Street Spirit December 2004

Homeless Woman Dies in Las Vegas

Laura Morgan was abandoned by all levels of the system set up to help homeless people. She never found the help she needed from her parole officer, nor from shelters or recovery programs. She died far too young.

by Eugene Barrios

In mid-June 2004, my close friend Laura Morgan was released from the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Facility to enter a program in the Salvation Army. This was the beginning of the end of her life.

Only a month later, Laura would die in Las Vegas at the age of 32, a casualty of the profound neglect of the prison system and the Salvation Army. They jointly set her up to fail so she would either go back to prison or die of a drug overdose.

At the time of her release from prison, Laura was suffering from a full-blown case of AIDS. Dave Lewis of the Salvation Army handled Laura's intake, but was not informed of her neuropathy. Also, he was not given Laura's birth certificate, nor her Social Security card. This kept Laura from receiving any benefits under the Social Security program, including medical benefits.

After only about one week in the program, Laura was hospitalized due to the worsening of her neuropathy. As a result, Lewis decided to place Laura in a homeless shelter. This was a repeat of what happened to Laura one year before. It set her up to fail.

After being informed of the transfer to the homeless shelter, Laura's parole officer wanted to send Laura back to prison. He told her he was through with her and that she would be getting a new parole officer on Monday. This all took place on a Friday.

On the same day, Laura called Kevin Moran of Caminar, an AIDS foundation. He got her a hotel room for the week at the South Cove Motel in Las Vegas, paid for by the AIDS foundation. Moran also managed to place Laura in the EOB AIDS program.

After only a couple of days in EOB, Laura was again hospitalized due to her neuropathy. This time she was given prescription narcotics. The EOB staff then asked Laura to contact me about a $195 cash fee to cover the cost of the pain center.

But before she could be admitted to the pain center, Laura came down with an infection. The EOB staff failed to inform Laura's parole officer of her whereabouts at this time. This is against the law.

While at EOB, Laura was harassed by an employee. He told her she needed to be back at a certain time after her doctor's appointments. If she was late by just a minute, this employee threatened to put her belongings out on the curb.

It was impossible to meet these time deadlines due to the fact that medical clinics operate on a first come, first served basis. Also, she was unfamiliar with the area and often got lost while on her way to doctor's appointments. She was often given a handful of bus tokens and was expected to find her way.

Laura contacted me on a Friday one week before her death. She asked me for money because she feared that she would need it for a hotel as she was going to be late returning to EOB from a doctor's appointment. She then got a room at the Sunflower Apartments.

On Monday, Laura contacted Kevin Moran from Caminar. Caminar then contacted Laura's parole officer to let him know where she was. The parole officer said that he didn't care where Laura was or what she was doing because he was going away on a two-week vacation.

Caminar also set up a doctor's appointment for Laura. When she became too ill to make the appointment, Caminar told Laura that they had no programs to meet her needs.

Shortly after that, Laura died of a heroin overdose at the Sunflower Apartments on July 23 of this year.

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