Harsh Nights Inside Reno's Overflow Homeless Shelter

When nights get colder and snow falls, more houseless people need to find shelter in our area, but on these particularly bitter and dangerous nights to be living outside, Reno's main shelters, run by the Volunteers of America, quickly fill up, as do religious and abuse shelters.

One option then is a temporary overflow shelter, also run by the VOA, which has been temporary for a while now, after the previous overflow shelter was vandalized last winter. 

Long Waits, Bare Conditions

People waiting for the overflow shelter can wait for hours late into the evening before a van picks them up to take them to the overflow location. Its exact location isn't publicized, and the only way to gain access is to be taken there. Some give up before the van arrives. Late arrivals are sometimes told there isn't enough room for everyone at the overflow, where conditions are really bare.  When busy, homeless people say the last van sometimes doesn't get to the overflow until near midnight. They say everyone is woken up at a quarter to five, and back on the streets in the early morning hours.

These photos and testimony from last night were shared with Our Town Reno by an anonymous contributor.

Our contributor says the ground inside can be dirty, with many people bringing in gravel with their shoes.  The contributor said there is no access to clean water. There are also complaints about bed bugs. Disabled homeless complain the services aren't adequate for their extra needs. 

Our anonymous contributor says the staff can make people wait for hours at a time late in the evening as temperatures drop before they can enter the sleeping area, so people still sleep wherever they can.

In the morning, people must often leave the overflow very early, before 5 a.m., while it's still very cold outside.

Photos by an Anonymous Contributor for Our Town Reno

Alese McMurtry, A Student Organizing a Vigil for Those Who Die in the Cold

Photo and Reporting by Jose Olivares for Our Town Reno

This Thursday, Reno-based activists will be hosting an event to honor homeless individuals who have died while living on the streets. The event, called “Winter Vigil for Our Houseless Neighbors”, will take place from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 22, at the Potentialist Workshop, located at 836 East Second Street.

Alese McMurtry, a student at the University of Nevada, Reno and local activist, is one of the main organizers of the event.

McMurtry says there will be speakers from the Reno Initiative for Shelter and Equality (RISE), Acting in Community Together in Organizing Northern Nevada (ACTIONN), a man reciting a poem and a moment of silence to honor those who have died while living on the streets locally. Photo by Jose Olivares for Our Town Reno

Police, From Caring to Problematic?

According to McMurtry, a vigil is not foreign to Reno. Her uncle was a police officer for the Reno Police Department and would help organize yearly vigils for homeless individuals who died that year. Unfortunately after he left the police department, McMurtry says the yearly vigils withered away. 

“Now, I think that the Reno Police Department has been extremely problematic and harmful towards the houseless population,” McMurtry said. “I don’t think they should be a part of it until they actually start showing some compassion and care to the houseless folks in Reno because that’s they’re job -- to serve and protect.”

The organizers of the event encountered some logistical problems when planning the vigil. When attempting to find out the names or even just the number of homeless individuals who have died recently, they encountered a lack of information.

Unknown Numbers for a Forgotten Population

As the exact number and names of recent homeless deaths in northern Nevada is not known or presented as such, McMurtry said this is telling.

“I think that that is so indicative of how houseless people are forgotten in life and forgotten in death, too,” she said. “I think it’s important there are events to try to remember people, because no one deserves to die and be forgotten.”

ACTIONN released a statement which reported that "in Washoe County this winter, several individuals have already died and another has fallen into a fire after having a seizure, leading to severe injuries. Some are victims of crime and suffering from intense injuries, while freezing outside each night.  We must do more to value human life and protect our community. " 

Everyone is invited to attend the event. The organizers hope to make it an annual vigil.  This year's vigil will also have a list of demands the organizers hope to send to the City of Reno.

A photo from the Our Town Reno Instagram street reporting collective.

What: Winter Vigil for Our Houseless Neighbors; a vigil to honor and remember houseless folks who have passed away.

When: Thursday, December 22 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Where: The Potentialist Workshop (836 East 2nd Street)

Who: All are invited to attend

Do You Believe in Reno’s Will to Provide Affordable Housing?

The Wednesday early afternoon meeting began at Reno’s City Council with activists reacting angrily to reports the Nevada Department of Transportation would start using armed guards to move homeless people away from areas near freeway corridors, as well as befuddlement benches are being taken out at local bus stops to prevent the less fortunate from resting there or that motels with affordable weeklies are being torn down, rather than fixed to help those living there.

Katie Colling from the local group RISE pleaded for the city to, above all else, help humans in Reno, including the houseless.

Cold-Hearted City?

Is Reno becoming a cold-hearted city, wondered one early speaker, while another called it a “class war against the homeless.”

Mike Thornton from the group ACTIONN suggested Reno should take lessons from Seattle, which in May 2015, passed resolution 31577, stating core values of race and social equity would serve as one of the foundations for their city planning. He also called for appropriate leadership, and transparent action as the city addresses the staggering local lack of affordable housing.

Unboarded up. Another picture from today from a block where all residents were displaced to give way to a high-end student hi-rise project.  With that deal now stalling, rooms are being rented out yet again, while some of the previously displaced became homeless.

Last in the Country in Affordable Housing

Among the presentations, Eric Novak from the Praxis Consulting Group, who has worked on several Reno affordable housing projects, said by many metrics Nevada is at the bottom of state-by-state lists to provide such opportunities for its least affluent.

Another speaker from the Vecino group lauded tax-credit supported housing, using public funds and other assistance to help developers turn blighted buildings into places of affordable housing “we would all like to live in.”  Examples the speaker showed ranged from a housing development for former homeless veterans called Freedom Place in Saint Louis, MO, to downtown housing in Salt Lake City called Bodhi. 

According to official definitions, affordable housing is not spending more than 30% of your income on housing, a limit most people in the Reno/Sparks area far surpass.

Scary Slides

The first speaker was Matt Prosser, from Economic and Planning Systems, who showed slides indicating a growing divergence between rising housing costs and stagnating incomes.  He asked the City Council to have clear political will and to be transparent about their goals and areas where they have leverage to help those struggling to afford any place to live in the Reno/Sparks area.

City Council members were shown a succession of scary statistics, as well as possible developer-backed plans to help those who can't afford housing.

Learning from Others, Jean Quan and Gentrification Battles in Oakland

by Ruben Kimmelman

Jean Quan (left) during an Oakland First Fridays Festival, campaigning for a renter protection ordinance, had advice for a city like Reno beginning to experience its own gentrification issues. Photo by Ruben Kimmelman

An Enigmatic Politician Dealing With a Polarizing Issue

Gentrification is fast becoming an important issue here in Reno and might be something you and your friends are discussing over a latte or craft beer. Often used as a loaded term, gentrification is both provocative and polarizing, and widely misunderstood as well.

The city of Oakland has a long history with gentrification, and Oakland’s former mayor Jean Quan’s public reputation is almost as enigmatic as the term itself. As mayor, serving from January 2011 to January 2015, she once had a 2-1 approval rating among her city’s residents that dropped to 28% only half a year later, according to a local CBS poll. However, she is famous for ‘out-hustling’ her opponents and, even after losing the election in 2014, she remains a visible and active part of the city’s politics, advocating for issues she finds important.

A screengrab from Jean Quan's Wikipedia page.

A Q and A with Jean Quan, Any Advice for Reno?

Kimmelman: I actually live in Reno, where gentrification issues and stuff like that have kind of been brought to the forefront lately. Here in Oakland it seems like it has been an issue for quite a while now, what kind of advice would you have to cities that feel like their cities are being taken away to issues like that?

Quan: “Well you know, we've been working on affordable housing for a while, and so the politics they swing left they swing right. I worked very hard on fighting the governor when he removed the redevelopment which was the funding for affordable housing, worked very hard to get other affordable housing, but I did a lot of affordable housing when I was mayor particularly to protect our more elderly citizens."

"We built a lot of senior housing and we left behind some plans and we've been trying to get the city council to charge fees and develop some areas so that 25% of all the new housing is what we call affordable for working class families."

"Basically, if you're a hotel worker [with a family and you’re] both working you don’t make enough money to buy a house in Oakland so we're working really hard to get with nonprofits to get good decent rental properties and to get some of the climate change funding to build housing along major corridors like this so that people can afford to still live in a city like Oakland."

A collage of recent media about gentrification in Oakland.

Neighborhood to Neighborhood Battles

"We’re very diverse, and, you know, I think, unlike San Francisco, we’re really fighting it neighborhood by neighborhood. People are really actually organizing and they’re fighting and we’re trying to put pressure on city government to come up with that money, and we’re not there yet, but we've won some victories, and so one of the things I'm campaigning for today is this renter protection. We want to protect the current renters a lot because (...) a lot of people don’t know their rights. Landlords will sometimes walk by a building and tell everyone to get out and not knowing that they actually have rights to stay and that they can't just add 1000 dollars to their rent. So this is actually a pretty important ordinance. It protects people against unjust evictions and also would require the city to let every renter know what their rent should be and what the rules are.”

A collage of recent media photos in articles about evictions and high rents in Oakland.

Kimmelman: [Who should the burden be on?]

Quan : “It should be on the landlord and it should be on the city. I am famous for walking door to door and talking a lot and I would run into so often seniors and others who just their landlord told them to leave and they just leave. They don’t understand that they have rights.”

Kimmelman: [Yeah, well because they don’t have the time or the money to look into the legal stuff or hire a lawyer, obviously, because they can’t afford that]

Quan: “Or even you think that they can, but I think that more and more it’s starting to happen because there's no place to move. It used to be ok I'll move farther east or I’ll move whatever but now the whole Bay Area is becoming way too expensive.”

Katie Colling, Pushing for Community Land Trusts

Find out more about community land trusts here, and RISE, of which Katie Colling is the vice president.

Alese McMurtry, Caring for People Already in Reno

As part of the week against gentrification in Reno, Our Town Reno is giving the microphone to some of the involved activists.  Alese McMurtry, a student at UNR, still lives at home, but has friends who struggle to find decent apartments at a price they can afford, usually below $400 a month.  

McMurtry (center) also worries about Reno's high poverty and unemployment rates.  She also goes to city council meetings and events with the Reno Justice Coalition to speak out and stay informed.

“Not having enough affordable housing for students is a big issue and I’m not sure the university cares that much about it. I would also like Reno to put more effort into helping people who already live here. They are trying to make it all about tourism, and trying to turn Reno into a tech town, but we have people suffering, and I think they need to focus on them, rather than trying to bring in more and more people with no place for them to go.”

"Officially Discharged" -- Melinda's Lost Dream, part 2

Sitting calmly at a desk in the lush, plant-filled downtown library in Reno, but still in disbelief at how her life has been in a tailspin in recent months, Melinda is organizing folders and papers with different headings and letterheads marking her recent past : drug tests, Restart, appointments with case managers, therapy sessions… One of them stings the most.  In bold the words jump out … “officially discharged from the CABHI program.”

The letter which kicked Melinda out of a program which was providing housing and hope for a better life.

Kicked Out of the CABHI Program

Melinda was a housing recipient from a program meant to help the homeless with both addiction and mental health issues. The 46-year-old Ohio native says she feels she was set up to fail after she moved into her new apartment in the fall of 2015.  She’s homeless again, and after both her parents died while she was in the program, and she had subsequent mental and physical health problems, Melinda, a former heroin addict, slipped back into drugs.

“My dad passed away last year, and then a few months later my mom passed away and as all addicts I went back to what I knew and started using meth for a few months, but I’m always the honest one. I’m always the one that tells them first.  I got a hold of my therapist and told them — hey this is what I’m doing. This is what’s up.” She said she had been told CABHI wasn’t a program where a failed drug test meant you were out.

“A part of addiction is relapse.  We were told this grant, you won’t get kicked off because you are using.”

Most coverage in the media focuses on success stories but not on those who fall through the cracks of programs which receive very little accountability. Screengrab from the Daily Herald in central Utah, in a story about CABHI recipients there.

Not Your Typical Media Success Story

Programs to help our most vulnerable often get attention when they are launched or when there is an early success story, but rarely get scrutinized for their shortcomings.  CABHI is an acronym for Cooperative Agreements to Benefit Homeless Individuals. It’s run through SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Here’s part of a recent writeup from the Daily Herald newspaper in central Utah about CABHI : …The program bypasses the red tape of other government programs, and finds one-bedroom apartments for homeless individuals. But it doesn’t stop there — the program provides them with in-home mental illness counseling, substance abuse interventions, even regular medical care...

A recent Connecticut NPR-affiliate story was headlined “Sal Pinna Finally Finds a Home”. It’s about a CABHI beneficiary who’d been on the streets for two decades. He is quoted as saying: "I’ll feel ten times better when I have the keys in my hand. The nightmare will be over, let’s put it that way.”

Melinda, who prefers not to be photographed, deals with a flurry of paperwork, trying to understand how she can help improve programs like CABHI, so people who believe in them but are still struggling, can still have their expectations met.

More Support Needed

For Melinda, who wasn’t homeless very long, getting into CABHI has meant more nightmares.

 “It was a new start, a new beginning,” she says looking back on the program which she’s now been discharged from. “I thought this is the chance, the helping hand I needed.  All of us who got into CABHI here thought we were going to get support. We thought we were going to get encouragement.  We thought we would be given the tools in order to fulfill our dreams.  We did get housing, but we were also out in the elements on our own,  and at what price? There were never any words of encouragement or support. We didn’t get help during rough times. A lot could have been changed if there was just that little bit of support.”

Melinda has started her own Facebook page and often pipes up on social media to have her concerns heard and worked upon for the benefit of others.

Accountability for Failures

Melinda wonders if case managers should be held accountable.  She worries about programs held in high esteem on a national level but which can be badly managed locally. She’s concerned about how some of the housing is chosen, and whether there is proper screening of places where the formerly homeless are housed.

Melinda often pipes up on social media. She’s becoming a web activist, with new work in progress websites to showcase her journey and concerns. She’s also started going to public meetings to make her feelings known.  

Melinda says she's also been kicked out of ReStart, which initially had led her to CABHI, but that she got a space back in the women's shelter, as she continues to get her life back on track.

No Fears

Melinda says she’s not bothered by the blowback which may come from the small group of people whose job it is to help the homeless in Reno.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t want to say anything because they are afraid of losing their housing… But right is right and wrong is wrong,” Melinda says.  “If appointment dates are unclear or changed without telling us, or they make us wait several hours and we leave, or if we leave voice mails saying we can’t go, we get penalized but what about the case managers?  There’s a whole group of people living in fear. The CABHI program is for those with some kind of mental diagnosis. But what happened was that case managers could add stress and anxiety rather than help. And it was much harder than we thought it would be. Wasn’t this program meant to help us?”

Melinda has kept all her documents showing she took all her required appointments seriously.

An Investigation

This is part 2 of an Our Town Reno investigation into Melinda’s difficult life, and the help she hoped she would be getting, but which fell short of her expectations.

You can read part 1 of her story here.

Stay tuned for part 3.

Melinda's "Lost Dream" - An Investigation, Part 1

Over the next few weeks, Our Town Reno will be looking into Melinda’s story, a recipient of a government program to help homeless suffering from mental health and addiction challenges get housing, but whose life in Reno in recent months has been anything but smooth sailing. 

A screengrab from Melinda's photo album called "My lost dream".

Melinda has been making her grievances and hardships known publicly at meetings, on social media and has established her own Facebook page “Secured Housing with Unsecured Minds”. She messaged Our Town Reno and invited us to her government-supplied residence when she was living there. She titled a photos series she made as “My lost dream”. It seems her cries for help are gaining little traction, at least for now.

A new Facebook page Melinda recently started to get her grievances known.

Are Government Programs to Help the Homeless Effective?

The program Melinda has been in is part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA. That's an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Its mission is, in its own wording, "to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America’s communities."

Like many government programs its intentions are well-meaning. But does this program work? Does it have serious shortcomings? Is money well spent? In this case, here in Reno are the homeless with substance abuse and mental health issues really getting helped?

A screengrab for SAMHSA which provides the money for CABHI. Government programs are full of acronyms.

Melinda was a recipient of a specific program called the Cooperative Agreements to Benefit Homeless Individuals or CABHI. As is inherent nature, government programs are full of acronyms, but also paperwork, detailed requirements, swamped employees, and bureaucratic logjams, which open the door even wider to slow and ineffective services, missed opportunities for help, and also abuse and corruption.

An Investigation

Our Town Reno will be looking into Melinda’s story, as the year and developments unfold, through her own words, and also by looking closer into the system she hoped would help her, but has left her frustrated.  She’s also been through a lot, dealing with loss, fending for herself, and fighting for survival day by day, minute by minute out on the streets of Reno.

Improving Notices for Renters on Development Blocks, Ward Four Speaks Out

As sprawl and new developments take over more and more of Reno, concerned citizens want to make sure renters who make up more than half of the population get notified directly.

Like many other parts of town, Ward 4, which encompasses the North Valleys, is in the midst of a development boom.

This concerns new buildings and business coming into increasingly packed neighborhoods, but also renters who are getting completely displaced as their current residences are to be bulldozed away to give way to new developments.

A Letter to City Council

Last month, the Ward 4 Neighborhood Advisory Board sent a letter to Reno City Council asking for improvements in how renters are notified when new development is arriving.

The letter also notes less than 2,000 residents in Reno receive Ward specific email notifications, a paltry figure.

The letter was sent last month, but didn't get any immediate response.

Our Town Reno caught up with one of the concerned neighborhood board members to find out more on this lack of engagement, and its inherent dangers.

What’s going on in Ward 4 these days?

“Sprawl is pretty intense.  Almost every board meeting we have an annexation or a zoning change to make it more dense.  Right now, within 750 feet of a project, it’s only the landowner who gets notification, plus any military installation and businesses, but not renters.  What we’re trying to do is make sure renters get notices, people in apartment complexes get notices, all the residents in a mobile home park versus just one notice there.”

As more and more new development takes over in Reno, are neighborhood residents getting enough notification of the changes happening where they live?

What about the public notice signs which go up around town concerning oncoming developments?

“Most of the notifications the city puts up are something you have to go out and find.  You have to know that it exists, find that information and then you read it.  It’s something people have to seek out.”

Are these public notices enough?

Why is it important for more residents to know about development which might be happening in their neighborhood?

“Being notified of things happening literally right next to you is a way to engage in the community, so that you have input into your own life. This is not about changing the existing law, it’s about improving it. You can do these things without changing the law.”

Many residents living on this block where the alley and trees and surrounding homes will soon be gone to make way for high end student housing found out about their displacement through media reports, journalists and concerned citizens.

What about the university district where many residents were told about their situation through media reports, and journalists and concerned citizens knocking on their doors?

“That’s just not right. The only reason people knew about displacement in the university block is because people were telling them.  This could happen elsewhere. Think about it: 53% of our population are renters. That’s a significant number of people who aren’t being told directly what’s happening where they live.”

Reno's Dire Need For Housing

by Monica DuPea, Executive Director of the Nevada Youth Empowerment Project

Screengrab from the Nevada Youth Empowerment Project's Facebook page. The community-based youth service provider helps homeless young adults.

Reno Needs All Types of Housing for Its Poor

120 – Emergency Shelter Beds and Professional Onsite Services
1000 – Senior Transitional Housing Units
1600 – Permanent Housing Units

Very Few Viable Housing Options

Many citizens complain about the blight and homelessness in downtown Reno.

A majority of those “hanging” in the streets are earning 30% or less of our Area Medium Income ($17,665 or less) of $58,883. Only 12% of these folks have even been able to find a viable housing option. And, our Shelter Director reports that we are 120 shelter beds short each night with a majority of 90% of these individuals suffering from mental illness and/or substance use.

Finding the Best Action Plan For Success

Not only will these folks need help with basic needs like rent and food assistance, but they will also require other professional services to ensure they are given the best action plan of success, like therapy, medical assisted treatment, medication management and accountability.

Without the piece to help people empower themselves with the skills and knowledge to drive and motivate their own lives, any external resources given will likely not sustain after assistance stops.

Helping the Poor Get Back on Track

It’s expensive and hard to help someone recondition themselves to be a contributor, thinker, doer. There are many false starts and ongoing challenges to overcome. This must be taken into consideration when developing housing for our poor.

Rent is generally set using Fair Market Value, but when you have a city where there is a shortage of housing and an expected boom in population, FMV can be much higher than housing assistance will cover. And, property owners prefer more established renters. They complain that the poor are more likely to be late on rent, damage property, be dirty, not supervise their children, move people in, vacate without notice, etc.

Suggested solutions:

1. Define Shelter as Emergency Shelter and add additional 120 beds and professional services.
2. Additional shelter opened to serve as a Day Program.
3. Defining the current shelter as an emergency shelter will also it to serve a specific purpose…to assess, stabilize and refer out for more appropriate and long term care. Opening the additional shelter would provide a housing based programming site for families/youth to stabilize in, so they can begin to get their footing back and build a life. When we have sufficient shelter beds, we should see a decrease in street homelessness.
4. Develop a Land Trust Company to hold properties that serve as housing projects for our poor.
5. Work with and only incentivize developers who are interested in setting aside significant number of units for our poor (30% or less of AMI).
6. Consider alternative solutions like changing zoning/coding to allow more community style living environments that can accommodate larger groups of people for smaller costs. Or, look at how we can use our abandoned/foreclosed properties. There are also many kinds of tiny houses. We will need to innovate to address the amount of need we have with the resources available.