‘Not the way we wanted it to be’

By Timothy Pratt

Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2007 | 7:02 a.m.

Women and children stuffed into the meeting room at Buena Vista Springs, folding sheets of paper titled "Dear Resident" into fans.

A line of officials from local and federal agencies looked out on the small crowd from behind a table, putting on the sort of face that says, "We're trying our best . Just give us a chance."

It was the launch, last week, of a combined effort to help the poor not seen in the Las Vegas Valley since thousands sought refuge here in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Clark County Social Service, the Clark County Housing Authority, the federal Housing and Urban Development Department, congressional and County Commission representatives, plus a company hired by the federal government , were there to reassure the tenants of 233 apartments at Buena Vista that even those without a dime would soon find a new place to live.

The agencies moved into an office of Clark County Social Service on Friday, across Martin Luther King Boulevard from the apartments.

On Monday the lobby was filled with many of the same women, moving through a pile of forms and unanswered questions.

Many of those questions had a common theme: If the stroke of a government agency's pen uproots 800 people, can that same agency or others overcome the mottled pasts of those people to help them reach an immediate future?

HUD decided to cut off subsidies July 1 at Buena Vista, alleging that the apartments were kept in unsafe conditions. The move effectively forced about 800 people to move.

Many are single mothers. Many are out of work. Would they land in the street?

After a few weeks of angst and rumors at the North Las Vegas apartments, the collection of agencies that could answer that question explained their plan at last week's meetings.

HUD officials said they would offer money for moving and deposits at new apartments. The housing authority late last week had given out 212 Section 8 vouchers, a total of $144,295 in monthly federal subsidies that will likely wind up in the hands of landlords across the valley - if all the tenants find landlords who accept the vouchers. The program will cost $37,000 per month to administer, said Nancy Wesoff, the housing authority's executive director.

But before getting to that point, people at the meetings last week and at the social service agency Monday wanted to know about past-due light bills, bad credit histories, 20-year-old felony charges and bad references from Buena Vista's managers.

At one point at last week's meeting, local HUD employee Frank Castro said, "Look , this is not the way we wanted it to be."

He could have been talking about the conditions the agency says it found at Buena Vista or the lives of the people in the room.

The point: It was time to move on.

On Monday 22-year-old Deidra Sampson was at the social service office with that in mind.

She wanted the answer to a question dating five months, after she lost her job in sales at Dillard's when her 3-year-old daughter got sick with whooping cough.

She was supposed to get help from HUD with her electricity bills starting in March, but never could get a straight answer on the program, she said.

Would that overdue money hold her up in the search for a new apartment?

The woman, who is six months pregnant with her fourth child, had crossed Martin Luther King on foot in 100-degree heat and waited an hour in the lobby.

Five minutes after an official called her name, she exited the side door of the agency. The official told her that the HUD representatives present were not the ones who could answer her question.

So it was back to what she's been doing since March: calling the agency, leaving messages.

Sampson said she was planning to marry the father of her children when "all this started" at Buena Vista.

As with several other women interviewed in recent weeks at Buena Vista, she said she was the first member of her immediate family to seek help from government agencies. She wants to get out of those programs - and away from the hardpan, broken glass and bullet shells that now surround their home - before her children get older.

She had seen an apartment on Craig Road and Lamb Boulevard. What did she like about it?

"It's got a back yard," she said. "I need to plant my garden. I put in greens, corn and peas. I can't wait."