Summerlin-area residents among those prevailing from poverty

Working hard and playing by the rules will bring prosperity and the opportunity to get ahead. That's the American dream.

But the struggling American middle class is at risk of plunging into precarious financial waters.

MAKING ENDS MEET WITH LESS

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released the latest figures on poverty. Almost one in six Americans, or 46.2 million people, live in poverty. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011 federal poverty guidelines consider a family of four to be living in poverty if it makes $22,350 or less per year. For a single person, it's $10,890 a year, and for a family of eight, it's $37,630.

Tourist-dependent Las Vegas has been hit harder than other cities during the economic crisis, with high unemployment fueling the situation.

Lutheran Social Services of Nevada, 73 Spectrum Blvd., said it is seeing more families needing help. It provides services such as help with utilities and rental assistance.

"We've seen more and more families in the last couple of years," said Patrick Montejano, director of social services. "It's the ones who did have jobs ... before, it was a lot of homeless individuals that we (were helping). Now, it's working people -- or people who were working -- people with families."

Other local services are feeling the strain as well. Three Square food bank delivered 10 million pounds of food in 2008. This year, it says it will surpass 25 million pounds.

Thomas Carroll, professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said America's Ozzie and Harriet days "are a distant memory."

He warned that today's situation could result in long-term effects for those who have lost their jobs because when the economy recovers and companies hire again, employers will look at applications and find months, perhaps years, of inactivity in the work force.

"They'll see a period of unemployment for a couple years and go, 'I don't know if this guy was lazy or what, and I'm not going to bother to find out,' " he said. "It's a big, gaping hole that could follow them (applicants) for a long time ... this could be a lost generation."

Some families' situations have sunk so far that they've seen the brink of poverty ahead and are climbing back up. They refuse to be another statistic of the middle class America bleeding into the poor.

FAMILY LIVED IN ITS CAR BUT NEVER GAVE UP HOPE

Summerlin residents Dirk and Tammy Rogers moved to Las Vegas from Denver with their two daughters in August 2010. Dirk was looking for work after his employer downsized and his job was eliminated. Tammy, a registered nurse, had to go on disability. She said she'd performed the Heimlich maneuver on a large man, saving his life but throwing her back out in the process. She now walks with a hesitant gait.

Dirk had been a sergeant in the Air Force for 10 years and had taken on various jobs since leaving the service. He said it was discouraging turning in job application after job application.

Things got so bad, the family members had to live in their truck, a 1994 Toyota Hilux with 175,000 miles on it. They drove it to Lake Mead where they could camp in relative safety for $5 a night, the veteran's rate. But they didn't have a tent or any kind of shelter.

"It was kind of fun at first because I like being outside," said Jasmine, 12. "Then it got hard."

"I'm a city girl," said Jade, 13. "I didn't like it, but we didn't have any other choice."

Dirk slept in the bed of the truck. Jasmine, the smallest, took the back seat. Mom and Jade reclined the front seats as far as they could and slept upright. It was winter by then, with temperatures as low as 27 degrees. Tammy would start the truck about every three hours to run the heater for five minutes.

"I was afraid he'd freeze to death," Tammy said of her husband, who was exposed to the elements in the truck bed. "Sometimes I'd hear him get up in the middle of the night, and he'd be shivering, he was so cold."

The family members made do with sponge baths and checked into a motel once a month to shower properly.

But their faith carried them through those tough three months. They refused to miss Sunday services at Central Christian Church in Henderson, not even when they had enough gas to get there but not enough to get back. The two times they got stuck, they said, God put a person in their path to help.

"The second time, a GI saw my vet tags and he said, 'Get your gas can. We'll take you to get it filled,' " Dirk recalled.

They found help at Family Promise, a downtown Las Vegas-based nonprofit group that works with families to get them back on their feet. The organization saw how determined the Rogerses were to get back on track.

"Homelessness is not a definition of a person; it's the definition of a situation," said Terry Lindemann, executive director.

Dirk found work at the Las Vegas Monorail on the graveyard shift. The family moved into housing owned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development until it was able to afford an apartment on its own.

On Nov. 3, a program called Recycled Rides, sponsored by the National Auto Body Council and that partners with many car industry companies, gave away 14 nearly new vehicles to families that had gone through the Family Promise program. The Rogerses were one of the recipient families. They were handed the keys to a 2010 Nissan Pathfinder with 6,900 miles on it. They named it "Daisy."

The Rogerses have not forgotten the generosity they received when they were in need. Tammy has established a chapter of Warm Hands, Warm Hearts, which gives blankets to the homeless.

SINGLE MOTHER WANTS TO WORK BUT PUTS KIDS FIRST

Like the Rogerses, two former Summerlin-area residents also are facing tough times.

Sophia (not her real name) is looking to improve her situation. She is a 33-year-old single mother of two. After she said her husband sabotaged their bank accounts, her marriage broke up and she and her older daughter, now 6, moved to Las Vegas, where her parents already lived. They could help her out. That was three years ago.

"I expected to get a job within a month," she said. "It took four months."

It was a retail position. Absences, due to her daughter being sickly with food allergies, led to Sophia being let go. By then she was living with her boyfriend and was pregnant.

The boyfriend was supposed to get a job first so Sophia could stop home-schooling her daughter, register her for elementary school and look for a job. Two incomes, that was the plan.

But the boyfriend couldn't find work, and he became discouraged. Then, she said, he became abusive. Sophia knew she had to keep her child and newborn safe. The boyfriend had to go.

Once he was out of the house, she found an office job. She said she loved it and the financial security it brought.

"They said it was temporary, but if I did a good job, (the company) might find a way to keep me on," she said.

She did a good job. The position was eliminated anyway. She could not secure another.

Sophia and the children landed at the Shade Tree, a shelter for women in crisis. It's temporary, while she waits for unemployment benefits and Section 8 housing to kick in. Moving to Las Vegas, she said, was not the solution for which she'd hoped.

"I thought it'd be a steppingstone, be here a year or two, then move back east," she said as she watched her daughters playing nearby.

Still, Sophia is looking ahead. In five years she'd like to finish her degree, find a job in environmental science and make a difference cleaning up the Earth's water supply.

"It doesn't help that there are no jobs," she said. "I mean, I'm more than willing to work, I'd take two jobs or three, if it was just me. But I have a responsibility to them (her daughters)."

Somehow, she said, they'd get by.

54-YEAR-OLD HAS BEEN WITHOUT A JOB SINCE 2007

Patricia Funck, 54, single and never married, and her teacup Chihuahua, Pepper, also are victims of the economy. Funck is plagued by back problems, but she never let that keep her from being responsible for herself. The former ski resort supervisor took a job driving tour buses in Las Vegas. Then the economy dried up, and the tour company laid her off. She looked and looked, but there were no other jobs. She's been living with bated breath since 2007.

"I ran out of savings, ran out of jewelry to sell," she said.

She lost her apartment, and her car was repossessed. At first Funck was staying with friends, but they moved out of town. She found refuge at the Shade Tree, which also takes in women in economic crisis.

At the shelter since April, she is trying to qualify for disability coverage. It's an uphill battle, she said, with lots of red tape. She was told it might take 120 days to a year before her case is resolved.

"It's overwhelming. You wonder what your life is about," she said. "You question your own perseverance. It demoralizes you."

She has begun painting -- one, a landscape, hangs at the UPS store at Sahara Avenue and Decatur Boulevard -- and is crossing her fingers that it will sell. Maybe she'll build a website and sell more of them on it, she said.

When asked who she blamed for the economic crisis, Funck said, "Society, the economy, the ones who get richer and richer."

Meanwhile, her life is on hold at the shelter. One good thing to come of this, she said, is her faith.

"God has comforted me," she said. "He's given me strength."

Contact Summerlin/Summerlin South View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 387-2949.