The Word On The Street: Homeless Men In Las Vegas

4: Homeless Shelters and Squatting on the Strip

Fig. 4. The sign states “no bathing or washing hair” in the bathroom, referring to city ordinance #3788, and cautions that “violators will be subject to arrest and a $1,000 fine.’’ Homeless men and others made use of the area in the past for personal hygiene. Photo by Christopher J. Taylor. Fig. 3. Above: This sign was found just inside the men’s restroom at the Downtown Transportation Center in 1999. Photo by Christopher J. Taylor. Fig. 6. Signs directly across the street from the men, however, list Nevada Revised Statute and City of Las Vegas Ordinance numbers on statements that criminalize homeless men’s survival practices. Photo by Christopher J. Taylor. Fig. 5. Men line up for food being given away out of a person’s car near a prominent shelter in the homeless corridor. Photo by Christopher J. Taylor. Fig. 7. The North Las Vegas Public Library, located several blocks from the homeless corridor, is used by homeless men to escape from the intense heat, to rest, and to clean up. Inside, men who hope to use the bathroom for personal hygiene are warned that they might be arrested. A small arrow near the lock shows in which direction a key must be turned to open the door, indicating that keys to the restroom must be “checked out’’ to users by library staff. Such practices ensure that the library staff can track who is using the bathroom and the condition in which they left it. Photo by Christopher J. Taylor. Fig. 8. Outside the North Las Vegas Public Library in the summer of 1999. One homeless man’s shopping cart, filled with personal and found items, was visible in the entrance. Photo by Christopher J. Taylor. Fig. 9. In the summer of 1999 at the Downtown Transportation Center bus terminal, a Las Vegas marshal confronted a homeless man sleeping on a bench. The marshal yelled, “Get up! Get up!’’ in a tone that grew progressively louder. Photo by Christopher J. Taylor. Fig. 10. Although the man received no ticket and was not arrested, he was so shaken that in his half-awake state he bolted upright, causing his glasses to fall on the concrete. Photo by Christopher J. Taylor. 103 C H A P T E R 4 Homeless Shelters and Squatting on the Strip Once a man had become homeless, I wondered, how did he survive from day to day? I knew from experience as a shelter administrator that homeless shelters are important resources in the lives of some homeless men. Before coming to Las Vegas, however, I had little direct knowledge about the other ways men found places to sleep, such as occupying abandoned buildings. Homeless men in Las Vegas recognize important differences between forms of temporary housing such as shelters and abandoned buildings, use their resources in various ways, and have carefully considered the pros and cons of different forms of shelter, facts that are important for two reasons. First, homeless men face ongoing obstacles in their attempts to secure regular shelter in Las Vegas. Second, a homeless man’s ability either to end his homelessness or to simply survive depends largely on his assessment of how a given shelter arrangement might best suit his needs. 104 The Word on the Street While many institutional shelters restrict men’s autonomy through rules and structures promoting dependency on shelter life, a more self-sufficient arrangement, like squatting in an abandoned building, means that men there give up basic social services, safety, and regular meals. The shortcomings of either type of arrangement are structural, a point that again indicates the importance of understanding a man’s homelessness as more than an individual problem. Shelters that house homeless men for brief periods are the dominant forms of direct assistance delivered to homeless men across the United States (DeOllos 1997). According to Stark (1994), as homelessness was becoming recognized as a pressing social problem across the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s, many temporary, makeshift shelters were created. By the late 1980s, however, “with the realization that homelessness was not a problem that could be solved quickly, shelters began to be transformed into permanent institutions” (Stark 1994, 554). Stark notes that these now-dominant forms of shelter in the United States share several characteristics with what Erving Goffman called “total institutions,” which are defined as “place[s] of residence . . . where a...