Las Vegas is one of the hardest hit communities during these times of economic uncertainty and public austerity measures. KTNV reports that although the overall unemployment rate in the city has gone down, it has increased in certain neighborhoods. Most notably near the UNLV campus, in and around the Las Vegas-Paradise area.
Over the past few months I have noticed an increasing number of people on the Strip panhandling, mostly on the cross street bridges that connect different properties. Some have a witty sign explaining their predicament, some play music or do tricks to entertain passing tourists, and some just slump against the wall with a cup nearby, barely alive.
I decided to take a few trips down to the Strip to document the situation using a tripod and my Nikon D200. I was apprehensive about the ethical implications of interviewing a homeless person, because I felt as though I would need to “donate” something to help, and in turn, would be paying for a source. Instead, I tried to be as impartial as possible, merely documenting the facts on the ground, backing it up with research, and letting the reader draw their own conclusions. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have already drawn my own conclusions, and they appear throughout the article.
I chose two very different days of the week to take my photos. I began on a Friday night, because I believed the abundance of visitors would attract a larger amount of homeless people and street panhandlers, whatever you want to call them. I can’t independently verify the living situation of anyone I photographed, so I use the term “homeless” loosely. I ventured out again the following Monday, a little bit earlier in the day and further north on Las Vegas Boulevard.
On Friday evening I moved out among the throngs of people on the Strip, it felt like a typical start to the weekend in Las Vegas. An eclectic mix filled the streets. There were exuberant women covered in knick-knacks celebrating a friend’s bachelorette party. A few insisted on flirting with a group of young men dressed to the nines, who reluctantly explained they were on a mission to drink and party all night. They were keen to keep walking and avoid eye contact. I saw beautiful women showcasing intriguing make up styles and wearing dresses their mothers would never approve of. Even the typical American families meandering about, their children in perpetual awe of our city.
Despite so many people from all walks of life, they had one thing in common: everyone equally ignored the panhandlers on the street. Throughout the evening, I never witnessed one person offer more than a sympathetic glance. More often than not, they outright looked away as if nothing was there. Not a human being, not someone’s wife or son or friend, just empty space. After three hours of shooting, I felt ashamed of taking pictures. I felt like I was invading what little privacy they had and only reinforcing the fact that no one even cared to acknowledge their existence, so I went home.
Monday brought more of the same. I hoped things would be different, but Las Vegas has a way of unapologetically forcing reality on you, even though it’s a town built on illusion and fantasy. The crowds were the same, they just kept on walking.
The entire depressing charade reflects poorly on the ability of the city to take care of its most vulnerable citizens, and the amount of value (or lack thereof) our society places on a human life. We have every pleasure, every piece of over the top entertainment, every flavor of cuisine you can shove in your fat face, but we can’t help the invisible people. Just keep moving along, there’s nothing here to see. Ignore these wretched failures, we can’t get anything out of them. They have no use, so they have no value.
A panhandler outside the MGM Grand
With our city in the midst of a homeless epidemic, and the shelters full to the brim, our former Mayor Oscar Goodman had no choice but to forcibly remove them from the downtown area. I’m not blaming the Mayor for doing what was necessary, he was besieged with complaints from local business owners fed up with the problem.
I do take issue with his inability to understand and deal with the root causes of the situation, instead of just treating the symptoms.
If America ever wants to reclaim its economic status, or Las Vegas to have a cleaner and safer environment to welcome visitors, there needs to be a realistic plan to put people back to work. Those on the Strip don’t look like the chronic homeless, they look like people who used to be productive members of society that have been swallowed up by the greed of Wall Street. They are the casualties of our consumer culture, the physical manifestation of the market “working itself out.”
Las Vegas has been hit the worst by unemployment and home foreclosures, and therefore has no choice but to be on the forefront of recovery development. We need to find practical ways to reintegrate people back into the workforce and give them an opportunity to reclaim a normal life. Not a safety net, not a handout. A path back to solvency, both economic and cultural.
We can’t just sweep these problems under the rug. We risk creating a permanent class of working poor that never have enough to save, barely make enough to survive, and cannot live without the bloated social services that will eat up Nevada’s precious little tax revenue. Policy must create a path to opportunity, not enslavement.