Las Vegas NowLas Vegas Photojournalist Captures the Struggles of Homelessness

Las Vegas Photojournalist Captures the Struggles of Homelessness

A local photographer hopes to change lives one picture at a time. Through her lens, she captured the lives of 50 homeless men, women and children living in alleyways and behind buildings in Las Vegas. Now the artist is using their personal stories and pictures to help other homeless people trying to survive on the streets.

Gail Matthews volunteers in the kitchen at the Shade Tree Homeless Shelter. It's the first time she's ever been homeless. But with help from Shade Tree, the 57-year-old woman is looking for work and going back to school. “It was like, ‘Oh my God! I can't believe I'm here,” she said. “I had a place where I can come and get my head back together because I was lost. I had no place to go.”

SLIDESHOW: Las Vegas Faces of the Street

It's stories like Gail's that inspire local photographer Mona Shield Payne. She set out to document people affected by the recession. With every face and every picture, she tells the story of pain, survival, and hope.

One of those from a 14-year-old boy named Cameron. “He was a football player at one of the local high schools and he had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to catch the bus and go all the way over to Henderson so that he could play high school ball. His grades were awesome. He was going to the summer education program. I have two sons and maybe if they were in his circumstances they'd do they same thing, but I don't know. He was amazing,” she said.

One day, Payne came to Shade Tree to photograph homeless women and children. That's when she witnessed people who once lived on the streets of Las Vegas getting back on their feet. Payne created a book and is donating all the proceeds to the shelter. “What a blessing. It kind of felt like she read my mind and fulfilled that dream to see what we are accomplishing here caught forever in black and white inside the book,” said Shade Tree Director Marlene Richter.

Richter says the pictures capture the realities of homelessness that most people don't see, or just choose to ignore. In the last three months, the homeless shelter says it's served more people than ever before and 70-percent of the people are homeless for the first time.

The shelter is holding a fundraiser art show Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the Wellington Place. Tickets are $50. The book will also be sold at the event and all proceeds go Shade Tree.