In Chico, Advocates Strive for Pallet Shelters after Court Stopped Sweeps

An Evolving Warren v. City of Chico Court Case

In Chico, the “City of Roses” in Northern California, in the Sacramento Valley, the fight to help the growing number of unhoused involves what could potentially become a new landmark court case, climate refugees from devastating fires, efforts to establish an emergency pallet village, and acrimonious battles, online, at protests and during government meetings.

Tensions were stoked further when on Sunday the Chico Police Department responded to a call about a stabbing near the main encampment at a place called Comanche Creek on the south end of the city. The male victim was later reported dead.

While Chico is smaller and there are many differences with Reno, there are also similarities, such as occasional tragic deadly violence at encampments, opaque decision making at City Council, passing the buck between the city and the county, raging Facebook commentary and dedicated allies of the unhoused. The court effort to stop the sweeps also could eventually have wider ramifications throughout the West. 

The next hearing in the Warren v. City of Chico case is currently scheduled for Aug. 30.  Bobby Warren is one of eight unhoused individuals who with the Legal Services of Northern California is seeking to stop the City of Chico Police Department from enforcing various ordinances that purportedly prevent them from “sleeping, sitting, lying, resting and simply existing in the City of Chico.”

Temporary Site Falls Short of An Earlier Court Decision

In previous rulings, the District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Morrison Cohen England Jr.  has issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting new sweeps and then converted it into a preliminary injunction. 

In an effort to abide by the court and resume sweeps, the city opened a temporary resting site with a bit of shade, hand washing stations, water and portable restrooms near the Chico airport, but that failed as Judge England refused to call it a shelter:  "Under none of these definitions is the airport site a ‘shelter.’ It is an asphalt tarmac with no roof and no walls, no water, and no electricity. It is an open space with what amounts to a large umbrella for some shade. It affords no real cover or protection to anyone,” the judge said. 

The Martin v. Boise 2018 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was followed in 2021 with an agreement ensuring that in the West the unhoused will not be cited or arrested for sleeping outdoors when no shelter is available. The follow up also guaranteed Boise will take steps to put every person experiencing homelessness on a path to permanent housing.

Cities such as Reno have relied on Martin v. Boise to conduct sweeps when there are shelter beds available.  In Chico, local leaders were aiming for the same strategy but so far failed repeatedly in the face of federal rulings.  

"The judge says you don't have to build the Taj Mahal, but the question is what does the word shelter mean? Does shelter mean a tent where you can rest or does it mean individual tents with beds? The Boise case doesn't say that,” Chico City Council member Sean Morgan has been quoted as saying. 

Trying to Establish a Pallet Shelter

One of those striving to instead establish a pallet shelter village is Julie Wood.  With two grown kids, and a past as an English teacher, who also worked in PR and on a family farm, the 57-year-old is now working her way toward a master’s in social work.  

“We need many more social workers,” she said of her new direction during a phone interview with Our Town Reno.  “The funding that goes toward punishing people should be going towards prevention. If we spend money giving people a hand up it’s going to save money in the long run. If that’s all people worry about is the money, it just makes fiscal sense to have an army of social workers.” 

The pallet shelters would come from a company of the same name, with both 64 and 100 square feet models, and efforts already underway in Los Angeles and established elsewhere.   

Wood sees the pallets as being the “most comfortable” solution.  “They are heated and cooled and can be locked. There could be fencing so smaller groups of women or men or families or low barrier could have their own area. There would be bathrooms, laundry facilities and lockers.  There would be unhoused people who manage disputes and manage the cleanliness of the camp and they would be paid for that service. We wouldn’t have guards. There would be facilities for social agencies on the premises for offices and there would be electricity so people can charge their phones. It would be close to services and transportation.” 

The idea of having the unhoused themselves take care of their community comes from the Safe Organized Spaces organizer Daniel Barth, based in Richmond, CA. 

Looking for Solutions and Combating “Politics of Divisiveness”

Wood says she is working “on a good plan” with a group of allies and advocates to find a site near downtown which could house a few hundred people in pallet shelters.  Wood says the county is willing to pay $1.5 million to pay for infrastructure, including electricity, water, sewer, and trash. She said about a fifth of Chico’s unhoused are from the thousands who came to the city after the major Paradise fire in 2018. “We’ve got this climate refugee syndrome,” Wood said.

Those in support of the sweeps, including NIMBYs, according to Wood, are well organized, backed by powerful local politicians and representatives, and like in Reno use terms such as “just get a job.”

“Those are politics of divisiveness,” Wood told us. “Those are just dog whistle terms to get people to fear and to hate each other so that they can remain in power. It is easily demonstrable that people fall into homelessness because of a chain of unfortunate events, a hospital bill, a loss of a job, and the next you thing you know they don’t have any place to stay.  It’s a systemic failure.”

Allies, she says, are not as well organized but are resolute. 

“We are not satisfied with the city council’s effort to criminalize the homeless. They’re not solving the problem. They just move people around. They are creating chaos with changing laws and secret meetings, doing things without oversight that we can’t keep up. What people really want to see is nobody unhoused. Their tactics are never going to solve the problem. We’re being proactive and not reactive.”

One group she is part of, the Affordable Housing Creation Group, is trying to figure out solutions with different developers, government officials, city planners, lawyers, social agencies and others to come up with a cohesive plan.  

“We’re going back to the drawing board for our own agenda, and that’s an agenda of solutions,” Wood said. “You have to create a continuum of care and also a continuum of building codes. There should be a comprehensive plan from tent to permanent housing and the most urgent need being emergency shelter with safe organized campgrounds in conjunction with surrounding neighbors and social workers so people can be integrated into the community and let them able to stay there for as long as they need to, to transition into other housing. The long term plan also has to be permanent and transition housing built. “ 

Our Town Reno reporting, August 2021

Combating the Luxurification of the Student Experience amid an Affordability Crisis

Rising Costs, Debt and Inability to Afford Housing and Food

The newly built Canyon Flats on Virginia Street is offering a pet spa, a yoga and cross-fit center and an art gallery. Those are nice amenities but for non affluent students are these really needed? A fall semester there for students will be in excess of $3,300, much like Uncommon, which is prioritized for incoming freshmen, still cheaper than Peavine Hall, Juniper Hall or Sierra Hall, where singles top $4,000 for the fall. There’s even higher priced singles at the Great Basin Hall or Nevada Living Learning Community which are each close to $5,000. That’s not counting equally pricey meal plans as most of these options offer very little in terms of being allowed to cook for yourself, sometimes banning cooking altogether in rooms.  

Where are the cheaper more convenient options though, as nearby motels and some of the older homes which were split into different rooms, are razed?

Apartments nearby now go for over $1,250 per month for a one bedroom and some artificial turf in front at 145 Lofts for example. For students trying to get ahead with a degree but not drown themselves financially, these logistical challenges are acute amid this housing unaffordability crisis.  

In total in the United States, there is currently an estimated $1.4 trillion in federal student loan debt, of which most is federal.  Discussions are ongoing in Washington in terms of how far the administration and Congress are willing to go in terms of student loan forgiveness.  Meanwhile, the system that led to these frightening numbers remains out of control.

This semester, enrollment seems to be down again at UNR, with more and more students seemingly unwilling to leave home for their college experience, meaning fewer Vegas and California transplants wearing the Wolf Pack blue and grey.

For some local students, still trying to get their degree here, housing and living costs exceed the cost of tuition. Food insecurity affects at least one in five students. There’s also a hidden population, estimated to be at least 10 percent of the student body in most western cities, which lacks stable housing.

One interesting, award winning program to address this is the Tacoma Community College Housing Assistance Program. According to its website, it’s “a partnership with the Tacoma Housing Authority (THA) and other community organizations that allows homeless and near-homeless students to access housing vouchers and low-cost apartments subsidized by THA.”

Wouldn’t this type of well funded program be a welcome collaboration here in Reno between UNR and the Reno Housing Authority? 

Specific Shelter Options for Students and More Roving Case Workers

A UCSC student organization (Instagram feed above) is currently starting a donation funded shelter for college students experiencing homelessness in the Santa Cruz area. It’s called Slug Shelter. Could a group at UNR do that? Discrete, population specific shelters seem to be the way to go rather than the one size fits all mega shelter northern Nevada has adopted, despite warnings from many.

Slug Shelter’s website reads: “Slug Shelter is a student-led organization at UCSC that is committed to providing a temporary living space for college students experiencing homelessness in the Santa Cruz area. Our goal is to create a safe, reliable space that meets the physical and emotional needs of these students, enabling them to devote more time to their studies and other professional pursuits. With this program, we hope to mitigate the financial struggles endured by students who are most affected by the high cost of living in Santa Cruz. In addition, we offer student volunteers a valuable, hands-on experience in building a strong community.”

In Ohio, there’s an initiative to hire social case workers to roam neighborhoods where students live to do outreach and connect them with available resources and also try to pinpoint problems before they worsen. These ideas seem to offer some respite and safety valves, while hopefully more structural solutions are being worked on going forward.

Our Town Reno Op-ed July 2021

Eileen Bidwell, Pushing for Safe and Legal Parking for Neighbors Living in Vehicles

New Federal Money Presents Opportunities

As more and more federal money arrives into Nevada and local coffers, those seeking to help our struggling neighbors are seizing the moment to reinvigorate long held ideas never tried before locally.

At the June Community Homelessness Advisory Board meeting, Eileen Bidwell, representing the One Truckee River non profit, presented the need for a local safe parking program.  CHAB members seemed interested but wanted to keep the ball in her court, to keep seeing how much further she could take the idea herself.  They seem preoccupied by the new Nevada Cares Campus and its safe camp, she said.  She will go back to the board though, she says, because she does believe in the idea.

“Safe and legal parking can make a huge difference in people's lives. It could make the difference between living unsheltered or living in a relatively safe and legal place to park,” Bidwell said during a recent interview.  “People who have no choice but to live in their vehicles live in fear of notices and having their shelter towed away.”   She said other advocates in the community were thrilled by her presentation. 

“The reaction outside the meeting was great. The community is really supportive of this, and I'm just delighted to hear that. I continue to go around and try to talk to people. One of the outreach workers in the community is out counting vehicles and talking to people and I've been helping her out.”

Bidwell has been seeing more and people she says living in their vehicles, RVs, trailers, trucks and cars as she walks in park areas, in her Ward 1 neighborhood and along the river, keeping an eye on vehicles she recognizes and noticing new ones where people might also be sleeping inside.   She says these people are counted in annual point in time counts, used to estimate numbers of those inadequately sheltered. In western cities, estimates range from several hundred people living in their vehicles to over 15-thousand in Los Angeles County. 

Long Experience Elsewhere, Now Applied Locally

The Chicago and Seattle transplant thought she was retiring when she came to Reno eight years ago, after a long career which included helping people without stable shelter. Now, due to that experience and people reaching out to her, she’s a human services educator for One Truckee River and is also on the board of the Reno Initiative for Shelter and Equality, which runs the Our Place shelter for women.  

Bidwell sees zoning codes as the biggest hurdle, so that any future host to a safe parking program would be able to operate legally and be protected.  Until recently, many Walmarts were operating safe parkings on their own terms, allowing people in vehicles to also use their bathrooms to clean up at daybreak. 

Bidwell has studied nine safe parking programs, seven in California and two in Oregon. “Their budgets are kind of diverse, just all over the map,” she said. “Many of them operate out of private parking lots, including churches and businesses, others operate from a publicly owned parking lot. All of the nine are managed by non profit organizations and they provide access to the parking lot. So they actually invite people in and learn about them and what their needs are. And then they manage the program as well. Some of them are done very economically because the land is donated. Others are more expensive depending on the services. Some provide meals. Some of them also provide health care services. A few of them have repair services for vehicles. Some have towing. All of them provide bathroom access, laundry access, and trash removal.”

Some of these programs, up the coast from San Diego to Eugene and Beaverton, have 24-7 security, while others have part time security. “Most of them are what we call low barrier, which means anybody with a vehicle can park in these lots. Some of them only allow RVs, others allow cars as well and trucks and others any vehicle.”

Bidwell says there’ also the approach of opening up entire areas to legal street overnight parking with people inside their vehicles. 

“I think that it's also necessary to designate street parking,” she said.  “There are also people who are not interested in parking in a safe parking lot. They have their own reasons. And I think that they should be entitled and allowed to park. In certain cities, with these programs, there have complaints, and most of them are around, garbage of course, and you know, blocking the streets, particularly RVs blocking the streets. Or [you have] oil leaks, or if the vehicles become immobilized and they're just, you know, they they're just there, they're just parked there. So, some of the communities have found creative solutions, others have not, and it remains a problem.”

Partnerships and Non Profit Needed

 It’s important to find partners with land Bidwell says, and churches could make for ideal collaborators. She also says a group of advocates could create a non profit specifically for this aim. 

“This could really make a profound difference in people's lives,” she said underlying the need for this type of formal program. “People live in fear that their homes will be towed away with all of their belongings and once they're towed away, the cost of getting them out of the towing yards is exorbitant and almost nobody can afford it.”

She said it could also save local governments money. “Both cities, the city of Reno and the city of Sparks are spending a lot of money to tow these vehicles away. And the funding could be used to actually assist people in being safe.”

Sadly, she has only seen the need become more acute over time, with wages and fixed incomes stagnated for so long, and rent prices going up. Still, now Bidwell sees an opportunity with federal money flowing in to deal with housing.

“I could just kind of anticipate that this population would explode as housing prices and the cost of living increased so much over the years.I just didn't want it to get like Seattle, which now has the third largest population of unsheltered people in country. We have to be creative and work on solutions and collaborate to end homelessness. I've been going to a lot of meetings lately, national and statewide groups that I'm involved with. We're all really excited about this once in a lifetime opportunity, using federal money and that's going directly to areas to solve homelessness. I don't think we can wait any longer.  I have met so many wonderful people in this community who really care about their homeless neighbors and our homeless neighbors. And,  I think that the federal funding, if used appropriately  it's going to make a big difference. So I'm cautiously hopeful.” 

Need for New Zoning and Land Use Codes

In a follow up email to our interview, Bidwell wrote: “Zoning and land use codes have to be changed to reflect reality and accommodate the creation of more affordable housing in our neighborhoods. Many U.S. cities have done this successfully and it would make a profound difference here. Changes should include flexibility for parking vehicles.”

She reiterated that “people living in vehicles are actually NOT counted in annual Point in Time counts. When you look at the numbers, PIT totals would be a lot higher if vehicle dwellers were included. Also, one thing I neglected to mention is that private lots for RV and camper parking typically do not allow older vehicles to park there, so paid lots are not an option for many. I'm not sure why private lots have these rules.”

She also wanted to add a final underlying message to structural challenges: “The current systems to address homelessness were not created or structured to actually end homelessness. Services are fragmented and traditionally under funded. The systems should be torn down and recreated with people in mind. The ARP [American Rescue Plan] has given us an opportunity to make dramatic and lasting change. I have met so many amazing people who truly care about ending homelessness in our community. It gives me hope that safe and stable housing can become a reality in the future.”

Our Town Reno Interview, July 2021

If There was a Will, What could Reno Try More of to Help the Unhoused?

A Few Ideas We Suggest Should Be Tried As Soon as Possible

There are projects here in Reno that get lots of drawn out media attention to help the poorly sheltered in our community amid an accessible housing crisis: the Village on Sage Street and the Hope Springs tiny home village come to mind, to name a couple. Now these are great projects, but their delays to get going and reliance on slow fundraising efforts and refinancing indicate these may just remain experimental and not duplicable.

Such projects also rely on large numbers of not always motivated external staff and hi-tech security, which alienates some who don’t want to perpetually feel like a “client” or a “bridge” project or worse, like an “aided inmate,” all quotes we’ve recorded during our reporting.

There is also a dominant political narrative in our community to meld everything together: recovery, food aid, mental health resources, job training and possible access to future housing, to name a few. But if getting someone housed is the goal shouldn’t that be the main priority? Nothing wrong with considering the whole, but do we not mostly treat mental health or recovery exclusive of housing components for the more affluent?

Lots of money has been available with the CARES Act to address houselessness, which is why we at Our Town Reno would like to suggest a few other ideas to pursue. These would all be easy to implement, some cheap, others more costly, but all of them doable if there was political will. Some might fail but some might succeed. If an also needed overnight camping ordinance were to be passed, these could immediately help hundreds people currently living in precarious situations. Lots of attention seems to be given to food programs for the poor in our community, but much less on housing.

City-Sanctioned Safe Camping

While this idea has long been talked about, and there is maybe going to be a section for it at the new Governor’s Bowl shelter location, to be called the Nevada Cares Campus, why hasn’t it happened sooner? Why hasn’t it happened yet? Why can’t it happen elsewhere on other plots of city-owned unused land with a low barrier of entry? Why don’t we try it out and see what works, what doesn’t work, rather than just talking about it for years and years?

Residents themselves could be hired for some of the safe camp jobs, and there could be gardening spaces as well as creative spaces. There could also be a nightly fee, as many we’ve interviewed sleeping in tents along the river and railroad tracks say they would be willing to pay for added safety.

We could have a government-sanctioned safe camp for just Veterans for example, as has been the case recently at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration campus, in Brentwood. That camp has been designated as a "Care Treatment Rehabilitation Service" program, or "CTRS" in official federal acronym language.

Wouldn’t this be better than unsanctioned camps which regularly get swept up by police when they become too big and lead to possessions being thrown out, poverty being criminalized and communities of friends being uprooted?

Safe Overnight Parking Lots

Many people still own a vehicle but don’t have enough money to afford rent. Rather than finding out of the way places to park, create trash, and use the outdoors as their toilet, wouldn’t it be better to have safe parking lots with basic amenities for them to park and spend the night?

Again a nominal fee could be charged in exchange for safety and legality. There could be one person working an overnight shift, and large church parking lots could be used. Many people experiencing homelessness for the first time do so initially in their vehicle. Some safe parking programs also include an intake component by a social worker to have a conversation to see if any immediate help or resources can be provided. Trash cans, portable toilets and shower trucks could also be on location.

Homeless Huts

In Oregon, the Community Supported Shelters (CSS) non-profit has come up with structures called Conestoga Huts which seem like a good solution to go inside a safe camp or to add to a tiny home village. This also begs the question, why in Reno there aren’t more non profits focused solely on housing.

These lockable huts give a resident 60 square feet of indoor living space, enough to keep possessions safe and dry and to have a comfortable sleep. The Conestoga name comes from the historical Conestoga Wagon. These cost about $2,500 to build, a quarter of the price than the most basic tiny home, while being much more durable and tidier than tents. There could also be a nightly fee.

Reviving “Flophouses”, or Creating Bunkhouses, Hostels and Micro Apartments

The term flophouse has a derogatory sound to it, but for years, in the early decades of the 20th century, the flophouse were like the motels of the 80s onward now getting bulldozed away, a place for people without the means to sleep anywhere else, in transition, on a day to day, week to week or month to month budget. Some had kitchens and dining halls, and you could pay for one night. Flophouses were often in downtown areas, making them convenient for people getting around on foot. Now the name flophouse is bad for marketing obviously, so why not build new ones which look like log cabins, and call them bunkhouses? These could go for $10-$20 a night. We could also have hostels with several people per room for artists or young travelers. Why always go for the high end of everything with new projects?

Or rather than tearing down some of the historical mansions which were already used for voucher recovery housing programs, why didn’t we improve those? Another possible name for rented out rooms which feels less derogatory is micro apartments or SROs, single room occupancy.

Nearly 11,000 hotel and motel rooms are being made available statewide to protect homeless individuals in California from COVID-19, Gov. Newsom's office said...

City-Owned Motels

Speaking of motels, what about the city, rather than complaining about them, buying some, renovating them and then using rooms to house homeless families? In the early months of the pandemic, California used this approach as part of Project Roomkey, a joint state and federal program that leased more than 15-thousand hotel rooms for the homeless. Oregon has a similar endeavor called Project Turnkey. In Reno, this would be much cheaper than building anything from scratch and we could also preserve some of the iconic structures and signs the motels give to our city landscape rather than tearing them down.

Jane Wells reports on the new niche business of mini homes for seniors.

Granny Pods

Not least but last, because this failed here in 2018 after years of discussions is to revive the idea of granny pods. For reasons we still don’t understand backyard accommodations which could house a family member or rented out for cheap, making it a win win for several parties, was shot down by a combination of politicians, rich home owners and affordable housing developers. Accessory dwelling units, also known as ADUs, or in-law suites, are very divisive here and elsewhere, but why not legalize them and give them a shot? Don’t we have an inventory shortage? Vancouver and Toronto to the north have several thousands of them now, also calling them Laneway and Carriage houses and even has preservationist tours and glitzy realtor videos to show some of them off. There seems to be the sense we need to preserve the “character” of neighborhoods, but we just can’t sweep the unhoused away, or pretend they don’t exist. Due to low wages and Social Security benefits, combined with higher and higher prices for housing, the unhoused are us.

Our Town Reno reporting, January 2021

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What Other Police Reforms should Reno, Sparks and Washoe County Pursue Now?

From #8CantWait, to signs at local #BlackLivesMatter rallies, to an opinion column by Sheila Leslie, to the Defund campaign, there has been a wide range of reforms demanded by many at both national and local levels.

We’ve seen Reno’s police update its use of force policy, including banning chokeholds and shooting at or from vehicles, and giving it some new wording: “It is the Policy of the Reno Police Department to protect human life and human rights. Officers must use only the amount of force that is Objectively Reasonable to effectively bring an incident under control, while protecting the safety of the Officer and others. The Officer must only use that force which a reasonably prudent Officer would use under the same or similar circumstances. Officers are expected to apply force in accordance with departmental training.”

For some protesters we’ve talked to, that’s not far enough. Here are ten other ideas we got in posts, conversations and on protest signs.

#1. Immediate Release of Investigation into Miciah Lee’s Killing by Sparks PD

#2. Fire Local Police Officers Who Engage or Have Engaged in Racist Behavior including with UNRPD

#3. Reduce future police budgets and instead increase spending for education, mental health, housing and other social services

#4. Have Medics and Health Care Professionals Respond to Most 9-1-1 Calls

#5. Demilitarize the Police and Refocus their training and equipment into Community Peacekeeping

#6. Cut all ties between local police and ICE

#7. End all contracts/special agreements between police and local schools, colleges and universities

#8. Make Police Disciplinary Records More Transparent and Available for Public Review

#9. Make all Data on Local and National Police Use of Force, including Killings, Available and Public

#10. Revisit the “qualified immunity” for police which leads to most lawsuits against police being thrown out

Listicle by Our Town Reno, June 2020

10 Ways to Help Each Other During the Pandemic in Reno

1. Stay Home for Reno and Away from Others as Much as Possible

Wearing a mask while grocery shopping, staying at home as much as you can, keeping your distance from others when you do go out and about might be more for others than for yourself, as you might be asymptomatic, while some of your friends, neighbors and relatives are immunocompromised and at much more risk than yourself. When you go grocery shopping, be fast and efficient, and keep your distance. When going outside to get fresh air, avoid doing anything in groups other than with those you already live with. The longer we have new cases, the longer the shutdown will last. Remember, we are in this together, and only as strong as the most vulnerable among us.

An inspirational message in Reno as the shutdown drags on.

2. Help your Local Community via Facebook Mutual Aid Groups and with check ins in your neighborhood

There are both new groups which started shortly after the coronavirus shutdown began such as Reno/Sparks Mutual Aid (https://www.facebook.com/groups/186246196158115/), Delivering with Dignity (https://www.facebook.com/dwd.renosparks/) or solidarity groups which existed prior to the pandemic such as Compassionate Neighbors Northern Nevada (article about that group we wrote here: http://www.ourtownreno.com/our-stories-1/2019/1/27/georgia-russell-coordinating-compassionate-solidarity-for-those-in-need). Check out their pages, get involved in discussions, and see if there might be someone posting there you could help.

You can also check on your neighbors from time to time, by text or phone, or while walking the dog, if you see them, to see if they are OK. Times are increasingly difficult for those without shelter so prepare care packages for them and organize with others how to drop them off along the river or in care boxes around Reno and Sparks.

A screengrab for the local collective #maskup initiative.

3. Apply Your Skills where they might be needed

A good example we recently profiled is the Northern Nevada Mask Coalition which is putting together experts at donation drives with those with abilities to make masks for local production and distribution: https://www.facebook.com/Northern-Nevada-Mask-Coalition-With-Lexies-Gift-106918264320302/

Local brewers who started making hand sanitizer is another example of a worthy endeavor, among many others popping up in the region. Create your own or join an existing group.

4. Donate to Causes and Groups You Believe In

Food Bank of Northern Nevada is doing a special drive for this giving Tuesday. You can look to Eddy House, which is also looking for help via its social media. The group RISE which is working on establishing a new shelter in Sparks for women and children called Our Place, and has other ongoing projects for those most in need in our community, also has a donation page: http://www.renoinitiative.org/donate/

5. Write Letters to Isolated Friends, Relatives and Strangers

Writing a letter will be therapeutic for yourself, and will create a connection, something many of us are lacking these days. Write an old friend you’ve been out of touch with of late. Sign up to a pen pal program. There’s also programs to reach out to people residing in nursing homes or incarcerated in prisons, facing even more loneliness than usual in these pandemic times. If local ones don’t exist which suit your specific wants, why not set one up yourself?

Reynolds School of Journalism Student Karina Dominguez reports on still empty toilet paper aisles.

6. Don’t Waste Food or Buy Unnecessary Items

There are still shortages and problems in the supply and delivery chain, so now is not the time to hoard, or to waste food, or to purchase unnecessary items. Some people are starting their own vegetable gardens to be more self-sufficient, or changing eating habits to be healthier. Start a compost pile. Turn your scraps into vegetable stock.

Joe Exotic of Netflix Tiger King hasn’t yet tested positive for coronavirus despite plenty of news reports initially indicating that he had. Someone else at the prison where he is currently locked up was a positive though, perhaps leading to this misinformation.

7. Don't Spread Misinformation

From fake cures to fake data and fake fears, there’s been plenty of misinformation about COVID-19. As a contributor to social media, it’s important to look at information closely and with proper attention before sharing or reposting. While much of the actual verified information is alarming, there’s no need to add increased stress, anxiety or false hopes while peddling misinformation.

8. Be Extra Kind to Those on the Frontlines

From nurses to postal workers, firefighters to EMTs, grocery workers to DoorDash delivery people, think of ways you can be extra nice in these times where they are performing their jobs while constantly putting their health at risk.

9. Help Friends and Family with Remote Child Care

Parents are swamped right now. If you don’t have kids, you can think of a Zoom activity to try with them, like magic tricks, or learning a new dance routine.

A screengrab of different types of diaries people have been starting.

10. Keep a Diary

Some people are calling a plague journal, but however ghastly this sounds, it can be meditative to organize your thoughts. It will also be a valuable resource to yourself and your family in the future, looking back on this coronavirus 2020, hoping it will soon be in our rearview mirror, and that we will all learn the lessons we need to learn, and take it as an opportunity to better ourselves as a community.

Listicle by Our Town Reno in May 2020

Basic Income for Former Foster Youths?

A Proposal in Santa Clara County

While basic income proponent Andrew Yang may have dropped out of the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the 2020 election, some of the ideas he championed have taken root with smaller, micro targeted initiatives.

This includes Santa Clara County in California looking at a pilot program for a guaranteed $1,000 minimum check (with a maximum up to $2,000) per month for up to two years to adults ages 18 to 21 in extended foster care (a program which allows them to stay or reenter into the program for three years), and for those 21 to 24 “aging out” of the foster care system.

The proposal is serious as it’s been put forward by Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese. “We're all keeping our fingers crossed that it works, for the sake of the young people, and we hope other counties around us and throughout the state will take a look at it if it is working, and maybe this will catch on,” Cortese has been quoted in media as saying.

It’s estimated that between 50 to 150 people come out of the foster care system every year in Santa Clara County. More discussions are expected in March, with a possible vote in April, for the 2020-2021 budget.

Media reports say possible problems include whether former foster youths would still be eligible for other government benefits such as Medi-Cal, CalWORKs, or CalFresh, if they receive the county’s basic income payment, or for non US citizens in the process of seeking citizenship.

A screenshot from the Our Town Reno documentary Invisible Girl, which included discussions about how youths aging out of foster care often faced many hurdles. Trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGrv8G40WJY

Studies Show Problems for After Foster Care Life

Nevada already has AB350 a law from 2011 which gives former foster youths a stipend of about $780 a month, but should this be boosted to a higher level as prices, including rents keep climbing, while wages are stagnant? Are all aged out young adults getting access to this stipend or is the process too complicated with too many requirements? At the current amount, can it really be called a basic income?

Nationally, there are around 20,000 youth aging out of foster care, facing high risks of food and job insecurity, homelessness, addiction, trauma, incarceration and mental health issues, which can all feed off of each other, and which can also result from negative host family experiences. According to a recent University of Chicago study , less than half of the older 23- and 24-year-olds in this population have a job, and nearly a third are without stable shelter.

Already started basic income programs range from a $500 monthly one started in Stockton for 125 people, to one in Mississippi, where 15 low income black mothers are getting $1,000 per month. Outside the United States, Finland has also tried notable pilot programs.

Should Washoe County be the next experimental ground?

Research by Our Town Reno in February 2020