Editor’s note: As this story on the growing number of unhoused people living outside in Las Vegas in the summer heat was being published, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that further criminalizes homeless people in this country for being homeless.
In Las Vegas triple digit temperatures come on in a full blast, welcome to summer, heat wave. Growing up here I notice the shift in the people and my community from the heat itself, which I am accustomed to. It kicks off with an increase in road rage incidents and deadly car crashes. In the month of June alone we have had 6 officer involved shootings.
If you are homeless there is little to no reprieve from the heat.
It takes a tremendous toll on the body and the mind, I see it in the streets. The exhausted wandering out into traffic, dropping unto the asphalt passed out, the sidewalk burns on forearms and cheekbones, the hardly coherent words from split open chapped lips. Dehydration and sun exposure impair cognitive abilities tremendously. Already the homeless must deal with inconsistent sleep, unhealthy diet, trauma and mental illness.
I say all this but even the heat gets to me. At a 7-11 with my girlfriend I think a guy is getting weird with her when they walk into each other and he asks if she knows where she is going. When I confront him, he is by the ice cooler leaning his head in. “Do you know where you’re going?” I ask him.
He looks at me with weary eyes “Could you please get me something to eat and drink?” My anger melts. I know better.
A recent census reports our homeless numbers approaching 7,000, but it’s at least that or more. This is a ten year high for Las Vegas, four times the national average, and Nevada has the fewest number of affordable homes per capita than any other state. I pass fresh eviction notices every week. On my way to and from work I see construction workers lying in rocks, near bushes or under political campaign signs, napping anywhere they can find shade. Other people can’t tell the difference between them and those that are homeless. I can tell you there is little, the workers being one cut shift away from being on the streets themselves.
Chances have always been slim here. Most of us have no desire to ‘beat the house’, as they say in the casinos. We just want you to let us in so we can live.
Andrew Romanelli was born and raised in Las Vegas through numerous implosions and expansive growth. He has lived in many of its historic areas and currently resides downtown. He is a product of the Family Court system, Special Education, and Montevista Hospital. Obtaining his GED at 16 (the year they lowered the age) and over a decade later his BA in English at Nevada State. His first job was through local 226 at the Showboat as a graveyard bus boy when he was a teenager. Since then, he has held (and lost) a vast array of jobs and currently works for a local printer as a guy who does whatever is needed. He is an activist for the disenfranchised, a teaching artist through Poetry Promise and a proud Wobblie. He is a John Oliver Simon award recipient among other recognitions, and his first poetry collection Rotgut was published by Zeitgeist Press in 2022.
