Friday, Jan. 19, 2007 | 6:55 a.m.
Weary from roaming the streets of Las Vegas all day, homeless teenager Tremain Roseman leaned against a graffiti-painted wall of a dilapidated building near Wyoming and Western avenues and shook his head.
Broke, hungry and seemingly hopeless just two days before graduating from Advanced Technologies Academy, Roseman drifted asleep on the grimy sidewalk.
Some nine months earlier - just shy of starting his senior year in high school - Roseman had been thrown out of his house by his parents, who complained that he had been neglecting his studies in favor of minimum-wage jobs.
And now, having stayed in school but with his grades suffering even more, his hopes of becoming an architect seemed in even greater jeopardy.
"I was as low as I could get," Roseman said.
After graduation he swallowed his pride and went to the Center for Independent Living, a shelter for Southern Nevada's homeless youth that has quietly assisted about 3,000 down-and-out teens in 13 years.
Today, the 19-year-old Roseman is an architecture student at UNLV.
He credits the nonprofit shelter and its program director, Thomas Kelly, with turning his life around.
"Stories like Tremain's happen all the time," Kelly said. "Tremain's story may differ from the norm in that there was no abuse or drugs involved, but it shows that anybody can become homeless. Anybody.
"Our job is to first build self-esteem in these kids."
The center, which operates 60 apartments for youths ages 16 to 21, also provides educational and vocational training and casework services to address substance abuse issues or emotional problems.
In turn, the center requires its residents to attend high school or college and maintain jobs, from which 80 percent of their earnings are put into savings accounts so that when they leave the center they will have rent money, deposit fees and a nest egg to fall back on.
In addition to going to classes at UNLV, Roseman works for a local civil engineering firm and is back on course to becoming an architect.
Roseman, who created his first building design in the sixth grade and won $300 in a high school drafting contest, has his first assignment: concept drawings for the Center for Independent Living's campus expansion.
Roseman and Kelly said the nonpaying job includes creating designs for an indoor basketball court and adding living space, offices and other buildings at the current site near downtown Las Vegas.
And if the project takes a few years to come to fruition, Roseman could earn his degree and maybe be hired to do some of the architectural blueprints, Kelly said.
The Center for Independent Living operates at about 95 percent capacity and survives solely on grants and donations. No money is taken from the young residents to defer costs, Kelly said.
Like similar organizations, it is constantly and desperately in need of money.
It is success stories like Roseman's that has caught the attention of Sherial Bratcher, founder and chief executive of Diamond Star Events, a business networking firm.
Bratcher is empathetic to the challenges facing young people. As a teenager she lived for a year with her mother and four brothers in a chicken coop in Oklahoma.
"Because of my experiences as a homeless youth, this cause is special to me," Bratcher said. "We would like to spur the community to get involved in helping homeless teens."
To that end, Diamond Star Events hopes to raise $200,000 for the Center for Independent Living at a fundraising party Feb. 17 at Paris Las Vegas.
The event will honor several community leaders such as university system Chancellor Jim Rogers, Regent Thalia Dondero and local businesswoman Jaki Baskow. Tickets are $225 per person and are available at diamondstarevents.com.
Kelly said money donated to his organization is a good investment in Southern Nevada's future.
"We try to get to these kids before they develop a street mentality and surrender to the street culture that often results in prostitution, joining gangs and committing crimes to support drug habits," he said.
"The stability we provide is cost-effective for the general public because it helps reduce crimes caused by the need to survive on the streets and helps kids understand the long-term consequences of their actions."
Roseman said he did not turn to crime when he was homeless, but still learned a great deal about himself from the center's intervention.
"The center taught me that I cannot be so stubborn about things," Roseman said. "I still have goals, but now I am more humble."
Kelly said there are no pat answers to address teen homelessness.
In Roseman's case, he said, "we appealed to his intellectual side. We embraced his individuality. We supported his desire to be an independent thinker.
"If you want to stop the problem of adult homelessness, you have to work to prevent teen homelessness," Kelly said.
Roseman said he believes he will spend another year at the center before he is ready to venture out on his own - with a home of his own and stability.
"I believe that with what I have learned here I will be successful," he said.
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