CARING COUPLE SLOWS DOWN

These days, Fred and Nancy Gillis are simply visitors to the Center for Independent Living.

The couple has retired from the downtown shelter for homeless youths, which they founded in 1994.

But that doesn't mean they're gone, exactly.

"We've resigned, but you don't leave something like this," Nancy Gillis, 63, said during a Friday morning visit to the shelter.

"I'm going to be volunteering quite a bit," Fred Gillis, 65, said.

The Gillises apparently haven't been forgotten, either.

"Hey, Dr. Gillis! Mrs. Gillis!" a teenage boy called from a patio when the couple arrived.

The Gillises got several hugs and an entourage of young people who tagged along as they walked the property at Las Vegas Boulevard and Foremaster Lane.

The couple announced their retirement this month and handed over control of the nonprofit shelter to HELP of Southern Nevada, which operates several programs for the poor.

Exhausted by years of round-the-clock responsibilities associated with running the facility, the Gillises wanted to spend more time with their three grandchildren and on the golf course.

They also have been caring for Nancy Gillis' ailing 87-year-old mother.

"I think I was naive about what it would take" to run the center, Fred Gillis said. "I'm glad I did it, but it was so much work."

The couple, originally from Massachusetts, have lived in Las Vegas for 35 years. They've been married 41.

Fred Gillis was a local psychologist specializing in treating families and adolescents when he decided to open a shelter for young people.

"I worked with a lot of kids," he said. "There was no facility for kids, especially foster kids."

"Because he was a psychologist, he saw the gap," Nancy Gillis said.

A former schoolteacher and boutique owner, Nancy Gillis focused on developing relationships between the center and the "social-work world" and getting the word out about the shelter's services.

In the early years, the center's budget was $500,000 a year. It housed 20 young people at a time.

Today, the center's budget is about $1.3 million, and it shelters about 40 youths. Funding comes from private donations and contracts with local municipalities and the state.

About 3,000 youths ages 16 to 21 have stayed at the center since it opened.

The facility provides housing, counseling, substance abuse treatment and job placement. Each resident gets an individual treatment plan. The young residents can stay as long as they are enrolled in school, have a job or both.

They must be drug-free, and they are required to observe nightly curfews and save 80 percent of their incomes.

The center's goal is to prepare the young people to care for themselves by teaching them how to find a job, cook for themselves, get along with roommates and pay bills.

Residents are referred to the center from various social service agencies and shelters. Some simply walk in off the street. Many are former foster kids or runaways from abusive homes. Plenty come with substance abuse problems.

"They're basically good kids who have been dealt a bad hand," Fred Gillis said. "They don't have the safety net most people take for granted. They're used to people going in and out of their lives, so they don't trust you."

Some of the kids go on to thrive, he said, while others fail. You can't predict who will succeed.

"Some of the best kids don't make it, and some of the worst are now strong members of the community," he said.

His favorite success story is that of Jeff, a young man who discovered the center while he was living on the street with his parents and several siblings, selling drugs to get by.

Jeff eventually became an iron worker and is working to adopt his siblings.

"His parents are still homeless, selling drugs," Fred Gillis said. "How did he (Jeff) do that? He used to be up on the corner in a tent. He has something inside not many people have."

After 14 years working with the homeless in the Las Vegas Valley, the Gillises said they've seen a lot of changes for the better.

Service providers have really brought homeless problems into the mainstream and "made people aware," Fred Gillis said. "When we started, people would say, 'Homeless kids? There are no homeless kids.' People didn't realize."

Various agencies that help the homeless have joined forces and learned to collaborate, he said.

"It's improved 100 percent in the last 10 years. People don't stereotype the kids as delinquent and the homeless as lazy as much."

The Gillises said they wanted to allow a larger, established nonprofit like HELP of Southern Nevada to take the center "to the next level."

"We want to drive by and see it prosper," Nancy Gillis said.

But she expects to do more than just drive by, she said.

Gesturing toward the center's basketball court, Nancy Gillis said she expects her husband to spend plenty of time there.

"He'll be shooting hoops over here with the kids."

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0285.