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Family savors life off Las Vegas streets
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Jim Miller/Las Vegas Review-Journal
Michael McGrath, 17, and his parents, Jennifer and Mark McGrath, moved into their one-bedroom apartment just more than a month ago. The family was living in a homeless encampment until outreach workers from HELP of Southern Nevada got them into housing. » Buy this photo
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The McGrath family, Michael, 17, Jennifer, 42, and Mark, 52, moved out of a tent in the homeless corridor more than a month ago. They are still adjusting to intensive case management through Straight from the Streets, a nonprofit that works with HELP of Southern Nevada to get chronic homeless people off the streets for good. Jim Miller/Las Vegas Review-Journal » Buy this photo
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Feb. 20, 2012 | 11:26 a.m.
It's been just over a month since the McGrath family moved out of a dusty tent in the homeless corridor, but in some ways it feels like a lifetime.
"I've been enjoying hanging out, watching TV," Michael McGrath, 17, said while snacking on potato chips in the family's new apartment near the Strip. "It's a lot better than a tent."
Homeless outreach workers from HELP of Southern Nevada moved the Rancho High School senior and his parents into the one-bedroom apartment after the family's plight was detailed in the Review-Journal. The three had been homeless about a year, the last two weeks of which were spent in an encampment on Owens Avenue near Interstate 15.
A lot has changed since then. For one thing, the McGraths now are passing their drug tests. Mark, 52, and Jennifer, 42, initially tested positive for methamphetamine. Michael admitted smoking marijuana not long before the family was housed.
Michael now happily volunteers for testing.
"I'm glad I can pass," he said.
His parents, too, are staying clean so far.
"I'm not going to say it's not hard," Jennifer said. "There have been times I really wanted to" use drugs.
They still are adjusting to intensive case management through Straight from the Streets, a decades-old nonprofit that works hand in hand with HELP to get chronic homeless people off the streets for good. Caseworkers stop in to check on the family. Mark and Jennifer are expected to regularly attend outpatient drug treatment classes, along with individual counseling sessions.
"They're always going to meetings. I'm always going to school," Michael said.
What hasn't changed is the affection that kept them together. They didn't go to a shelter earlier, they said, because they may have had to separate.
"We really do love him to death," Mark said while ruffling Michael's hair.
"I love you guys, too," Michael said. "Even though you're embarrassing sometimes."
As nice as it is to have a real roof over their heads, the family's new living situation brings its own challenges. Michael's commute to and from school each day, via city bus, takes more than an hour each way. Jennifer, meanwhile, is terrified that everything could be taken away in an instant.
"I don't want someone to say, 'Thirty days and you gotta get out,' " she said.
The program doesn't follow a strict timeline. Sometimes it takes years for participants to become fully independent and leave the program. Others decide it isn't for them and drop out.
"It's a tough road back," said Linda Lera-Randle El, director of Straight from the Streets. "For people who have gone so long in survival mode, just being in a structured program is a lot to take on."
For Mark, an Air Force veteran who previously worked in construction, it's hard to accept caseworkers' instructions not to seek employment right away so he can focus on his sobriety.
"It was hard not taking jobs" that were offered after the family's story appeared in the newspaper, he said. "It's hard having people say to her (Jennifer) that I should get a job."
This also frustrates Jennifer, but she understands the reasoning.
"They want us to recover and focus on building a sturdy foundation so we can stand on it," she said. "They're there to help us."
Michael, too, initially wanted to get a job. Caseworkers advised him to slow down and concentrate on school. He is on track to graduate in June, just a couple weeks after his 18th birthday.
Caseworkers plan to move the family to a more permanent location next month, a nearby two-bedroom apartment.
It will be the first time Michael has had his own room in about a decade. It's a long way from the two-man tent he shared with his parents.
"I'm really looking forward to it," he said.
The encampment, once inhabited by scores of homeless people, is now empty. Police, social service workers and volunteers staged a massive intervention in the area last month, a coordinated effort to clean it up and steer people into services.
Some, like the McGraths, accepted help. Others simply moved along.
The McGraths sometimes run into their former neighbors on the bus.
"A couple joined the program. Others sleep here and there," Jennifer said.
Glancing out a window toward stormy skies, she said the best part of her new life is, "on days like this, I'm not sleeping in it."
For Mark, it is "having the rent paid so we can get our lives in order. It is so tough if you gotta do it on your own."
The family isn't sure what the future holds, but is OK with that.
"I don't know what's going to happen in six months," Jennifer said. "I have made some bad choices, but I'm sure God has a plan for me."
After graduation, Michael plans to get a job and hopes to attend college or a vocational program. He also would like to have his own place.
"What comes next, I don't know."
Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@reviewjournal.com.
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Guaranteed Obummer will get all 3 votes.
The most irresponsible thing for a drug addict to have is access to money early in their recovery.
"Hey, I work now. I can reward myself with a $20 sac of some dope....Plus, I'll have more energy to work!"
These are thoughts that take time to quiet down...and thoughts that will NEVER go away.
Hey, i'd rather see an AMERICAN family get housing than an illegal alien family from mexico who just had their anchor baby on U.S. soil, allowing them to reap the benefits from American taxpayers. My only hope is the McGrath family realizes that drugs are not the answer in life. They never were! Stay sober, and stay clean, and stay living in your own residence. Get back on the drugs, and you don't know where you're going to be living. Probably back on the streets again, where homeless people ARE a target by some very heinous individuals out there. They will beat you with baseball bats, or shoot you, or stab you, or throw rocks at you, or harass you. People are evil out there. They get off on other people's sorrows in life. C'mon McGrath family! We are cheering for you to do the right thing! NO MORE DRUGS!!!!!!!
Hey Throckmorton.. Have you ever been down and out?Don't judge this family until you have walked in their shoes. If my tax dollar goes to helping people lift themselves out of the depths of dispair, then it's money well spent. When I see a story such as this, I am reminded of an old saying that goes like this, "I once cried when my feet hurt untill I met a man with no legs". As for me, I'll pray for this family's recovery.
Ok Mcgrath family, now the ball is in your court. Make it or break it. I bet about 90% of these bloggers think you'll fall flat on your faces. So prove them wrong. Stay clean and sober, focus of the future, and forget the past. If you should fail, you will have no one to blame but yourselves."He helps those that help themselves" Good luck.
@Arthur Throckmorton....It must be nice to sit at your computer, log on to you high speed internet pass judgement on a family you know nothing about. But what's really nice is being able to pass said judgement without bothering to do a simple thing like reading the story!
"It must be nice to be able to sit around and watch TV (cable?)and afford potato chips while on public assistance....indoor plumbing,....these are luxuries that should be earned once one is off the public dole." Where is it stated that are receiving a dime of government assistance? Nowhere!!! That's where. But I guess little things like facts are luxuries that ignorant hate mongers like you can't afford let getting in the way of your need to feast on the misery of their fellow man. I feel so bad for you that you aren't able to take some sick pleasure in the knowledge that this family is defecating in alleyways.
The mom in this story looks so much better. At first, I was also wondering why they were being discouraged from getting jobs right away, but it makes sense. If you have no money, you can't buy drugs. It gives them time to get their heads together while sleeping indoors.
And seriously, if you are envious of some kid eating potato chips after school, WTF is wrong with your life?
@Arthur Throckmorton....Since when is indoor plumbing a luxury? By the way, there was no mention in the story of the McGraths being on public assistance. The organizations helping them are privately funded. I can promise you that those who donate to these type of charities do not mind if the people they are helping eat potato chips.
Some people would not be happy until the poor in this country look like to poor in Calcutta
@Arthur Thorckmorton, I agree with your post 100%. By the way, how are the Buicks?