It may have seen better days, but the Las Vegas strip remains a bustling hub for high-rollers and Hustlers to drop a lot of money on the Baze tables of the Bellagio and Guzzle Supersize Mimosas in Caesars Palace.
Yet that is a distant reality for many of the 661,000 inhabitants of the city, including the Croupiers, cocktail obeders and kitchen staff who work and eat three casino jobs and eat at food banks to keep track of the rapidly rising costs of living.
For others, Las Vegas is still darker, a place where gamblers outside goodies and drop-outs with mental health and addiction problems in storm drains under the comic 'Molmensen' under the buzzing metro.
The new mayor of the city, Shelley Berkley, an experienced democratic politician who has been chased by accusations of corruption about her husband's business interests, says she wants to tackle the crisis and help families make ends meet.
But DailyMail.com spoke with residents of Las Vegas and non-profit managers who worryed that 'Sin City', as it is known, goes in the wrong direction and unraveled the volatile, tourism-relevant economy.
The numbers are ugly. Last year the poverty rate of Las Vegas rose to 14.7 percent, well above the national average of 11.1 percent.
Casino employees usually earn less than $ 3,000 a month, and more than half of them are needed to rent an apartment with one bedroom.
No wonder than the homeless figures of the charts fly. The surrounding Clark County had nearly 8,000 troubled people in 2024, a 10-year highlight for the area and a stunning increase of 36 percent compared to 2022.
'Las Vegas is a great destination. We have something for everyone who can take photos and take memories with us, “says Sara Ramirez, CEO of the Catholic charities of South Nevada.
Las Vegas is known as the 'Sin City' retreat for high-rolling wild times at Fancy Hotels and Casinos
But in the shadow of the strip are thousands of people struggling at a rising costs of living
Casino cleaning agents are among those who earn close to the minimum wage of $ 12 per hour
“But there is a downside on the coin and a lower abdomen of generation of poverty, and we have to do much more to take care of our working arms.”
Ramirez told DailyMail.com that her food pantry and dine-in charity meal have seen a peak of 20 percent in the past year, with more older people and low-paid employees who were hungry.
“The minimum wage in Las Vegas is $ 12 per hour, but the actual living wage is $ 24.10,” she said.
“It is the working poor that comes to us. Sometimes they only work two or three full -time jobs to make ends meet for them and their families. '
Las Vegas was hardly a stop on the railway when it was recorded in 1911. In the 1930s, it exploded in a hub of theaters, Mafia-ranked casinos and prostitution to meet the builders who build the nearby Hoover-Dam.
It developed a family treatment in the sixties and was bent in a mega resort. But the economic headwind of the mortgage crisis and the pandemia ran, even while people continued to move, the rental prices and the costs of living continued.
The population has tripled since 1990, with a metro area now the home of around 3 million people. They tolerate above-average crime percentages, water shortages and a cash-step school system that is impeded by a lack of teachers.
Las Vegas is also marred by tragedy – a Tesla Cybertruck that explodes on New Year's Day, and in October 2017, the worst American massive shooting by a lonely shooter, who shot from the Mandalay Bay Casino Hotel on Festival guides, who injured 60 dead and more than 860.
Dennys Salinas, who works in a hotel casino near De Strip, is struggling in the midst of rapidly rising housing costs that forced many others to go out of the city and to compete for an hour of traffic to simply go to work on time.
“Everyone is now working three jobs to maintain an apartment,” he told FOX5.
Visitors come together from the US and abroad to take pictures of the legendary fantastic Las Vegas board
Cooling hotel guests in Temple Pool, one of the seven swimming pools in the Caesars Palace Garden of the Gods Pool Oasis
In the meantime, the homeless people remain an existence in the flood control tunnels under the city
Those who live in the secret underground world are known as the 'Molmensen' of Las Vegas
'The price has changed a lot drastically. It used to be cheap. '
About 15 percent of Las Vegans struggle to put a decent meal on the table, according to the Three Square Food Bank, and live much more in 'Food Designs' where it is difficult to shop for fresh groceries.
Last month the group gave 1200 eggs to hard-up families in Grace City Church, where recipients were described as' literally in awe in their boxes, one of the most inflation hit messages.
Some have it even worse and have joined Sin City's around 1500 'Molmensen', who live in a network of concrete tunnels under the resorts, originally built in the aftermath of a flash flame in 1975.
There they made rickety 'rooms' in the secret underground city for themselves, collected from landfills with the help of discarded leftovers. Some describe a comrade among sewerage residents, but stories about violence, abuse and theft are more common.
An eye-opening 2024 documentary lifted the lid on the tunnels and their passengers, including a nameless chef who earned $ 87,000 a year in the Fancy Wynn Hotel before unraveling his life.
'I was not like a normal [chef]I always cooked for Mr Wynn … He just loves mozzarella omelet with burnt onions, “said the man, from O'ahu, Hawaii.
When he came underground about how he ended up underground, he said it was “gone from the police.”
Although the circumstances in the tunnels are filthy, the man says that he is fairly happy with his living situation and the only thing he 'really fogs' is his car, his 'huge bathroom' and 'Bada ** cuisine'.
A chef in Las Vegas who is homeless and now lives in the dirty labyrinth of the city's flood tunnels in a new documentary in which his heartbreaking story is uncovered
Struggling, single father Johnathan and Nohemy, four, collect free messages from a Catholic Food Bank
A homeless man sleeps on a sidewalk in the center of Las Vegas in the midst of a rapid increase in the number of unmarried people
Diana Thomas, a guest room at Flamingo Hotel and Casino, marches with other trade union members for Beter Loon and Conditions
Casino and hotel staff usually earn $ 17 per hour, and many have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet
Mayor Shelley Berkley, depicted here with Las Vegas artists, says she wants to tackle the crisis homelessness and affordability
Newcomers in Las Vegas are shocked to see a mole person climb to street level by a manhole – and posted on social media.
The homeless percentage of Clark County is high and rises.
Researchers from the Princeton Eviction Lab have recently demonstrated that in January 2025 landlords kick more people from their homes than before the pandemic, with 3,911 notifications.
Since the attempt in December, Mayor Berkley has said that she is tackling the homelessness crisis of the city and that she supports a new state law, making it a crime to sleep, camp or to keep personal property in a public place.
Her spokesperson, Jace Radke, says that Las Vegas spends more than $ 16 million a year on a hiding place and a medical unit for the homeless, but that there are limits to how many social services can intervene.
“The city performs Outreach daily to connect those on the street with services, but it is up to the individual to accept that help,” Radke told DailyMail.com.
