“I am homeless. I’m 53, an alcoholic, but I have chronic emphysema. I’m having a hard time breathing. When you get down and out, you can never get back up. … In [Las Vegas], it’s bad to be homeless. There’s only one place to go, and that’s down, deeper and deeper and deeper … and you just die out here.”
These words are from Jerry, one of the 48 homeless men interviewed by alumnus Kurt Borchard, and recorded in Borchard’s book, The Word on the Street: Homeless Men in Las Vegas, in which he challenges much of the conventional wisdom about homelessness.
Borchard became interested in his subject when directing a men’s transition program in his hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska. “I began seeing shelters as a ‘bandaid approach’ to homelessness that wasn’t addressing the roots of the problem,” he recalls.
Most people characterize the homeless as having character flaws, but that ignores the particular social, economic, and political milieu in a community that might exacerbate the problem, he says. Being homeless in Fairbanks is not the same as being homeless in Las Vegas.
When he came to UNLV in 1994, he saw little signs of the issue outside the “homeless corridor” near downtown. “Eventually I realized that Las Vegas’ response to homelessness was best understood in relation to its tourist industry. After living here a while, I saw that the spatial arrangement of the city works to make homelessness ‘invisible’ for the average tourist.”
An important part of the book comes from the interviews of 48 homeless men. “I wanted the voices of homeless men to be prominent because they are so often unheard or ignored,” Borchard says. “Even when it comes to basic policy issues on how the city addresses homelessness, homeless men regularly expressed frustration that they hadn’t been listened to.”
Take, for example, the development of a new central pick-up point for day laborers to end their use of Bonanza Road. “Several of the men said they wouldn’t use it because all the different racial groups once separated on Bonanza would now be lumped together, causing fights.”
Las Vegas’ growing population is accompanied by an increase in the homeless. “I am hopeful that this research will encourage the city to enact a more humane and charitable approach toward homeless men. The city’s future as a popular tourist destination might depend, in part, on its response.”
Borchard, now an associate professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska, Kearney, is continuing his research in Las Vegas and expects his next book to include interviews from homeless women, a problem, he notes, that prompts reactions different from those stirred by homeless men. “Rarely do you hear someone calling a homeless woman a ‘lazy bum,’” he says.
His research has been emotionally challenging at times. “One story that didn’t make it into the book: I was riding in a car with a man I had asked to keep a journal for the project. ... We made a copy of his journal for me to study and cite, and he suddenly turned and said to me, ‘So, is this journal all I mean to you?’
“I always tried to remember that I didn’t cause the situation these men were in and that my role was to document it. But his question framed what I was doing as taking advantage of him. It was so unexpected that I didn’t know what to say, and his sudden reply was ‘Nevermind. Your silence speaks volumes.’ I only saw him once more after that. I have thought about that car ride for nearly 10 years.”
