A brutal job market and a national recession are sending a wave of first-time homeless into the shelters of Las Vegas, increasing pressure on already underfunded social services.

Shelters are coping with record occupancy rates and demands for services while at the same time adjusting for a donor base that has evaporated.

“We have a 50 percent decline in donations and a 30 percent increase in services,” said Marlene Richter, executive director of The Shade Tree, a homeless shelter exclusively for women and their children.

“It’s a nightmare,” she said.

Unemployment broke the 12 percent barrier for the first time in Las Vegas and two-thirds of those currently homeless cite job loss as the primary factor, according to the official 2009 Homeless Census and Survey. In 2007, when the survey was last conducted, only one third cited job loss.

Furthermore, the percentage of respondents citing the lack of jobs as a barrier to getting employment increased from 9 percent in 2007 to 37 percent in 2009.

Add to that a nation-leading foreclosure rate and a recession that keeps families from taking in relatives that they could otherwise support for a few months, and you have severe systemic distress.

“Our women are staying longer than they have a year ago or five years ago and it’s taking them much longer to find a job, even with the structured program that we offer and the numerous assistances that we provide,” said Richter.

Richter recently laid off her entire development staff. She says she’ll rehire them when throwing fundraising events and writing grants is no longer a fruitless investment.

The stress on organizations of extended stays and the need for more involved help is compounded by the wave of first-time homeless.

“One of the greatest shifts that I’ve seen is that the families that are coming in are a little bit higher up on the economic strata,” said Terry Lindemann, executive director of Family Promise, an organization that deals exclusively with family units.

“The economic crisis has created an increased need for the social services,” she said, “and has made it tighter and tougher for everybody to get the services that they need to save them.”

There is a 17 percent increase in the overall number of homeless versus 2007 and a 19 percent bump in those staying in shelters as opposed to living on the streets.

When one considers that 80 percent of the homeless surveyed this year have lived in Clark County for more than a year and more than half moved to Nevada because they were seeking work, the statistics show the promise of a better life gone wrong.
“I think it reflects the growth of Nevada and the Sun Belt in general that the homeless has grown so much,” said Michael Green, a UNLV professor and Nevada state historian.

“It also reflects the failure of Nevada to have a social safety net.”

None see that failure as close up as the residents of The Shade Tree.

“I’m 46-years-old, I made the grades, I’ve always had my own place and I raised my two children by myself,” said Tanya Griffin, who lives at the shelter with her 16-year-old daughter Nicole.

“I should have owned a house by now.”

Griffin left Southern California and her husband when she found out he was abusing drugs behind her back for years. The rent in San Bernardino was too much for a single mom with her daughter, so they went to Las Vegas and then to Kansas only, to wind up back in Las Vegas.

Griffin had troubles making ends meet in Kansas City and thinks she could have stuck it out, but her daughter had roots in Las Vegas from their first stint, so she decided to return for Nicole’s sake.

“So here we are, no money and I’m running on faith,” Griffin said, “but I’m pounding the pavement in this hot sun, putting in applications, doing everything I have to do.”

As a long term resident of The Shade Tree, “everything” includes more than job hunting. Everyone contributes to the cleanliness of the shelter. Some residents even cook. And everyone is required to take classes that range from resumé workshops to coping with domestic violence to budgeting for a household.

Some, like Donna Cotharn, only require a short stay to get back on their feet. Cotharn’s mother died in her daughter’s arms last November from pneumonia. Cotharn didn’t have the military pension her mother earned at Pearl Harbor in World War II, so she was evicted from their North Las Vegas trailer home.

“It’s been two weeks now and I still haven’t gotten over it,” she said.

As she relates her story on the smoking patio of the third floor at The Shade Tree, she tears up with any mention of her mother. Other ladies who are out for a smoke come to rub her back or give her a comforting hug.

For Erin Mendoza, that sense of community and support among the 300 or so women and children staying at The Shade Tree each night makes all the difference.

“You start banding together and become your own support system,” Mendoza said, “like watching each other’s kids during job interviews or helping each other out when the someone’s sick.”

Mendoza, 30, has been in Las Vegas for 12 years. She got pregnant at the age of 18 and her mother, who had just taken a new husband, dropped her off on the doorstep of The Shade Tree and said good-bye.

“She didn’t want her new husband to see her as a grandmother, or a mother at all,” Mendoza said, “even though she had a four bedroom house.”

She was in and out quickly. The youthful air of invincibility drove her unwillingness to do the program.

Mendoza spent the next decade on and off crystal meth, in and out of prostitution and jail, and fleeing a string of both straight and gay abusive relationships.

She was pregnant nine more times in that span. Of the four that she gave birth to, she only has custody of 11-year-old Vincent Rojas now.

“The stress was so much and I didn’t really have much family or support,” she said.

“I couldn’t afford a babysitter or hold down a job and the meth let me stay up with my kids through their ear infections, clean the house, and be ‘the mom.’”

Mendoza had several bouts with Child Protective Services, where she says the attitude toward a single mother with a history of meth use was utterly deflating.

“The first thing they say is that you’re not going to make it,” she said as frustration crept into her voice.

She recalls them telling her “you can sign these papers and we can adopt your kids now, or we can do it in two years when you fail.”

“I felt abandoned,” she said, recounting scheduled visits with her children. They were to be in public locations as the fathers watched despite Mendoza continually testing clean for six months straight.

“I’m sitting in a McDonald’s with men who have beat me trying to split two hours between three kids.”

The stipulations for custody were steep: a house with a bedroom for each of her four children. Her desperation eventually led her back to prostitution.

She fell in with a pimp that started hitting her and threatened to shoot her one day.

“I thought, ‘I want to live to see my kids one day,’” Mendoza said, “so I called the police, had them put him in jail, and went to rehab.”

She lasted about two weeks before she was back on the streets and using. Soon after, she finally hit a breaking point.

“I decided that the only person who could help me was me,” she said, “so I just started to take it one minute at a time.”

It was then, 11 years later, that Erin Mendoza came full circle in her life and walked through the doors of The Shade Tree again.

This time, Mendoza is taking advantage of every opportunity The Shade Tree provides her, taking courses in job development, computer skills, parenting and budgeting. She also attends an in-house domestic violence support group called “I Am Powerful.”

Her efforts landed her two jobs at the Rampart Casino in Summerland: one as a hostess/cashier paying $10.50 an hour and the other as a buffet buser making $7.50 an hour.

She got a letter from the casino confirming that she will be working at least 30 hours a week, which opens the door to many public health benefits that require full-time employment.

Tanya Griffin, Donna Cotharn, and Erin Mendoza represent the gamut of those homeless in Las Vegas who haven’t given up and resigned themselves to life in a tent near Main and Foremaster.

On the 2009 Homeless Census, they are just numbers. But to Marlene Richter and her staff, they are people in need of help with stories and needs as unique as their fingerprints.

“Before people look down their nose at the living circumstances of some people, they should stop and think, what would happen if they lost their job,” said Mendoza.

“Half of Vegas is only a paycheck away from being where I am.”