Las Vegas Wash Homeless
(New York Times description of above picture)
Some of the Las Vegas homeless resort to living in a maze of underground flood channels beneath the Strip. There they face flash floods, disease, black widows and dank, pitch-dark conditions, but some tunnel dwellers say life there is better than being harassed and threatened by assailants and the police.
Las Vegas is never far from the minds of reporters. Sadly, it is a microcosm of traits the rest of the country would rather not own up to.
Historically the city liked to hide the homeless. It is bad for the image. Tourists don't want to come here to lose money from tight slots machines only to see the results of compulsive gambling on the streets.
Recently a man shot himself in front of the Las Vegas sign.
Pretty symbolic.
Homeless living in the washes is nothing new-in fact it has been an address for the homeless for many years. You can follow the path of the homeless by following the empty shopping carts from the side of the road to the wash. Homeless individuals use them to carry their belongings.
While my son was attending school in Las Vegas for EMT training he worked at a take out pizza place next to a wash. At night when he cleaned up, he would save the leftover pizzas and rather than throw them out place them in a box and leave them on the top of the dumpster. The homeless men who lived in the wash would come up and retrieve them.
One day the police came to the store asking him questions.
Later he told me about it-tearfully. Someone had murdered them.
It never made the paper and no one was arrested.
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