- [Interviewer] Derwin.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] You're living in this tent in Las Vegas.
- I am.
- [Interviewer] You said you've been here two years.
- Back two years.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
Tell me about homelessness in Las Vegas.
- Well, it's horrible.
It's not the people.
You eat, you eat well.
People bring food and clothes and things,
but it seem like mostly it's the ones with the nice homes
that have a true hatred.
I don't know why, but it's horrible.
- [Interviewer] So the house people hate y'all.
- Yes, yes they do.
- [Interviewer] What's that make you feel like?
- Oh man, it make me feel like a piece of shit at times.
And I see them as that way too.
It make me not want to take my frustrations out
on the next person that I meet.
So that's the way I have to look at it.
- [Interviewer] And you're disabled on SSI.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] So you got a couple of wheelchairs out here.
- Yes, yes.
Police department arrest me for trespass.
We're actually trespassing right now.
But in the morning you can go to jail.
I don't understand that.
There's nowhere for us to go.
In their eyes it's trespassing
and they take you to jail if they want to.
- [Interviewer] And it's $100 or $1000 fine,
or six months in jail.
- Yes, it is.
- [Interviewer] For being homeless.
- Yes, yeah, it's very expensive.
But you have to do at least,
probably at least a week or two,
I've done 20 days in there and 10 days.
- [Interviewer] So you've been arrested
and did jail time for homelessness?
- Yes, yes. They call it trespassing.
- [Interviewer] That's horrible.
- It is, it is. And it's even worse once you're inside.
No one gets to see what the officers really do.
- [Interviewer] I'm so sorry.
- Yeah.
Well, so am I, but I'm not afraid to tell the truth.
- [Interviewer] Right.
Well, you were telling me you get disability,
but it's not enough to, the rents went up $250 a month,
and your checks didn't go up $250.
- It did not.
I think our checks went up $15 that year.
That was two years ago, 2000.
The year before that, I went back down South
for one year now, returned, I had been here eight years.
I went back for one year, came back,
and I've been back two years.
And I had a nice apartment and I was able to maintain it.
And with government assistance, of course,
on light bills and things like that,
but I was able to pay for it out of my check.
But when it went up $250,
it went over the amount of my check.
- [Interviewer] And you're back outside.
- Yes, yes.
I tried to stay in a hotel. It can't be done.
There's not enough money in your check.
So I ended up in a tent which damaged me last winter.
I got neuropathy in my foot.
- [Interviewer] It gets cold out here. People don't realize.
They think Vegas is the desert and it gets hot.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] But it's been 20, 30 degrees at night.
- Yes, and the worst,
it's like just when the sun is coming up
and that's the time they ask you to move
and get up and pack your things and go out.
They'll take their little bulldozers and little tractors
and scoop your stuff up and tell you you'll be arrested.
- [Interviewer] Oh my gosh.
- You gotta move really fast.
You gotta wake up cold and you have to pack your stuff up
and people be crying.
Yeah, it's horrible.
And then you have to go and sometimes
you just have to leave everything you got.
- [Interviewer] Right.
And I started all over again,
which most of it comes from donations
and gifts from other people that you never met before.
So that make it twice as hard to start over
'cause I just can't go in a store.
You can't do that because if you carry your backpack
and stuff, they don't want you to come inside.
Because they know it's the same
and they just judge you before you even get there.
- [Interviewer] My goodness.
- You can't take backpack in the stores,
and people have everything in their life in there at times
when they have to go and take care of the business.
- [Interviewer] Because you believe it in your tent,
it gets stolen.
- It's gonna get stolen.
- [Interviewer] Right.
- Which is the most heinous crime of all.
I think they are the lowest of the lowest people
on the face of this planet.
One homeless person stealing from another one.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, but people are in survival mode.
- Yes, yes.
But the other homeless is the one, at the end of the day,
really gonna help you through it.
When you need something,
they gonna come through for you every time.
- [Interviewer] If you had three wishes, what would they be?
- No more homelessness, for sure.
Not as a person that chooses,
I'll just rather sleep outside, and some people like that,
I've met a lot of veterans like that.
I know a lot of veterans like that.
They have places and they prefer to live outside.
So no more homelessness.
That would be my first wish.
My second wish.
I mean, just the basics of, no more stealing,
no more taking, no more robbery, no more, no more of that.
It's senseless.
And third, we all can just have some peace.
- [Interviewer] Great wishes.
- Thanks.
- [Interviewer] Thank you very much for talking to me.
- And thank you very much.
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