by the officer and apparently the court to be there, as happens from time to time. Now, the correct procedure under our policy for such warrants would have been for the staff person to check our records to see just where in the facility that person is, if they are or were staying with us at all, and direct them to that specific room and only there to cooperate with the court order. But the staff on duty was very busy and feeling harried with three things at once, so she didn't do that. She handed him a copy of the handy log of names and room numbers instead. She shouldn't have done anything like that, but she did. The officer thanked her for her help and made thorough use of it. We soon had a lot more room in that shelter, because after running ALL the names through the local enforcement data system about a quarter of them were suddenly soon arrested and jailed for outstanding warrants on charges major enough for the jail to make room for them, and I eventually learned that ALL of the adults on the log had some degree of criminal history when he took that log and ran them through their system. All. Every last one. I'd been involved in this kind of work for quite a few years by then, and I was only mildly surprised.

Those are only anecdotes, and I am some anonymous guy on the internet. It would not be wise to take that as an ironclad basis for "knowing" what is really going on with someone, anymore that you should do so based on what a "Leroy" chooses for his narrative about himself. But I do have a rhetorical question to pose as a thought experiment. Assume somewhere in the world there is a couple in which he routinely beats the crap out of her, and she beats the living hell out of the kids, they sometimes pimp them out, and they've both been stoned out of their gourds every day of their adult lives, and every place they've ever rented soon resulted in evictions owing to the cops being called ten times a week and destroyed apartments from mountains of broken drywall from beating each other into it, and Child Protective Services in six states are looking to snatch the kids to get them in foster care if they find them. That is, if for a moment here you can buy that such individuals really do exist in the world, for the sake of this thought experiment (they really do). What do you suppose will be their chosen narrative to an interviewer, whether in a social services office, or a survey, or someone with a note pad and camera crew, in the place they just skeedadled to one step ahead of CPS from the state they just left? Maybe even to themselves? Will it include what I just typed? Or will it be some version of "the economy was bad and we came here for work but then there was no good job here and nobody will give a place to homeless people...?"

I totally agree with the remark that 'tis not often wise to assume knowing a lot of things about people. Not from what I just said here, and likewise, certainly not from what they choose to say. Because doing so inevitably tends to be more a reflection of ourselves and what we wish to see them as, for our own purposes, rather than whatever the reality may or may not actually be about THEM. To do that with even the small beginnings of any real confidence you'd have to figuratively "live with" them for a significant period, including their "night person" side which isn't often seen when anything like clipboards and microphones and office furniture are present.

If they are homeless I imagine they don't get much mail from the courts so FTAs might be the most common cause for an arrest.

Most homeless people are eyesores and cops focus on eyesores if at all possible.

Quote: DrawingDead

that ALL of the adults on the log had some degree of criminal history when he took that log and ran them through their system.

Not news to me. In the early 80's in Santa Barbara,
most of the 'homeless' were crooks who were on the
run. A guy who eventually shared a house with me
was laying low because he got 4 drunk driving
tickets in a week in LA, which is a felony. He was
on the streets and homeless by choice, to avoid
arrest.

Homeless people lie about everything. If they tell
you a sob story, verify it before you start crying
your eyes out for them.

I can give you a different sort of story. Involving a guy that might have actually had a more happy outcome if he'd shacked up in a Las Vegas storm drain. See what you think about that.

This fellow had a severe case of a condition known as an "obsessive-compulsive disorder." He had a very strong emotional need to always be cleaning, and making everything around him perfectly neat and spotless, to an extreme degree. It was weird at first, as he'd suddenly pause in mid-sentence to dart across the room when his eagle-eyes spotted a speck of dust or something that just had to be cleaned up immediately. But it didn't take long to warm up to the gentleman, for the reasons you might guess. No doubt the compulsion was a burden for him, but if someone in your joint is going to be totally fruit-loops compulsive about something, cleaning is not such a bad one to have around. Soon everyone working at that site just took to letting him have free reign of the janitor's storage area, so long as he understood that when we said it was time to stop he'd put it all back at once and retire to his own little room for the night.

Unfortunately, constantly cleaning and straightening everything indoors wasn't quite enough of an outlet for his energetic pursuit of his sole interest. There was a park across the street, and he hadn't been with us for more than about two weeks when he got arrested there for some kind of "destruction of public property" beef or somesuch. I didn't see it, but what I pieced together about it was that he apparently found the park unacceptably unclean and disorderly, and I gather that as he felt compelled to clean and bring neatness and order to it all, he got at least as far as tearing down some tree limbs and whatnot, and this activity was not greatly appreciated.

He was missed more than most. Though our regular cleaning guy had no problem with going back to the old routine of doing ALL of his job every day the way he did before, the place never did sparkle again quite like it did with that gentleman around. And maybe you can see why I'm thinking that having a pad in one of the tunnels under Las Vegas could possibly have suited him in some ways.

Drawing Dead, good points.

Personally, I have also found that the [thankfully slim] dealings I have had with the needy has made me quite cynical.

I especially wince at the willingness to make them pawns or political footballs. [not saying anyone is doing that here]

Surely some are down and out due to no fault of their own, and I adhere to the "there but for the grace of God go I" theory - who knows what I would be like if growing up my family had been dysfunctional, I don't deal with such things well

On the other hand, I do believe in taking personal responsibility ... I'll just leave it there ...

.

Quote: EvenBob

Not news to me. In the early 80's in Santa Barbara, most of the 'homeless' were crooks who were on the run.

Undoubtedly, some were. Some were Texas and Oklahoma oil field services workers who didn't know any other work but were laid off by the zillions due to oil prices.

Wasn't the A-team homeless? They all have their reasons but these people probably just want to escape a society which never forgets as best they can. No way I would live somewhere like this storm drain without security of guns, locks, and friends.

National Geographic has the Live free/die show and I would probably be into something like that, but not the level of Mick Dodge.

Quote: texasplumr

Minimum wage, which is what I'm sure they are earning, won't rent an apartment in Austin. With a 98% occupied rate rents are higher than ever.

Housing is so scarce and expensive. An example, we listed our house and it went live on Saturday 11-08-14. We had three offers and a signed contract Sunday 11-09-14 for 10% more than asking price. (We were in Vegas) It's ridiculous. We have another house to go to so we cashed in on the centrally located house while the prices are high.

If there are so many homeless working people why don't they all get a place together?

I have no doubt people can suddenly become homeless for a short time through tragic events. most people because live paycheck to paycheck. I have to believe 80% of them are not "normal". It's extremely rare that a normal person has no friends, no family no money, no credit, no job, or access to resources.

I got here through a series of bad breaks and misunderstandings.

Quote: ncfatcat

I got here through a series of bad breaks and misunderstandings.

Yes, and I discovered this message board when someone posted a link to it on another board.

Ah, the voyage of discovery!

Quote: AxelWolf

It's extremely rare that a normal person has no friends, no family no money, no credit, no job, or access to resources.

BINGO! To become homeless you must lose your job PLUS piss off ALL your friends and family to the point that they kick you off the couch KNOWING that you are going from their coach to the street. I'm sure there is the rare exception but for the most part you have got to be a radical A-Hole to get to this point.

Where is the opening to the tunnel? Can I just like drive somewhere where the tunnel opens up, and cruise on in there? Or is this some Illuminati underground shit?

Quote: MrV

Yes, and I discovered this message board when someone posted a link to it on another board.

Someone wrote the WOO website on a napkin so I could learn the proper strategy.....while I was hole-carding a carnival game. -__-

Quote: bigfoot66

BINGO! To become homeless you must lose your job PLUS piss off ALL your friends and family to the point that they kick you off the couch
KNOWING that you are going from their coach to the street. I'm sure there is the rare exception but for the most part you have got to be a
radical A-Hole to get to this point.

I think all you need to become homeless is a little self respect and a psychotic wife who has no problem accusing you of things [although innocent] are
so repulsive that no one you know is willing to associate with you, lest they get some on them as well.

Homeless isn't so bad, once you get it figured out. It is a great skill set to carry with you once you can return to "normalcy". Actually the lack of
excitement and action in the typical life is a bit anti climactic.

If MickeyCrimm was able to post there might be some differing opinion as well. One difference I perceive is there are no opinions from persons who have
been there. And also our perception of "homeless".

Are the people living in tent cities homeless? Some have jobs and return to their camps every night with their meager possessions.

If someone wants a truly homeless experience they ought to go live with the Masai about now:http://www.blacklistednews.com/Tanzania_evicting_40%2C000_people_from_homeland_to_make_room_for_Dubai_royal_family/39252/0/38/38/Y/M.html

They are losing even the dirt underneath them, Or the Palestinians who have lived on the same dirt for millenia http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=where+is+palestine&FORM=IQFRBA&id=332FE48CD5907AC5E0B96A6B89BFC7CC50A17F61&selectedIndex=0#view=detail&id=332FE48CD5907AC5E0B96A6B
89BFC7CC50A17F61&selectedIndex=0

Heck the guys that got a nice strong sewer to live in got it pretty good from the viewpoint from bombed out refugees, just sayin. PS Bigfoot this is NOT directed at you, it was just a convenient entry point, ok?

Quote: RS

Where is the opening to the tunnel? Can I just like drive somewhere where the tunnel opens up, and cruise on in there? Or is this some Illuminati underground shit?

Here, this will get you started on your search.

When those comps dry up ...

Now I'm all confused. Because somebody told me this is supposed to be the private members only entrance to the executive boardroom of the Las Vegas advantage player clubhouse.

Quote: MrV

Quote: DrawingDead

Now I'm all confused. Because somebody told me this is supposed to be the private members only entrance to the executive boardroom of the Las Vegas advantage player clubhouse.

Quote: MrV

Isn't this the Quad's diamond lounge?