Tunnel people under Las Vegas glitz, a dark life in tunnels

More than 37 million people visit Las Vegas each year for its glitz, glamour and lure of hitting a jackpot. Yet few tourists ever see the dingy world beneath the bright lights: tunnel dwellings that have become home to those down on their luck.

Steve Dommer and his girlfriend, Kathryn, live in the depths below the Vegas Strip. They created an elaborate 400-square-foot space, complete with a living room, bedroom, kitchen and workshop to fix bicycles. Everything is elevated off the floor with wooden pallets or milk crates because of potential flooding.

Their prized possession is a queen-sized bed, found in a Dumpster near the Palms Casino Resort. "I like to be able to come back and sleep as comfortably as possible," Dommer said, patting his bed.

By day, he scrounges for change above ground. He's been living down below for two years. He lost his construction job because of an addiction to speed and heroin.

The couple is not alone in the city's tunnels. "Hundreds of people live in these tunnels," says journalist Matthew O'Brien.

O'Brien has become an expert on the more than 300 miles of underground flood channels and its tunnel dwellers. O'Brien brought the homeless to light, first in articles for the alternative weekly newspaper, Las Vegas CityLife, and then in a book titled "Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas."

Despite the risks from disease, highly venomous spiders and flooding washing them away, many of the tunnel people have put together elaborate camps with furniture, ornaments and shelves filled with belongings.

Steven and girlfriend Kathryn's base - under Caesar's Palace casino - is one of the most elaborate. They even have a kettle and a makeshift shower fabricated out of an office drinking water dispenser.