Beating the heat: Homeless seek relief out on street

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Wednesday, July 16, 2003 | 11:07 a.m.

It's all about the sun. And shade. And water. Less sun. More shade. A place with a/c. More water. Less walking.

For most Las Vegas residents, the question of the past two weeks, as the heat flirts with record highs, has been how to keep the power bills down, the house cool and the car's air conditioning working.

But for thousands of homeless people in the Las Vegas Valley, triple-digit temperatures mean getting up before the sun, planning routes that lead indoors or under a tree, and seeking out water fountains to fill up their jugs.

They spend their days trying to avoid becoming a statistic. Since 2002, coroner records show that seven of the 47 homeless people who died had heat exposure listed as a probable cause.

A homeless woman who remains unidentified died Sunday night of unknown causes pending the Clark County coroner's toxicology report, but North Las Vegas Police spokesman Justin Roberts said the cause of death could have been exposure to heat.

Metro Police Sgt. Eric Fricker, who oversees two officers who work with the homeless downtown, said his unit is "kind of expecting problems."

"The homeless don't realize how hot they get, and when they do, it's too late," he said.

Beating the heat makes the day like one in the wild, several homeless people said.

"When it's this hot out, instincts come out you didn't even know you had," said Robert Obradovich, sitting under a white tarp behind Poverello House in Las Vegas, a one-story haven that offers respite from triple-digit temperatures to about two dozen homeless men during the hottest hours of the day.

Instincts like a lizard, another man said.

"When we get up we know where we're going, and everywhere we go it's to find someplace cool, some water," said Javier Hernandez in Spanish. At 9 a.m. he had just moved from the shade of a wall built in the middle of a parking lot to the opening doors of the Las Vegas Library on Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue.

A line of about 35 people, many with backpacks or other bags in tow, was also heading for the library's cool stone interior and fountains of endless water.

The valley's homeless have been improvising strategies to avoid the heat for decades, advocates said Tuesday. More attention has always been placed on funding for winter shelter, even though only two people last year died of exposure to the cold.

"It's weird -- we live in a desert, but nobody has made a major effort to deal with the heat when it comes to the homeless," said Linda Lera-Randle El, director of Straight from the Streets, a nonprofit that does outreach to the homeless. "Twenty years ago, if we did nothing else, we should have set aside a place for people to go when it gets hot."

But nobody did.

The Salvation Army downtown opens a large room 24 hours a day where 400 to 700 people can pass the day or spend the night. The space has been filled to capacity in the last three to four weeks, spokesman Charlie Desiderio said.

Poverello House opens its doors from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and up to 25 men can spend one day a week there showering, washing clothes, eating breakfast and lunch, and keeping out of the sun.

In Henderson, Poverello House runs a smaller operation. St. Timothy's Episcopal Church, which offers meals at 5:30 p.m. every day to about 85 people, has begun opening its doors two hours earlier to give people a place to get out of the midafternoon heat.

With the valley's homeless population estimated at 8,000 to 10,000 people, that means thousands more are figuring out other ways to survive summer in the desert.

Take Hernandez. His day starts before 6 on a back street downtown where dozens are camping lately. On Tuesday at that hour it's already in the low 80s.

So it's down to Catholic Charities for some shade and coffee, about three long blocks away.

Some time after 8:30 a.m., it's in the mid-90s. A short walk up Las Vegas Boulevard and the wall is there, between him and the rising sun. He lies down with a few friends. It has topped 100 degrees, and the water in the library, its cool walls, are waiting.

Plus, its books. Hernandez said he's "an addict to reading -- mostly books about the mind."

By a few minutes before 9 a.m., about 20 people are in line, but at least a dozen more are under the acacia trees or at the foot of the wall.

Finally, doors open. First stop, the bathroom, the water. Fill up soda bottles. Some of the homeless said they drink three or four gallons a day.

The rest of the day is similar for Hernandez and his buddies. Meals wherever, lots of reading at the library -- "they let you stay as long as you don't fall asleep" -- and an often frustrating search for trees that are in places where the police or private security guards don't shoo them away.

Obradovich said that dressing well and keeping clean are key to keeping cool, since they can go in the casinos if they don't "look homeless."

"A lot of guys out there don't do the hygiene thing and so it's hard for them to go to these places," he said.

David Blackman, who uses the same strategy and seeks out places like the Fremont Street Experience -- as well as the library and the Salvation Army -- said many homeless people know they "can't spook the tourists," so they have to try to look like one if they want to seek refuge in the valley's casinos.

Whatever the strategy, the struggle is the same.

"It's you versus the heat," Blackman said.