THE ECONOMY:

Little comfort or joy for many in recession

Lost job dashed California woman’s dream of a new start

Steve Marcus

Virginia Collins says she’s about to be evicted from her Las Vegas apartment because she has been unable to pay rent after being let go from her security guard job in November. Collins’ job search has been unsuccessful, and “sometimes I cry so hard before I go to sleep.”

By Brian Eckhouse (contact)

Thursday, Dec. 25, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The other two profiles in this series:

Numbers tell the story: 900 jobs, 76,400 unemployed (12-7-2008)
Longer lines, slimmer hopes (12-7-2008)
Once a waitress, now just waiting (11-30-2008)
When a recession hits home (11-2-2008)

One of three profiles in an occasional series of stories devoted to people caught in Nevada’s recession.

Five months after moving here from Southern California, Virginia Collins’ life is boxed up again.

Collins, 56, lost her job as a security guard in early November. Except for a one-night stint as a concert usher, she hasn’t been able to find another job. She’s been referred by the state’s employment-assistance office to about 20 companies, but each one says there’s no hiring right now. Maybe next month, they say.

She doesn’t qualify for unemployment in Nevada but hopes to collect from California. She’s saddled with a monthly payment of $480 for a 2007 Dodge Charger. There’s a $90 monthly charge for a storage unit in California. And she spends between $75 and $100 monthly on gasoline, to inquire about potential openings. On this day she has $50 in cash.

To help her out, a relative wired $200, which Collins used to buy fundraising chocolate bars from See’s Candies. She then sold them outside post offices, Wal-Marts and other stores to patrons, reaping $400 initially. Collins used some of the money to pay bills and buy another $108 box of chocolate bars to sell.

The chocolate, she says, is her “salvation.”

Peddling chocolate was the last thing on her mind when she moved to Las Vegas, taking a two-bedroom apartment off South Nellis Boulevard in mid-September.

She hasn’t been able to pay her $800 rent in two months and is on the verge of being evicted.

Just a few years ago, she had $10,000 in savings from a day-care business she ran out of her Upland, Calif., home. But that business ultimately cratered, her marriage of eight years began to fizzle and she lost that $150,000 home to foreclosure. The only job she could land was as part-time school bus driver.

Her 28-year-old daughter had moved to Las Vegas and encouraged her to follow. Tickled by the idea of a fresh start in a new town, Collins lined up a job as a guard and was stationed with her daughter, also a security guard, at a communications company.

In early November, Collins lost her guard job. She says she wasn’t told why. In search of new work, she visits JobConnect, the state’s public employment agency, three times a week, so far to no avail.

And back at her apartment, she’s reminded of the despair in her life: boxes of clothes, dolls and Christmas ornaments crowd her living room and master bedroom.

“Sometimes I cry so hard before I go to sleep,” Collins says, as televangelist Benny Hinn whispers from a CD player. “Then I read the word and encourage myself in what God says. It gives me strength to go a little further. God will come through.”

Collins hoped to find a roommate to ease some of the burden, but was unaware Monday that she could post a free listing on the Internet. (She has since done so).

If Collins is evicted, she’ll move into the $826-a-month one-bedroom apartment her daughter shares with a friend. “She’s not gonna let her mama sleep on the stoop,” Collins says.

Discussion: 3 comments so far…

By annienonymouse

12/25/08 at 6:08 a.m.

Suggest removal

Nevada employers do not need a reason to fire someone. This is a right to work state.
By azsk8fan

12/25/08 at 6:54 a.m.

Suggest removal

It's surprising to lose a security guard job because security companies are always begging for help - Try AlliedBarton - they still hold job fairs at their office weekly and are constantly looking for dependable workers who are willing to be flexible and work for about 10 bucks an hour - not a lot but still better than nothing. Good Luck.
By RunningonEmpty

12/25/08 at 7:40 a.m.

Suggest removal

Unfortunately this is a common scene across our nation. This past year has been a tough one for all of us. We seriously need to get on with becoming energy independent. Utilizing alternative energy sources would not only lessen our dependence on foreign oil it would create cheap, clean energy, as well as create millions of badly needed new green collar jobs. This past year the high cost of fuel seriously damaged our economy and society. It destroyed every imaginable budget from national to state to the local school. While some are foolish enough to be doing the happy dance around the lower prices at the pumps they are totally missing out on the news that OPEC is planning to cut production and raise the price per barrel back up to between 75-100 bucks again. I just read Jeff Wilson's new book The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now. wwww.themanhattanprojectof2009.com It would cost the equivalent of 60 cents per gallon to charge and drive an electric vehicle. The electricity to charge the vehicle could come partially or totally from electricity generated by wind or solar. One of the most fascinating facts in the book is that ...If all gasoline cars, trucks, and suv's instead had plug-in electric drive trains, the amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota. Why don't we use some of the billions in bail out money to bail us out of our dependence on foreign oil? We must move forward as nation towards energy independence. Oil is finite, it will run out one day in the not too distant future. We need to put some of those bail out bucks to good use and bail our country out of it's dependence on foreign oil.

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