After ‘crime’ of homelessness, family happy to leave Vegas

Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005 | 11:26 a.m.

It was like some strange summer vacation in hell. Or worse.

Early Friday evening, as many Las Vegas Valley residents and visitors were buoyed by the pairing of lowered temperatures and a three-day weekend, Margaret Woods and extended family were hauling duffel bags to a downtown bus station.

"I'll never come back to Las Vegas -- not even to visit," said Shakira, Margaret Woods' 15-year-old daughter.

The Woods family had spent the summer homeless on the streets of Las Vegas. With them were Margaret Woods' cousin, Kim, with her 4-month-old daughter, named -- ironically enough for all they had been through -- Serenity.

Actually, Margaret and Kim were without homes for the summer. Their children were taken away from them early on.

"It was like it was a crime, being homeless," Margaret Woods said.

Their odyssey began in mid-July when, according to Woods, a Las Vegas Valley apartment they had found on the Internet while living in California vanished, along with $1,500 they had saved for three months and sent to the apartment complex management.

They arrived in town to find that authorities had condemned the apartment, and the owner could not be found.

They were left in their car, nowhere to go, and began shifting from one shelter to the next.

One day in a park downtown, while having a breakfast Woods had put together from a cooler in the trunk, two city marshals approached them, said they wanted to help and led them to all the shelters the family had already stayed in or where they were told there was no room.

The marshals then led them to Child Haven, a Clark County-run shelter for children, where Woods said she was tricked into leaving the children behind.

She said the marshals told her and Kim to get some papers from the car, and then did not allow her to go back inside to say goodbye or explain to her children that they were now wards of the state -- at least until the legal system could be convinced that they were out of harm's way.

That meant the two women not only had to find housing and a job in a new town, but also a way to show the court and the county that they could take care of their own children.

In August, a story ran in the Sun about the family -- and other families like theirs.

Officials said the law was set up to protect children who might be in danger on the streets, in 100-plus degree heat.

Six court dates followed. Woods said she left many unanswered messages at programs around town, she said.

She and her cousin obtained work through Labor Ready that lasted from one to eight days, including washing cars at Budget Rent-a-Car and folding clothes during the night at J.C. Penney.

After a series of appointments, they had their welfare and food stamps benefits transferred from California, which allowed them to get rooms at downtown hotels.

They went back to court with plans ranging from returning to Los Angeles to stay with Woods' mother to getting two rooms at Budget Suites. The court-appointed social worker rejected the first because Woods' mother has a criminal record; the second, because "they said it wasn't housing."

In one court date, authorities laid out a plan that included getting a Nevada ID by early September -- something Woods said would have been impossible since it meant waiting six weeks to get a copy of her birth certificate from Tacoma, Wash.

Along the way, they visited their children every week. They also ran into unexpected expenses. They lost the key to their Ford Crown Victoria. They had to replace the car's battery.

In late August, out of money, they sold the car for $150 to another single mother they met on the street, in order to get a room until their next court date.

In the last few weeks, they had been appointed a new social worker, whose name Woods remembered as Mary Perez.

"She started getting things done," Woods said -- including being able to reach a Salvation Army program in San Bernardino, Calf., where the mother of five had stayed for three months in a work program while saving up money to come to Las Vegas. The program was contacted to see if it would now take the family back if necessary.

The previous social worker said she could never get through, but Perez did in five minutes, Woods said.

Then at 8:30 a.m. Friday morning, Kim received a call on her cell phone telling them to go back to court.

In their sixth visit, Frank Sullivan, a hearing master, told them they could have their children back -- an almost unbelievable piece of good news, especially since the only thing that had changed in recent weeks was their case worker.

"The judge said it shouldn't have gone this far," Woods said. "I almost fainted in court. The social worker said, 'You're gonna make me cry.' "

With what was left of the day, the resourceful Woods, who can tell you what's on sale at 10 items for $10 at Albertson's this week, quickly found out that El Paso bus lines had the cheapest fares to Los Angeles in town.

She bought one-way tickets for everybody, got a room for the day at a Day's Inn downtown and picked up the children at Child Haven.

As the reunited family ate sandwiches and pasta salads from a nearby deli early Friday evening, the room was a strange mix of weariness and expectation.

Woods said they would stay in the short term with her mother in south central Los Angeles.

"That I can deal with," she said, referring to the chaotic neighborhood. Her sister was looking for an apartment for the family.

Shakira told a bit of her side of the story, recalling the first day her brothers and sisters -- and little Serenity -- were left in a locked room at Child Haven while Margaret and Kim were taken outside.

"They tricked us, locked the door in a nurse's office. A lady came and said, 'Your parents can't take care of you.' "

Danielle, who is 11, piped in that Daniel, who is 9, "cried three teardrops."

Shakira continued. "The lady said we would just be there for the weekend. It wasn't true."

Her mother changed the subject, reminding the kids about school beginning next week, almost as if they were all heading back from summer vacation.

"I'm so excited about going back to school," Shakira said.

The teens' experience in Las Vegas had made her "more determined" to pursue her plans of becoming a heart surgeon some day, she said.

"So my own kids don't have to go through all this."