THE HIDDEN HOMELESS: Down and out in Pahrump

Home to a few residents of Pahrump is perhaps just a strip of cardboard, a sleeping bag and a few other bare essentials with no roof over their heads.

Unlike the more visible homeless problem of Las Vegas, where the city is cracking down on a large camp near downtown, the homeless in Pahrump are almost invisible, except for those relaxing in the daytime shade in Petrack Park.

Idaho native Jim Graffee, 62, first arrived in Pahrump last spring. During an interview at Petrack Park last week, Graffee sat next to a shopping cart filled with a briefcase, a Bud Light box containing personal items, water bottles and other essentials. A friendly, personable man, Graffee said he has been homeless for a year since he left a job as a drop porter at the Exchange Club Casino in Beatty, where he received a room and two complimentary meals per day.

Graffee said he sleeps behind the shops in the Pahrump Valley Junction Shopping Center. Once, he recalled startling a worker from Round Table Pizza taking out the trash. But he said a cleaning lady who noticed him reading a book about 10:30 p.m. didn't seem too surprised.

"It doesn't bother me really, because I was in the hospital in Vegas, I got an ulcerated left leg," Graffee said about being homeless. "I was in and out of there (the hospital) a lot of times."

Graffee said before Beatty, he worked for a friend from Portland, Ore., who put on a gun show in Carson City.

"I was going to Henderson for the winter. I'm a welder by trade," Graffee said. However he said his welding license expired. His car still sits in Beatty needing a carburetor.

Graffee said he visited the Nevada Health and Human Services office the day after he arrived in Pahrump. That was after camping out at Petrack Park.

"She looked up my file and said it was too late to help me. But they bought me some medicine," Graffee said. "When I first came here, the carnival was on. I slept there (the park) one night."

While his accommodation in Pahrump is outside, Graffee prefers that to the homeless shelter in Las Vegas.

"Those people are all drunk and it smells. I'd rather sleep out on the street. Plus I'm kind of independent. You have to be in at 10 (p.m.) and out at 5 (a.m.)," Graffee said.

Graffee stops in for a cup of free coffee in the morning at the delicatessen of Albertson's supermarket. He often washes up in the restrooms at Petrack Park. Graffee said he's an avid reader, his daily routine also consists of writing letters. He just completed reading a biography about the late actress Natalie Wood, he's now reading a book about Anita Bryant.

"I was 62 in March but for some reason I just put off signing up for Social Security," Graffee said. When he did sign up, Graffee said he couldn't show his birth certificate, but he eventually obtained that. A few days ago, Graffee said he received a letter stating he'd be receiving $900 per month in social security, $400 more than he thought, enough to end his homeless situation.

A couple that saw him last week sleeping at the shopping center with all his junk offered him a job in California, Graffee said.

Greg and Gerald Beavers, identical twins originally from Bakersfield, Calif., have been picking up odd jobs since their arrival in Pahrump, such as working for Ron Frazier at the Gallery of Home Furnishings. The Beavers are sleeping in the field behind Frazier's store. The Beavers say they're custom painters and formerly worked for their parents.

"We've been homeless for about 11 years. We've been getting jobs off and on, nothing stable," Greg Beavers said. "We got tired of Las Vegas. When we went to Las Vegas there's gambling, drugs and stuff like that."

Greg Beavers said he just wanted peace of mind, so he came out to Pahrump, though there's not many job opportunities here.

"This would be the best place to be homeless because there's not a lot of riff-raff up here," Greg Beavers said.

Before the sun wakes them up early , Greg Beavers said they're up by 4 a.m. to begin looking for work. The twins have stopped at Pahrump Labor Service and picked up some trenching work in the area for $6 per hour. Greg Beavers said they also received $50 worth of food vouchers for Smith's Food and Drug.

"The Salvation Army put us up for a couple nights at the Saddle West. It's a one-time shot," Greg Beavers said. "They have helped me and my brother greatly."

Greg Beavers said they use the bathrooms at the Pahrump Municipal Swimming Pool to take a shower.

"I can't stand sleeping in the desert. It sucks," Gerald Beavers said. "Thank God the sheriffs don't bother us."

That's a different situation from where they stayed by the railroad tracks in downtown Las Vegas, where Greg Beavers said the police were always harassing people.

Joy Morrissey, manager of Pahrump Labor Service, said her office provides jobs to more than 300 people a year through mostly day labor. Morrissey said there are more homeless people in Pahrump than the public realizes.

"I get probably most of them, the ones that just aren't passing through," Morrissey said. "It kind of upsets me that people don't realize what a homeless problem and what an unemployment problem we have."

Some of the unemployed aren't reflected in state statistics because they don't sign up for unemployment benefits and aren't counted, she said. Morrissey recalled some of the homeless people she knew.

"I had one guy who used to sleep in the mesquite trees on Mesquite (Street)," Morrissey said. "A few years ago, we had a guy we used to call Desert John because he slept out in the desert." Desert John later worked his way up to director of maintenance at a local casino and now deals cards, she said.

"The good ones seem to make it, the others leave town," she said. "To me, a homeless person is someone who has no home of their own. We have a lot of people who sleep in their cars, or get a room with somebody in exchange for helping out."

Jodi Ann Petrulionis, a case manager for Pahrump Family Resource Center, said Petrack Park is a convenient place for the homeless because it's centrally located. Petrulionis said her center receives homeless people "every now and then."

"When we do get homeless people that stop in here, we try to do anything we can to get them into some housing or getting (them) a shower of some kind. We try to work with them to get employment, so they don't have to be homeless," Petrulionis said.

If somebody has a place for rent, the Family Resource Center will provide a guarantee of payment if the homeless person has a job that will last and is a familiar client, Petrulionis said. The Family Resource Center often refers the homeless to the Salvation Army, she said.

Capt. Arlene Torres, commanding officer for the Pahrump Salvation Army, said there is a grant program for the mentally disabled who are homeless because they are unable to take care of themselves. There are four people from Pahrump in that program right now, she said, however it requires leaving for a shelter in Las Vegas.

"When we try to guide them that way they don't want to leave Pahrump. We don't have a facility here, I don't think anybody does. It is our hope in the future we would be able to bring a shelter here for the homeless, some place to get a meal and a place to sleep at night, they would have to leave in the morning," Torres said.

The Salvation Army has some funds to put homeless up in local hotels, she said. "We can only do that on a one time basis, maximum two nights per family. Our funds, they're limited. In order to help more people we cannot justify putting a person up in a hotel for a month when there are families that can use a two night stay and get on their feet," Torres said.

This past week for example, Torres said she helped out two families who were evicted by their landlord because of a hefty electric bill, which was included in the rent. One family was housed for two days at the Best Western, the other at the Day's Inn, both had a promise of a place to stay after that, she said.

"There's no (homeless) shelter and there really is no help at all. We can help them with one month's rent but they have to show they have enough income coming in to meet the next month's rent and show why they had an emergency to end up in that situation," said Karyn Smith, an employee with Nevada Health and Human Services.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Section 8 program provides rental assistance, but Smith said there is a year and a half. waiting list.