Homeless in Las Vegas: Stories from the Street

Chapter Three. Confronting Aggression, Pride, and Need in Former Convicts: Kevin

Kevin was Caucasian, about five feet seven, muscular, and wore black jeans and a checkered flannel shirt. A former convict with a history of violence , Kevin had recently been released from prison and now sought local work in construction. I met him at the dt c in late November 2005. His face and speaking voice reminded me of Harvey Keitel, but his pointed, balding head undermined the resemblance. He had an overstuffed backpack and sleeping bag by his side. His story suggests the difficulty he as a former convict faces in reintegrating into society, but it also underscored the problems brought on by his aggressive, self-defeating personality. Kevin seemed to have had troubles but was trying to change. He was telling me a story, familiar to many homeless people in Las Vegas, about having problems getting id and the catch-22 of not being able to get work without it. k e v in : You got to have id to work here, that’s the most definite. As far as between jobs out here, if you don’t have id, you’re not gonna get no work. I’m waiting on Social Security and a birth certificate to get an id. There’s probably plenty of work out here, but you got to have all the credentials. k u r t : And you came out here specifically to find work? What type of work? k e v in : Construction. k u r t : Where were you coming from? k e v in : Chino State Prison. I am surprised by the revelation. “Yeah,” Kevin says, staring directly at me. Confronting Aggression, Pride, and Need in Former Convicts k e v i n : : t h r e e : : 58 : h o me l e s s i n l a s v e g a s I decided to carefully ask more about his prison experience. “How long were you there, if I may ask?” “This time I was only there six months,” he replied. “I just finished. They discharged my number. But I been in, did six years all together. They actually got me back in Detroit because I ran. It’s all finished now, so, been living in California. I don’t want to stay there anyways.” Kevin told me about his extradition to California from Detroit, where he had been working in construction. After he had served his sentence, his sister, who now lives in Las Vegas, encouraged him to move to her city because work was plentiful. “She just told me that there’s a lot of work if you want to work, day labor, labor comp, max labor, all these places [that hire temporary laborers ]. If you get there early enough and you have the right id, they put you out there on different jobs, supposedly, if you have any experience . . . give you a shot at whatever. It don’t pay much, but it gets you off the street.” Kevin was right about the good number of temporary labor jobs available in the city. However, I think it was inaccurate to say that it “gets you off the street.” Snow and Anderson (1993) found that those who are more recently homeless have tried to use this type of employment as a way to acquire cash quickly without paperwork. The authors note, though, that the work is often short-term, poorly paid, exploitative, and irregular. Snow and Anderson believe that this approach to earning money in order to end homelessness is often frustrating and that, in general, homeless people’s “experience with the world of wage labor leads to diminishing reliance on it as a subsistence strategy” (1993, 134). Kevin’s other descriptions of his experiences seemed to confirm Snow and Anderson’s analysis. k u r t : Have you been working since you’ve been in town? k e v in : I worked two days since last week ’cause I just found somebody that would pick you up for labor without id. And I called him yesterday and Monday, and I can’t get a hold of him, and then I ain’t got money to call today. Maybe I’ll be able to call him tonight or something. k u r t : What type of work was it? k e v in : Actually, he’s an electrical contractor, but he’s branching out doing block walls, masonry. And that’s what I did in Detroit, so it kind of felt good, for me. k u...