Becoming Friends with James McGeein, a Drifter Handyman and Master Splinter

A First Exchange on a Cold Day

James McGeein, a 50 year old Southern California native who has been in Reno for the past 20 years, is quick to share a smile and a few words of wisdom if you met him. The first time I met James I was working at a bar in downtown Reno. It was the middle of winter and if anyone knows Reno it’s a haven for barreling winds and severe weather patterns that make you feel as if you were in the Arctic.

Assuming that this raggedy looking man was getting out of the cold for a second I prepared to ask him to leave, as my company has a no loitering policy. He walked through the front door with a snow shovel and about three layers of clothing that looked as if they hadn’t ever been washed, and my first thought was, “damn, how am I going to kick this guy out when it’s freezing outside?”.

He walked up to my counter, but instead of asking for money or food, he asked me if we needed help removing the snow from our sidewalk out front. Not knowing what to do I texted my boss asking if this was something he was interested in or something that we could even do. As I waited for the response James indulged me with his cunning speech, “I travel around downtown from bars to restaurants asking employees and managers if there is any work I can do for a little spare change or some extra food lying around.”

I have heard the story a million times before. A lot of people will share a compelling story to get you to give them money; however, in James’s eyes he saw a trade opportunity. He told me he does oddball stuff for businesses around town, and in return they offered him some cash or some extra food from excess fries to extra pizza. I told him if he wanted to do the job I could work something out in his favor and without skipping a beat he shook my hand and walked outside to clear the sidewalk.

It has now been a few months since I met James and he still makes his runs from business to business, but at my bar we don’t mind if he sits around and entertains us with funny jokes and unbelievable stories that make you wonder what this guy has been through... “It’s been as exciting as a rollercoaster and as disastrous as a dirty needle,” he once told us. He’s quite blunt with his words, but in the way a boisterous relative would give you advice at a family barbecue. It seems he’s a realist, and doesn’t shy from saying what’s on his mind which from his past you might understand why.

The Life Story of James McGeein

Being a journalist I was very intrigued by him, and asked him for the chance to sit down and dive into how he survives day-to-day. Over a beer and some good food he told me stories, jokes, and how it is to be in his shoes. I, as the writer of this piece, am simply a vehicle for the incredible life story of James McGeein.

Growing up his family was split, his mother staying back in Southern California, while his dad moved up to the Lake Tahoe area. As a kid he spent weekends with his dad and on weekdays he made long eight hour bus rides back to his mom. He went to school, but said he never did well and was more focused on working to help his family out. He said he liked coming to Tahoe because it was a chance to feel free from obligation. He and his dad would go skiing and snowboarding every Friday and Saturday, then would head to the South Shore part of Tahoe to do some gambling and sit at a local hole in the wall restaurant.

Life changed very quickly for James though. He moved to Reno in his early twenties to pursue a decent job where he could provide for himself while taking care of his dad. Finding a job wasn’t hard he said, but finding a job with his background meant minimum wage and maximum hours to survive. He’s worked at almost every casino, he’s been a busboy at local eateries, and even a maintenance worker at some motels in town. He’s never made enough to live on his own so he couch surfed from house to house paying people $50-$100 to crash on their couch for a few days. Sometimes he said he’d come back to the house he was staying at and his things would be tossed outside with a note reading you owe me an extra $100 to stay another night. He simply picked his things up and moved on to the next opportunity.

Things weren’t going great for James, but he was making ends meet and was happy to have some sort of roof over his head. However, in 2011 things took a turn in the worst way. James was feeling sick and losing a lot of weight that he attributed to lack of food and the way he lived.

He checked himself into the hospital after he had enough of feeling sluggish all the time, and received news more devastating than any person in his situation should. The doctors said he maybe had one year to live, and the reason he was so skinny was the cancer spreading through his liver to his colon. Being in his 40s he said “I was terrified at first... when doctors tell you you’re going to die you kind of just believe it”.

James quit his job resulting in him being booted out of the house he was staying in and he began the search again. Between treatments at the hospital and falling asleep in alleys James was living a life that some might just give up on, but he knew he had to keep his head straight to battle this situation. He told me the last thing he wanted was for his parents to watch their son die before their eyes.

Not Giving Up after Being Given a Diagnosis of Death

“If you think this sh*ts gonna’ stop me... you don’t know what I have been through,” he said. James wasn’t going to give up because he was sick, the news in a way made him stronger and (made him) learn a lot about who was there for him and who was just looking to take advantage.

He got himself mixed up in some drug situations while dealing with disease and ended making a lot of “regrettable” decisions, but he never gave up. One year after doctors told him the cancer was terminal he walked out of the hospital with a foot long scar on his stomach and cancer free. To commemorate the awful situation he faced, he had ‘WTF’ tattooed under his scar... and yes he said it means What The F*ck.

A man that has been battle tested and couldn’t be broken, James is one hell of a guy that knows how to get work done. My hunch of a deeper story was right, James had ten times the life experience that anyone might have in Reno and it made him savvy.

Not having a stable income or even a bed to sleep in, he went right back to being what I like to call a drifting handyman. The man does everything from selling seasonal items that get donated to him to fixing the plumbing in your store for a much cheaper price than a licensed plumber. “Most people tell me no to fixing things in their stores because insurance reasons, but I try to tell them I’m not there to screw them over.” James said money has been hard to come by, and he’s not interested in getting a house or a car because it’s easier to move around town where he doesn’t have to pay rent.

For thousands of people across Nevada a consistent bed, stable job, and a good meal everyday is unfortunately not a reality. The Reno Area Alliance for the Homeless combined with the Las Vegas Rescue Mission reports that there are more than 6,500 people motel surfing or sleeping out in the city streets between the two cities with 24,900 expected to be homeless at some point in 2019.

Dangerous, Tedious and Helpful Jobs to Survive

For every soul stuck outside there’s a story; some struggling with substance abuse after losing everything, and others curling up at night freezing cold because they didn’t have money for rent. The homeless rehabilitation center in Las Vegas, The Las Vegas Rescue Mission, reports that 1 in 30 American children will experience homelessness and that 51 percent of those kids are under age five. It’s a grim situation that city officials and small volunteer groups around town have tried to address, but maybe not enough.

For many people in a financial dark time banks, loan agencies, and other services that end up charging high interest rates are an easy option. When you don’t have a credit card, any proof of a steady income, or other collateral where do you turn? “There’s money waiting around every corner you look... you just have to know what corners to look around”

When James said this it made me think about the kind of lengths he is willing to go to get a little extra cash in his pocket. He laughed when I asked, and wondered if I was asking about “explicit activities”. I turned very red and stuttered my words trying to track back my question, but before I could say anything he said he was joking and to my relief said he’s never stolen, robbed, or sold himself for money.

To his account the craziest thing he has had to do was standing on a slick snow covered roof in the middle of a storm to clear a gutter that was causing a leak in a building. James said the company gave him a long stick and snow shovel and said have fun. As he reached the part of the roof where the gutter was located he slipped on some ice that was covered by snow and began sliding towards a 30 foot drop off.

Just before sliding off, his foot hit a pipe protruding from the roof and stopped him from falling to an uncertain fate. Dangerous jobs like that were uncommon he said, jobs mostly included cleaning hotel lots, shoveling snow, or the occasional fixer-up kind of job where he would help contractors with various construction jobs.

The most money he’s made in a day was from an older lady who was being forced out of her apartment. Seeing the woman struggle to carry some of the heavier things he gladly walked over and asked if she would like some help getting the items in her van. At first he said she refused and told him to “fuck off”, but he insisted that he helped and said he didn’t want any money. The woman reluctantly saying yes, they both got to work. “It took about an hour of back breaking work to lift all of it into the van,” James said, and after they had finished the woman came up to James and handed him a folded up bill. It was the first of the new blue 100 dollar bills that he’s ever held. With tears in his eyes he embraced the woman for what she didn’t have to do.

Everyday that I have spent with or seen James it’s always a very similar greeting... “I’m doing good, I woke up so that’s a positive” he says, or “God’s great, and beer is good, and I’m still here”.

Using a popular Dierks Bentley song quote and joking all the time it was hard not to see the good man he was. He keeps high spirits while making his way around town which he says makes it easier to ask people for jobs.

He told me he became good friends with a girl that worked at a local pizza shop. He would sit in the restaurant on late night weekends when the woman would work alone and act as security to make sure she could get home safe. “There was the occasional problem, but I think she just liked the stories we’d share all night”.

Being Compared to the Master Splinter

James isn’t necessarily the security type standing at 5’7, 140 pounds with balding gray hair. His most notorious feature, his beard, was a long gray splattered one that split off his chain with two long strands almost reaching his belt line. Before the woman at the pizza joint quit her job she worked one last shift with James watching the door.

Later that night when she was closing up she asked James over to the kitchen and handed him an entire large pizza for the road. She looked at him and said thank you for being my Master Splinter. For those of you who don’t know, Splinter is the character who watches over the Ninja Turtles and teaches them with wise words and karate.

Not quite the same relationship between James and the pizza worker, but she said he looked like the character with the way his beard was and it stuck with James. Now, when I ask around town about James I oftentimes have to refer to him as ‘Splinter’ for people to recognize him. Truthfully, a fitting nickname to the father-like, caring character that he is.

There is a perception of homeless people not only in the Reno area, but worldwide that they are mentally unstable, not willing to work, or people that you should avoid. This couldn’t be further from the truth for millions of people left homeless.

I am not saying that all people in this situation are hard working and or are able to work like James is, but it is sad to see society categorize this group as such. Not all is lost however. Groups like Our Town Reno and the Salvation Army have taken it upon themselves to go out into the community to learn about the situations some of these people go through and help in any way they can. James agreed with me when I said the way to help is to recognize what they can do instead of focusing on what they can’t.

While finishing up the last of three interviews I had with James “Splinter” McGeein I asked him if there was one thing he would like people to know. He left me with a quote that, although may seem like the cliche of don’t judge a book by its cover, really hit hard;

“Just because I wear the same clothes everyday, my hair is tattered, and my hands are worn don’t look at me like I can’t do anything because I fight everyday to turn my flaws into my strengths”.

You can find James walking around the Truckee river in downtown Reno from sunup to sundown and if you happen to pass him give him a hello and I am sure you’ll get a story worth your time.

Story by Tyler Williams shared with Our Town Reno

At the Edge of Prose: A Look Inside Donald Griffin’s Genre-Bending Work

The Reno Matrix

Donald Griffin speaks like he writes. He weaves through images and ideas, the last word of every phrase seeming to trigger a parallel line of thought. He can theorize about unseen dimensions and institutional corruption in the same sentence. Before you know it he’s talking about Sci-fi movies and the descriptive acuity of Stephen King, and after awhile you get the sense that it all relates to each other.

Griffin is a big The Walking Dead fan, and though no actual zombies appear in his writing, the motif of human brains hijacked by forces beyond their comprehension recurs throughout his body of work.

As he puts it, “That’s what we are in a way. Walking around not knowing shit.” In his work, Griffin calls this phenomenon “The Reno Matrix,” an invisible veil hiding what really controls the day to day reality of a changing city. He represents the unseen influence of media with the ubiquity of devices:

Trust issues with computers, disconnecting TV’s, and threw away a hundred phones.

These cuts and bruises prove I learn from hands on.

Without choice of red or blue pill,

I suddenly woke up in the Reno Matrix.

For Griffin, there’s more to life in Reno than what its citizens perceive with their senses. What we see only tells part of the story. This perspective is especially important considering Reno’s evolving climate.

Corporate influences like Amazon and Tesla are changing the city along every dimension. The population is growing. Areas like Midtown and downtown are being gentrified, housing is suddenly inordinately expensive.

A city formerly characterized by low cost of living, dive bars, and casinos is becoming what locals are calling “Mini Portland.” Staple bars like Shea’s Tavern are now bordered by gastropubs and German beerhauses. Midtown’s hip influence extends north toward downtown. The university expands south across the freeway, leveling motels and brick houses.

For many residents, the changes are welcome. But for a significant population of Reno citizens, there’s a steadily shrinking amount of space to exist in.

Who Does the City Belong To?

The city is redefining what kind of place it wants to be, what sort of person it’s supposed to be for. Griffin’s piece, “Who Does the City Belong to?,” (part of which is in video above) questions whether he has a place within the redefined Reno.

For Griffin, there’s a disconnect between the the growth narrative told by developers, hipsters, young professionals and the lived experience of many of its citizens. The narrator states, “The world has an order held in place and designed to keep you in a governmental haze. Hibernating in a lack of knowledge.”

Griffin’s writing punctures the illusion suggested by Reno’s recent development. He comes from a place outside of the mainstream narrative, and it's his experience that allows him to see institutional corruption in a way that’s distinct from Reno citizens happy about the city’s recent changes.

This is part of what attracted Griffin to writing. He writes, as he puts it, for “the people still trapped inside the boxes I used to be trapped in.”

One such box, for Griffin, was addiction. “I was drinking and drugging for 23 years,” he says. He’s been homeless and has had people close to him die of overdose, what he calls the “street form of suicide.”

When he got sober, Griffin felt that he had “woken up” from the Reno matrix. He’s been fortunate to find “the keys” to the life he wants to lead, and he hopes to be a positive influence on the community in the same way that his own influences led him to consider writing in the first place.

Poetry written and read by Donald Griffin is on the Our Town Reno podcast here: https://ourtownreno.simplecast.fm/a7e4a84f

Different Realities

Griffin thinks of reality as being different for everyone. For him, writing is the bridge between different people’s perception of reality, allowing him to show where different perspectives diverge and overlap: “You don’t know my world, but I can try to take my world and blend it in with your world.” Writing allows Griffin to talk to himself on paper, and it’s his hope that these conversations will be beneficial not only to those currently suffering from addiction and “living street,” but also to those who might not be aware of the challenges faced by Reno’s homeless and housing insecure citizens.

This type of perspective is becoming more and more crucial as the divide between the Midtown crowd and those checking into shelters and weekly motels grows wider. It’s easy to assume that Reno’s changing landscape is a natural progression, that gentrification is a normal consequence of economic growth. But what makes space for one person can push someone else to the margin, and Griffin’s writing attempts to amplify the perspective of people whose experience contradicts the mainstream narrative. “Normal is a speed on the dial of a washing machine,” Griffin writes, and pieces like Reno Matrix and Who Does the City Belong to? question the assumptions behind mainstream ideas of normalcy.

As a writer, poet and activist, Griffin looks back on his own childhood which went errant and says he wants to focus his attention on giving youths more options to thrive.

When Bad Habits of Youth “Become You”

From Griffin’s perspective, some significant factors leading to homelessness in Reno are also overlooked by conventional understanding. A big part of the problem, he says, has to do with Reno’s more notorious industries.

The city’s bars and casinos offer a fairly lively party scene, but for young adults between 16 and 20, Griffin says there’s “nothing to do.” While The Holland Project (Reno’s only dedicated all ages show space) offers about three to four events every week, the lack of structure for young people’s lives, coupled with the town’s party culture, is tailor made for underage drinking and drug use. Experimentation turns to habit fairly quickly, Griffin says, and before you know it, what was your habit “becomes you.” Griffin believes that underage drinking and drug use leads to teenage pregnancy and youth addiction, both of which he sees as significant factors leading to youth and continued homelessness.

The solution for Griffin needs to come at both the personal and institutional levels. “Not everyone is gonna go to college,” he says, and high schools need to offer trade alternatives to the traditional high school to UNR to office job track that isn’t feasible for some Reno students. The educational institutions also need to inspire students to pursue their interests rather than simply shuffling them out into a world as potential employees. Griffin says: “Ask the kids, ‘what’s your dream,’ not ‘who do you wanna work for?’” Offering engaging alternatives and encouraging kids to pursue their passions will, Griffin believes, remedy the feeling of aimlessness and hopelessness that inspires kids to start using in the first place.

All-Out Activism and Engagement

In addition to his writing, Griffin strives to enact change in any way he can : “I got my life back, and I wanna do the same for somebody else.” He’s worked with New Generation Dare (video trailer above), Our Town Reno, The Holland Project, and he is a regular member of the Speaker’s Bureau at ACTIONN (Acting in Community Together in Northern Nevada), whose recent lobbying efforts were instrumental in the advancement of the Washoe County Affordable Housing Trust Fund. His schedule is constantly full, but Griffin says his newfound ambition is not an attempt to “fix the past.” He instead looks to the future, constantly in pursuit of “the outcome” of his actions and efforts. Writing and community activism have enhanced his life, and he wants to spread that sense of power to those that need it most.

Griffin calls this desire the “poet’s curse,” the ability to speak for “the ones who aren’t able to” on their own behalf. His writing attempts to break people out of their day to day assumptions, and Griffin uses digressions, cryptic images, and symbolism to represent how tied up people are within their assumptions.

Griffin takes some pleasure in making his readers work: “I don’t want to give ‘em too much. I want to put it in words they can understand, but I want to lose them a little bit. I wanna give them just enough detail and bring it back and give them the reality in 3D.”

Griffin is a fan of Quentin Tarantino movies, and the non-linear structure made famous in films like Pulp Fiction has clearly influenced his style. It’s precisely this disjointed approach, the type of structure that encourages readers to discover meaning rather than accepting easy interpretations, that a changing city like Reno needs right now.

Shortened Version of an Essay Written by Drew Willis shared with Our Town Reno

"You Just Gave me 28 Days of Smiles," Reaching out to a Family in a Motel

A Box of Cookies

Yesterday, I came across several people in need of a voice. I recently started organizing donations for families in motels in downtown Sparks. I am heartbroken for these families.

They are working full time jobs. They do not have substance abuse problems. They drive cars that are nicer than mine and make their payments on time for them.

They are in great credit standing with the motel. They pay at minimum one thousand dollars a month for their room and they are raising their children there.

I am just a community donor. I network and buy food and items in bulk to provide extra support for these families.

Yesterday I was contacted by a family that had no food. They commute by bus. They work and are raising a child in this motel. I immediately went to the grocery store and purchased one hundred dollars in food. They only can cook with a microwave and a mini fridge.

When I arrived and met the little girl I must say I was blown away. She was so grateful and so hungry and looking at her face when she saw the food is imprinted in my mind.

I bought a 28 count box of chips and she said, "You just gave me 28 days of smiles." She is 8!

Joining the Fight

I need our community to join the fight.

We have honest, hardworking families, living in unfair conditions. These landlords who are saying you must make four times the rent in order to qualify to live here should be held in moral contempt. These folks work, make their car payments, or their bus fair. They never miss the rent at the motel and they have good hygiene and attend church services.

Yet they have to live this way due to rental communities unwilling to ungrinch themselves.

These are Our children, Our neighbors, Our community.

I am only one person but I make a difference everyday in anyway I can. The taxpayers really need to look at them and then look at our city leaders. I am not an anarchist. I pay my taxes.

And in turn I see art being leased. I see housing that starts between $500,000 - $750,000 being built. I see these council members approving irresponsible business ventures like an AXE bar.

We need a change. These children growing up in motels will eventually become the next economy. Are we giving them due diligence? I think not. We need their generation to thrive and laugh and learn.

Washoe County is failing its citizens and a major change must be made NOW! We must do better! Thank you for letting me share my story.

1st Person Essay by Elizabeth Monick shared with Our Town Reno

Changing Places

Good-bye to this craftsman style, Chinese influenced, UNR gateway area house, neatly set up to move to another neighborhood, Reno’s Old Southwest.  The university is putting a massive new Business Building in its place.

Porthole windows and Chinese detail grace the building.  But a piece is missing!

In pieces, the house will be able to get around town.

Once, the house was part of a whole neighborhood of such houses leading up to the university’s entrance.  Then, when the freeway was put in in order to take visitors right to the casinos’ doors, the house faced right onto the freeway.  Prior to the houses, Native Americans from the Washoe tribe lived there.

 Soon, not craft but business will welcome visitors to the university.  Traces of the past will be hard to find.

Photos and Essay by Deborah Achtenberg shared with Our Town Reno

Change, Rolling Around Town

It looks lonely.  What used to be on the other side of the fence?  What conversations might have taken place?  Who fell in love there, or played on the lawn?  What did they see in their future?  How might it have informed ours?

At some point, I imagine, new neighbors came in–in more impersonal buildings, with gambling tables and slot machines inside.  Who lived in the old building then?  Owners?  Dealers?  Waitresses?

"Then another group of new neighbors came in, temporary visitors staying in motels featuring appealing design and easy access–or so I imagine.

Behind them, today, are new buildings, signaling changes to come.  We don’t know what the changes will be–since the new owners have not told us–but we have allowed their unnamed futures to push out our connections to the past.

Change is the life of cities, of course–but who owns it?  Who controls it?  Who has a right to the city?

Good-bye, old friend.  In your new spot–if you’re going to one–who will be able to see your past, the connections that made you what you were, the milieu that might suggest a new one to us?  Instead, our reaction to you will be an abstract nostalgia–uninformed and unconnected.

Writing and Photography by Deborah Achtenberg shared with Our Town Reno

In Local Solidarity of Unist'ot'en Camp

At Our Town Reno we salute #heroesofreno who help each other as well as #activistsofreno who support and fight for important causes worth fighting for. We must also always remember Reno is itself on land taken over from the Washoe people. Below is an account of a recent protest at the Believe statue in support of the Unist’ot’en clan which stands in the way of oil and gas pipelines. What makes their ongoing action unique is that the territory they are trying to protect within northern British Columbia in Canada has never been given up by treaty.  They say they are fighting to preserve rivers and creeks from contamination for future generations.

"Xótchítl gave a speech about the horrors of the militarized police attacking innocent land protectors, and the importance of protecting every bit of clean water we have left,” participant Tara Tran said of the event. Photo provided to Our Town Reno by Louis Magriel.

An Intensifying Movement

The Unist’ot’en clan, part of the Wet'suwet'en nation in the occupied territories of British Columbia, Canada, have been protesting the planning of several large pipelines which would run through their traditional territories. Conflicts with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) over the Indigenous presence on their own traditional land, which they still retain unceded original title over, have intensified in the past few weeks.

Solidarity events have popped up in several places in North America to protest the intrusion of the corporate energy industry and police into Unist'ot'en territory, and to affirm the power and legitimacy of the Indigenous camp.

In Reno, the solidarity took to the streets as Unist'ot'en supporters marched from the Believe sign to the Reno Arch, took pictures under the Arch, and marched back to the Believe sign, chanting "No Pipelines!" and "What do we do when our children are under attack? Stand up, Fight back!"

“What happens upstream comes downstream,” supporters said. Photo provided to Our Town Reno by Louis Magriel.

A Place for Healing

As much as the gathering was a call to action, it was also a place for healing, and a reminder that in the face of generations of trauma and the evils of today, the Indigenous peoples will not be silenced and won’t stop fighting. In that same spirit, Xótchítl reminded the supporters present that "UNISTOTEN HEALS." Supporters also affirmed plans to do a fundraiser for Unist'ot'en Camp in the coming weeks.  More info here: http://unistoten.camp/

Reporting by Louis Magriel provided to the Our Town Reno Citizen’s Forum

"Houris" by Stephen "Pops" Popovich with VOICE

Reconnecting with Life after Self-Exile in the Streets

Perhaps there is something to those 72 Houris promised in the Koran. Not the whole virgins in paradise, milk and honey thing but more of a touching of souls thing. I have been pondering on things like this more and more lately. Over the past year or so there have been so many changes in my life. I have been overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers.      

I will never forget the day I was “ Recalled to Life." This was delivered to me by a sawed off, over caffeinated, punk rocker who I have come to love. She was the first person in many years to see something in me. To this day, I wonder what it was and why we seemed to “click” with so little effort. She brought me back from a self imposed exile. I had all but quit on life.

Since that day I have been trying to re-learn life in a more open and involved world. This has not always been easy. I had spent my years on the Street building up this armor of indifference. Not caring had been the method I used to avoid the pain of life. Caring, whether about people or ideals, leaves you vulnerable. It is so much easier just to wall yourself off from the world. Vulnerability, out on the Street, is like a drop of blood in the water, it will bring the sharks down on you.

A post Popovich recently posted on his Facebook feed.  After years of keeping his distance from others, he says he's getting back into life with others. 

“Without treatment, a year, perhaps a bit more”

Opening yourself up again goes against all of the old survival instincts. I would like to think that it had to be Kismet that brought us together, the first of my Houris.

At the time of my greatest challenges, a beautiful, compassionate soul entered into my life. She has been with me through Heart Attack and Lung Cancer, Chemo, Radiation and Recovery, always as my friend. Yet, her greatest gift to me has been the shepherding of me, gently back into a society that I had abandoned.

Over the past year, circumstances beyond my control have forced me into a world full of Doctors, Nurses, Social Workers and Therapists. My life had been changed by a few simple words ...  “Without treatment, a year, perhaps a bit more”.

Those  words, oddly enough, provided a new sense of clarity in my life. I was in a bit of shock, obviously, as we left the doctor's office that afternoon. The decision for treatment was a no brainer. I now had a very real goal, literally, in my life, surviving Stage III B Adenocarcinoma. Having so recently re-joined the Human Race, I made up my mind that I wasn’t quite ready to give up on it.

The world of Doctors and treatments is complicated, sometimes mind-bendingly so. You need a lot of friends. I was bred with some manners and over the years I developed a bit of charm. I used them both shamelessly, it was the only thing I had to work with. Little things like remembering names and being polite became important. I built up my connections at St. Mary’s and around town.

A micrograph of the type of the Adenocarcinoma cancer.

Accompanied with Honesty and Respect

All through this journey, my Houris have accompanied me. Sometimes for the long haul and sometimes just long enough to get me over the next hill.

Some inspired, some counseled, others brought nothing but smiles and laughter. Each gave a little of themselves. I cannot find the words to describe what I have felt. Magic is as close as I can get.

These souls have managed to touch my heart. My Houris -- their efforts have made it so much easier to maintain a positive attitude. Shared compassion, moral support, unasked for and freely given. I have never read Hillary Clinton’s book It takes a Village, yet I have embraced the concept in the title.

No matter what the crisis, having friends, people who care, will make a major difference in your recovery. Houris you meet along the way provide access to new sources and help to build your support family. All that is required is honesty and respect for each other. Meeting my Houris, becoming friends, has been the best part of my illness.

Another story Popovich is working on above as part of the therapeutic writing workshop.

Surviving Treatment

I could do pages on the joys of Radiation Therapy, the fun of Chemo. I’ll skip over most of it.

Each morning as I was positioned to go under the Cyber Knife, I followed the advice of one of my Houris. “Think of it as a Time Machine” and so I did.

For all 32 sessions after the Nurses had left and closed the six inch thick, lead-lined door I would envision some sunrise or vista from my past.

My body lay still as the Cyber Knife whirred, buzzed and hummed around me. I watched sunrises in my mind. After five minutes or so I would hear the words “Relax we’re done,” and I would slowly return.

Chemo was harder, there are a lot of needles involved and I really hate needles.

The Houris of the Infusion Center were gentle and missed only rarely.

An Excruciating Recovery

Sitting quietly while a witches brew of toxins is pumped into your body is hard. Meditation and the knowledge that there would be a little steroid bump the next day made it easier.

I was lucky I missed most of the side effects people had so gleefully told me about. I lost some hair. After seven long weeks my treatment was done and the real fun part of chemotherapy began.

To celebrate my freedom from treatment, I took in a baseball game with friends. This would be one of my last good days. Throat swollen shut by radiation, I couldn’t enjoy a hot dog, drinking a beer was hard.

Over the next couple of weeks, everything I was told about chemo came true. I was sick as a dog, so sick that as I lay in a fetal ball on my bed, I wished for death.

As part of his reengagement with society, Popovich has gotten involved in Reno city council meetings. 

Watched Over and Starting a New Phase

Through all of this, my Houris watched over me, some in person, others by phone, one from across the country. I had reached out in fear and need and she had responded. During this last phase, I was miserable. I couldn’t eat. I lost 25 pounds I couldn’t spare. Weak as a kitten, my body trying to purge the accumulated poison from itself. The worst weeks of my life, I doubt I could have made it through this by myself.

At first my recovery was slow, it took months to gain six pounds and go over 130 pounds again ... 20 more to go. Regaining my strength is an ongoing challenge requiring constant work.

Through all of this I’ve had half a dozen of my Houris trying to fatten me up both physically and mentally. Keeping my spirits up. This oddball crew of friends: Therapists, Social Workers, Nurses and Bartenders is the core of my support group. A family of like-minded souls who with their compassion, have made me a better person. I feel honored to call these people my Friends.

Next month, I start a new phase in my recovery. This one should be easier, I have the benefit of past experience and a more positive attitude towards life. I have built a community of kindred spirits, my Houris, in whom I have complete trust.

With these people and others I meet as I go through surgery and treatment at UC Davis, I will get through this. I hope that I’m not limited to just 72 Houris. Each of these kind souls, in their own way has made me a better person... given me a sense of belonging, of being a part of something bigger and the desire to make it better. Having a purpose makes life worth living.

Writing by Stephen Popovich from the VOICE writing workshop shared with Our Town Reno

I Walk Around in Circles, Lost Boy Lodge and Art by Wendy Wiglesworth with VOICE

I WALK AROUND IN CIRCLES

I walk around in circles

most of the time

maybe thinking they're all afraid

of what I might find

about them or me

I'm not quite sure

but I can tell you they're definitely scared for sure

because I'm different and they plainly see

that I totally know where I'm at

But they don't

I think maybe they never will see,

unlike them I have the will to wake up on the daily

and survive all this shit

please understand it's making me sick

sick and tired

every single night

I guess I missed my flight

but I know it's not without good reason

too many people here are committing treason

and there's not many who can call them out on that

me I fucking live for that

and not for the pride or the trophy of telling totally opposite

cuz maybe they'll hear it and see it for once

I'm the one that they'll hear it from and believe it and see it

maybe even just once

I only hope because hope is one thing

I think everybody needs

and I guess I'm the asshole but I'm not full of greed

I joke and say it's evil but I know it's straight good

good all day

always for the greater good

but it's really hard which is why I joke

I joke I joke cuz otherwise I would choke

seriously so I'll be the the one that everybody calls when they're pissed off

or have nobody else to blame

because it's all about the greater good

cuz once that's all done I can finally go home

cuz I'm tired I don't know where to go

so walk around Circles here we go.

☆《WENDY》☆

"That's a drawing of the GSR above people camping along the river. It's a money-hungry corporation towering over us." Art by Wendy Wiglesworth

LOST BOY LODGE

 

Poetry and Art by Wendy Wiglesworth from the VOICE writing workshop shared with Our Town Reno

My Story by Lisa Lee with VOICE

My name is Lisa Lee and I experienced the rollercoaster of episodic homelessness for about eight years. I am sharing this story to encourage others to speak their truth and expose their vulnerability. This is vital to our connections with other people and an important element in creating solidarity and educating others. I also mean to disrupt assumptions people often make about people experiencing homelessness and invoke a sense of trauma informed awareness and compassionate interactions.

My story is full of firsts and lasts. Please be aware that it is full of content that may cause discomfort and I will not be offended if you need to walk away as it may trigger some audience members. 

The first time I attempted to come out as lesbian, my mother shot me down stating that if I liked girls, I would “be dead” to her. I was in fourth grade. The first time I drank too much, I was eight. The first time I smoked a cigarette, I was eight or nine. I started smoking weed at 11. That was the only drug I tried until after a violent rape at 13 which resulted in pregnancy. My mom said I had to get an abortion or move out. Her friend raped and molested me for the next year, threatening that if I told anyone, he would kill my mother. Later, I found out that he had sexually abused little boys and girls for years. He was a minister, family counselor, and politician.

I spent my youth bouncing between my grandma’s house located within a high density gang ridden neighborhood—“the hood,” “barrio” and my parents’ home in the boonies. As a kid, I spent a lot of time with a known child molester. My memories are foggy from these early childhood experiences but I am still plagued by glimpses caught within nightmares. The first time I saw someone get jumped I was about nine years old.

Police violence and harassment was rampant in that neighborhood and it was clear that immigrants and poor people were made to know their place by constant police surveillance. Most of my friends from the neighborhood had children young, were stabbed or shot, and most ended up in prison. The cycle of poverty and criminalization of class likely reproduce in future generations as options for mobility foreclose to their parents. According to science, adverse childhood experiences are linked to chronic disease, addiction, incarceration, suicide, and premature mortality.

Many people who experience homelessness are intelligent and creative.

I was in AT since first grade and later in all honors and advanced placement courses and graduated high school a full year early. I worked and had my own apartment my final months of my junior year after getting kicked out of my house and living with my grandma briefly. Shortly after graduating, I packed up my car and the little cash savings I had and went to Seattle where I rented a room in a house full of other poor youths. After not being able to find a job and running out of money, I drove my car and a few items to store in Reno where I sold my car and took a bus back to Seattle. I wanted to get as far as I could from this place. After running out of money and not being able to pay rent, I moved to a nearby park and began my journey of homelessness. I was eighteen years old.

I met a lot of interesting people and grew to love my nomadic existence. I went to Rainbow Gatherings, and Grateful Dead shows before I began a love affair with the ultimate trauma numbing elixir—heroin.

This is really when I became entrenched in the chaos of homelessness. I mostly squatted in abandoned buildings, but also found myself sleeping on cardboard on loading docks and in doorways, in parks, ravines, beaches, forests, and in tent cities. I moved around a lot thinking that addiction was linked to place and finding that everywhere I went, there I was again.

I carried my homelessness with me from Philadelphia to Austin to Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, and always returning “home” to Seattle. My daily life centered around survival and staying “well.” During these years, I was assaulted, beaten, shot at, and bent not broken. The experience of living in a young female body meant violence and assaults at the hands of men. It meant waking up to men on top of me, to box cutters in my mouth. It meant living in a hyper vigilant state, always in flight or fight. Afraid of civilians and police. Afraid of losing everything over and over. Afraid of not being able to exist anywhere. I can’t imagine the devastating effects of cortisol and adrenaline production on the body.

I tried numerous paths out of addiction. Methadone, “pill kicks,” cold turkey, and finally treatment on my own accord. Although I relapsed shortly after discharge from treatment, I eventually made my way to freedom from all of this chaos two years later. You see, there was a counselor at the treatment center run by the state that planted a seed. I carried her words and fierce love with me.

She never got to see her seed grow. Her job was a thankless job that focused on the immediacy of detox and the early stages of sobriety. I wish that I could thank her for what she saw in me that I could never see in myself. The last two years of my homelessness and active addiction were full of tough lessons. It was during these years that I delved into polysubstance use with crack cocaine and heroin. There was so much sexual exploitation and violence during this brief period. I ended up living in a tent city and then under a bridge in San Francisco where syringes littered the ground like tainted confetti and people lined up every morning to use the mirror glued to the cement to inject in their necks. This was a time of abscesses and sickness of the type of filth that lodges in your insides as you internalize your social exclusion at the margins. 

The last time I went to jail was around June 2001. The last time I got high on heroin was January 4, 2002. My path out of homelessness took shape when I took a job in a fishery in Alaska where room and board was provided as well as transportation from Seattle to Dutch Harbor. I went there with a focus that I would not return to the same life I had lived and was willing to change at all costs. I kicked methadone while working seven days a week, 12-18 hours per day. My bones hurt, I couldn’t sleep, and worked through waves of nausea and tremors. My mantra was I will never feel like this again. I went to Alaska a broken 26-year-old. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye, with rounded shoulders from looking down all of the time. I left Alaska a strong young woman (really, I was ripped) who boldly shook hands and looked everyone in the eyes. I knew who I was and what I was made of. I was in my power. 

Back in the lower 48, I cut ties with everyone and everything from my past. I got a job right away and enrolled in alcohol and drug counseling classes. I took every class they had to offer. I reinvented myself and my priorities.

April 22, 2006, I gave birth to my first child. October 4, 2007 I bought a house. I  worked, and attended school. It was a slow process but true to my street name, Turtle. On May 10, 2012, I had another child with multiple congenital anomalies and a genetic disorder and took care of my dying father on hospice in my home.

In May 2014, I graduated with a BA in anthropology and minors in sociology and religious studies. I was accepted into graduate school, conducted independent fieldwork, research, and fell in love with the mission of HOPES. I finally got a chance to really improve things for my people. My people. It was much more than a job to me.

In December 2017, I earned a master’s degree and in February 2018 I purchased my second house. Can you believe it? Once a broken junkie, now a fearless warrior.

Now in my role as a Program Director at The Life Change Center, I work with individuals affected by their use of opiates which often intersects with homelessness. I get to develop programs that challenge stigma and save lives. I’m part of a team of dedicated professionals ranging from counselors, case managers, therapists, and peer recovery and support specialists. This is my passion. It’s what I live and breathe. It’s what keeps me up at night, it’s what I research in my free time, it’s what wakes me in the morning. It also rips all of my scabs off everyday, the wounds I thought were healed. It triggers anxieties and motivates me to stay the course. It keeps me grounded and gives me gratitude that I stand on this side of the path. A lot has changed in my life in the sixteen years I have been housed. Addiction and homelessness tore me down to my foundation. I hit bottom and with a spoon and a syringe I kept digging to see if the bottom had a basement. My recovery journey taught me how to build everything back up, from the foundation, and live a life worth living. How to repurpose from rubbish.

My path out of homelessness did not involve traditional services or service providers that work every day to end homelessness. Although without youth drop-in centers and community clinics, I probably would not be here today. Those lovely folks gave me just enough humanity to not become completely feral, though I was wily and skittish.

The friendships and compassion of other people like me—my tribe, so to speak, are what really kept me alive and kept me going. Although I lost far too many radiant friends to drugs or violence, I would like to mention a few of them: Little Stevie, a kind and funny young man was burned to death as someone poured gasoline on him and lit him on fire as he slept. Squid was stabbed to death. Frenchie is dead. Boyd is dead. Alex is dead. Raven, Kevin, Cunt, Chuckie, Teddy, and so many others are dead.

And my sweet Indio died of an overdose and was found a week later with his dog leashed to his leg. Good people taken too soon. The camaraderie, sense of community, and love from the folks I camped with or squatted with is unmatched in places I have experienced as a housed person. In fact, a few people that I suffered the streets with are still in my lives, every one of them has a Master’s degree, and every one of them works as a service provider to help the community we love so much. 

You see, the term homeless denotes that a person has no place of belonging. In our culture, we construct the term “home” with cultural idioms like “home is where the heart is,” “home is where you hang your hat,” etc. When an entire group of people are socially imagined as an amorphous blob that negates a sense of belonging anywhere, the sting becomes internalized.

Each moment, each day, in each city, one is reminded that they don’t belong in these places. One cannot use the restroom to relieve bodily functions, sit in a public space without ridicule, scorn, and the “hairy eyeball” (trust me, you know it when you see it). Sometimes, you just become invisible—sometimes, to the point where you lose a sense of existing at all.

This is an incredibly lonely and isolating experience. For me, I became extremely skittish and was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. In reality, I had trouble re-assimilating. When you see a person without a house, say hello, ask their name, sit down and have a conversation. Trust that it will help both of you. Trust that kindness carries the power to quiet internalized oppression and symbolic violence. Trust that kindness fights stigma. Dare to see how structural forces like poverty, class structures, race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. intersect with houselessness.

Dare to see how cultural reproduction affects everyone around you. Challenge these structures any way you can. Connection and relationships can repair what was damaged due to adverse childhood experiences.  Lastly, before you or anyone you know paints a person without a house as a victim or as “undeserving poor” know this—we are resilient despite our struggles. We are deserving of having our basic needs for food, shelter, safety, and fulfillment met, despite our mistakes. You do not have to “save” us, or find us “worthy” of being saved. Plant a seed. Smile. Be kind and love one another.

Essay by Lisa Lee with VOICE shared with Our Town Reno

The Unseen by Donald Griffin with VOICE

"We are the Unseen"

Hey mom, it's me your little girl Sarah. I seen auntie Lisa the other day, when I was getting in the car to turn a trick. Too embarrassed to chase her down and ask for money to help pay the rent. Uncle David told me "NO." I would just put it in my veins, rent is due and it seems like it's less than 52 hours in a week nowadays.

Pops it's me! Your all-star power hitter. Your All-American go get getter. Mama's little boy is now a homeless grown man. Dad just hit the button for yes to accept a collect call from an inmate named Stan.   "WE ARE THE UNSEEN" .

Who I Could Have Been

Now that your mind is my canvas, your imagination are the paint brushes, and my unspoken words that you hear resonate with the strokes. The colors of the emotions will be seen in dreams and conversations. You will understand sober dreams with an addiction mind. And comprehend the meaning of curiosity killed the cat "BUT" satisfaction brought it back. Living within city limits but we call it the end of the world. Believing now the Earth is flat and no bigger than the Truckee River.

One child is in CPS and the better part of me is in a dream alone forgotten. My oldest two children I love them to death but the thought of them only deepens the pain of who I could have been. The Elements of Life lock me in the rooms in my mind, it started molesting my thoughts and massaging my temples.

Letting the Old Me Die

Whispering bittersweet promises. The promises of a stable home, financial freedom, and the ability to be a part of my children's life. However, in order to have that I had to do the unthinkable. I had to let the old me die. But how could you kill something that was ready to die? Simple give him something to live for.... 

I forgot about the past, the present, and the future who was I now in the here and now at this very moment? " I WAS THE  UNSEEN". 

Hello, my name is Donald Griffin. Alcoholic, addict, and formal criminal. Resident of Gateway Inn. I'm here to share my experience, strength, and hope. How it was, what it was like, and how it is now. I suffer from a mutated mental illness that has no known vaccine.

My Soul Misplaced

One day, doctors and scientists may find a cure but have not done so yet. Self-well and organized programs are our only resource of remedy. This mental illness is passed through generations. Genetically, environmentally, peer pressure, and the selfish reasons of not wanting to be alone. If not addressed and addressed violently it will procreate. Transmitting. Doubts, depression, jails, death, and institutions. My mental illness that is shared with so many others is "Alcoholism."

During this period of my life long illness I resemble: "THE UNSEEN." The homeless and addicted race. Lost, shattered, confused, and moving in a silent state of mind. The inner standing of my self echoed a sarcasm tone. Mentally dehydrated, my physical appearance deflated, and soul misplaced. C.P.S motion for change of custody. Our son was born with the full-blown addiction and habits of his parents. "WE" welcomed him in to the world with withdrawals and surgery. Unable to keep the high rent paid and ourselves in order we lost custody.

A Death and More Drugs to Fill the Void

More drugs came into play to fill the void. October 13th. The state of Nevada ruled her death as an overdose. I say she died from a broken heart. She was reaching out and asking for help but again she was " THE UNSEEN."

My heart wouldn't let me lose her no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't say goodbye and lose her. I played that song over and over again. No amount of drugs could get me to the point I needed to be. I could have drunk a lake the size of Texas and still be mentally sober. Without cause, care, nor understanding, homelessness took an agreement in my new lifestyle.

The Shelter, the River, the Hospital and Jail

Entering the men's shelter, a third world country inside the greatest country in the world.... Was overflowing their capacity with human beings... Unbathed bug-infested homeless man sleeping in an uncomfortable sitting position at the same tables we were to eat at. Sleeping in this position, blood is unable to flow throughout the legs... causing swollen ankles and blood clots. Both mentally and physically wounded.

The river became home. No longer under natural law and order. The human in me slowly started to disappear. I became "THE UNSEEN."

May 1, 2017, along the river, I was beaten and robbed by two human beings surviving by the only means known to "US." I suffered from a broken jaw. Surgery lasted two and half hours. Metal plates were placed by my temple, and chin. I spent eoght days in the hospital.

Thinking and recovering. Just another war story to add to the list. No housing, section 8 frozen, and the usual from the city:"out of money." Back to the shelter I go. Victim of crime paid my rent for three months. And yet unable to kick the alcohol and drug habits. I went to my home away from home, jail for possession. 

Coming out of a More than Two Decade Coma

5’2" Grey and brown haired public defender. Told me judging by your record you cannot stay clean or sober. Did the jail time and refused the 1-year program. Now I have tried to stop for my kids, mama, and girlfriend. I even said I can stop if I wanted to but I never wanted to. She had just as much faith in me as I had in myself " NONE"

What else did I have to lose. Besides the three free months rent paid. S*** I was beaten mentally, physically, emotionally, and deep down inside I wanted the help.  During this year program, I mentally and physically detoxed. I had come out of a coma and it was 23 years later. I knew who I was when I was drinking and drugging. But I had no idea who I was becoming.

I got rid of people, places, and possessions. The things I thought I knew I forgot. I had to find my identity first, then get my mind right, and I went out and got my life right.

Reborn and Pleading for All of Us to See

I-AM reborn with new relationships with my children, a job I had for a year, never missing a day. We need to see programs developed, housing for families and individuals, help for the kids that are caught in the crossfire. I pray that "WE" feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and heal "US" who are sick and addicted.

No family, nor person should ever have to live this way in the greatest country in the world. I - AM "WE THE PEOPLE" THE UNSEEN.

Now your imagination had painted you a clear vision on what once was your empty canvas. Let your emotional colors be seen in your dreams and in conversation. That way when you walk passed "US" "WE" would no longer be "THE UNSEEN" If you have any questions the next time you're out just ask the next person you SEE!

Essay by Donal Griffin with the VOICE writing workshop shared with VOICE

Hi, My Name is Stephen and I am Not an Alcoholic or an Addict

Ending up on the Streets

Hi, my name is Stephen and I am not an alcoholic or an addict. Although I still drink and I have used and abused drugs in the past. I still smoke pot. If you had told me 15 years ago that I would end up on the streets, I would have laughed in your face. Even though I had just lost my job, I wasn’t worried. I had money in the bank and I had never had a problem finding work in this town.

Six months later, I discovered just how naive I had been. Getting a job in your late 40s is not the same as when I was younger. Savings almost gone, unable to pay rent, I found myself downtown with a knapsack on my back and out on the streets. Totally clueless, with no idea of what was going to come next.

There are no guidebooks for life on the streets, no handy list of places to find even the most basic of services, food and shelter. You have to learn as you go, where is the soup kitchen and when do they serve. The location of the shelter and what you need to obtain the services they offer. Cautiously, you begin to meet people who you feel safe enough with to gather information from in this new altered reality. This church passes out bag lunches on these days, this group feeds at this park on this night. Groceries at this church on some Saturdays.

Endless Lines Everywhere                                                                                                 

Standing in line, you quickly learn, will become a major part of your day. In the morning you line up for day-old pastries, then over to “Vinnies” ( St. Vincent's) for lunch. If you want a bed or would like to get into overflow, there’s a line for that. Evening meal, more of the same. Going out to overflow? Another slow moving, seemingly endless, line. There are more people in need than you would suppose, they only become noticeable when they gather together for feeds or other services. Afterwards, dispersing into small groups and individuals, they fade into the urban background, mostly invisible to the average citizen.

Life on the streets is tough on the feet. When you’re not standing in line, you’re walking somewhere. Walking is your only form of transportation. When I ended up on the streets, the available services were scattered all over town. Record st. has helped some making access to some services easier. Still, if you need to go to Social Security or unemployment, it’s an hours long walk or more. Some agencies will provide you with a bus pass, if they have them and feel that your needs are worthy.

Social Workers and Life as an Urban Outdoorsman

I have nothing but admiration for social workers, both those who are paid and the volunteers. These people have very difficult jobs often having to work under very trying circumstances. Dealing with people who are too hot or too cold, tired and hungry and very often frustrated must feel like a thankless task at times. Yet they show up for work day after day, they deserve our thanks and respect.

At first sleeping outside, being an Urban Outdoorsman, seems like an adventure. This quickly wears off, a few nights of uneasy, interrupted rest takes the fun out of it. Reno is a 24-hour town, this can make finding a reasonably quiet and safe spot very hard. There is no such thing as a 100% safe spot, anyplace you can find is probably known to others. Footsteps or voices in the night jerk you back into consciousness.

Depending on where you are, gunshots are not an uncommon event. A good night's rest is three or four hours. Up at dawn to preserve the secrecy of your spot, day after day, takes a toll on you.

The Hallucinatory Stage and Downward Spiral

I’ve been so tired, so sleep deprived that I’ve reached the hallucinatory stage. There is no catching up on sleep, you are always tired, lacking any energy. In this condition it’s almost impossible to keep a positive attitude.

Once you’re in this kind of shape, despair and depression are knocking at your door. Combine this with any other setbacks, even minor ones, can cause you to lose hope. You become trapped in a downward spiral and there is no way out, no possible means of escape.

It took about five years for me to reach this low point and then I quit. I gave up on life, I had finally been beaten down enough. Existing with next to nothing is easy once you’ve let go of hope. Giving up is a gradual process. Hope dies hard. The smallest spark, like a few days work, can reignite it. Just a small reminder of what life used to be. I spent about eight years in this kind of limbo. It’s an existence not a life.

Reduced to the Lowest Common Denominators

Outside of a very small circle of friends, I cared about almost nothing. My life had been stripped down to the barest of essentials, what I needed to survive. A good coat, some clothes, clean socks, a book and my radio, my link to the world. Anything of value, I kept with me in a small knapsack. Everything else was either replaceable or unnecessary. I had reduced myself, my existence to the lowest possible common denominator.

Friends disappear into hospitals or the VA system and months later, word would filter back that they had died. Old so-and-so had cancer, cirrhosis finally got what’s his name. His heart just stopped, she just didn’t wake up one morning. A few friends, a six pack and maybe a reefer, some funny stories. A modest wake for a friend and then life goes on.

Occasionally violence would descend upon our little circle. She was knifed by a “John” in a motel room in Sparks. Some teens beat a helpless old drunk so badly he died. A few para- graphs in the local newspaper. A year or so later a short article, Plea Bargain, Manslaughter, three to five years, they’re out by now. So much for a man’s life, yeah he was a drunk, for the most part, a harmless one. Yet he could be funny and converse on many subjects, Destroyed by his own demons? I don’t know, life goes on.

Helping us Deal with our Own Demons

I believe that everyone on the streets has their own Demons. Some are obvious like alcohol or drugs, others are deeper and harder to fix upon. Demons is my own term. There is nothing biblical or satanic in my use of it. Demons are all of the emotions and frustrations that build up in a person under constant stress. Stress leads to an inability to cope, this enhances emotional distress and the demons grow stronger.

Most of the street people I’ve known worked hard with coping, some better than others. We are all dealing with feelings of shame, uselessness, fear and denial. Add all of this to an already overwhelming tiredness and you finally achieve total apathy.

You just don’t care anymore. Any one of you can help with this disorder. It’s simple, requires no money and feels good. Say 'Hi' or 'Good Morning', just make eye contact or smile. Simply acknowledging a fellow human being's existence can be rewarding for both parties. A pretty girl's smile in the morning can make a person’s whole day, I know.

People on the streets have lost social skills, they’ve atrophied from lack of use. Human contact, no matter how small restores a sense of belonging, inclusion. These types of interactions can reinforce some small sense of community. Being a part of a larger whole, having value as a person. Outreach, establishing some form contact with society helps people. This changes the dynamics of Us against Them. Bridging this gap, allows street people a sense of belonging. Many will be leery, having been let down before. Keep it simple, work on little things first, build trust.

Simple Things Become Monumental Tasks

What to the average citizen would be a minor nuisance can feel overwhelming to a person on the streets. Simple things, like getting a new I.D. or Social Security card can be a challenge. Where do I get the money? How do I get there? Do I have all of the paperwork that I need? 15 dollars can seem like a small fortune to a person on the streets.

Everyone has needs, cash is hard to come by and harder to hold onto. Helping someone overcome one of these problems, opens a door. Making them more receptive to the next step, actively seeking out services or counseling. Dealing with their own Demons.

I’m not advocating for you to go out and adopt a street person, far from it. I do believe that building a rapport with someone allows you to advise and provide moral support. Simply giving out money can be counter productive. Person to person contact is a much more realistic way of achieving the reintroduction of street people into society.

More Ideas to Help

There must be some form of triage that allows us to find those individuals who only need a gentle nudge and a little direction to services and support. Those with substance abuse issues require a different approach. They must recognize their problem and truly desire change. Otherwise treatment is nothing more than a 12-step revolving door between rehab and the street. You have to want it, for it to happen.

Lastly, we come to those with true mental health issues. This is way beyond my ken. I know that they must be treated with compassion and respect yet beyond that I’m in over my head. Some form of intervention is called for, probably by the state.

I’m not happy with this solution, but as I said this is beyond me. You may have noticed that throughout this essay I have used the terms “Street Person” or “Street People” instead of the more common “Homeless."

 I have recently learned that one’s Home is carried in one’s Heart and one’s Head and in the hearts and heads of your chosen family. There is a difference between being without shelter and being without a home. I hope you’ve been able to gain some insight from my experiences and thoughts on this difficult subject.

I originally wrote this about a year ago. Rewriting it has been a bit like tearing the scabs off old wounds. I took a walk the other day and revisited some of my old spots, many have been cleared of brush and fenced off, a few are still out there to use. There seem to be more folks out there than I remember. This needs to be fixed, I wish I knew how.

Essay by Stephen Popovich shared with Our Town Reno

How My Life Was on the Streets, by Shawna with VOICE

Kicked out of My Home

It was scary and hard. I never thought I would be on the streets. The day my parents kicked me out was the hardest day of my homelessness.

The reason why is that it was snowing and very cold. It was nine feet of snow. I remember very well. I lived under a bridge for about a couple of weeks.

With only a sheet.  Then I heard that Sarah cried to Mickie that I was on the streets and that she wanted to help me.  They then found me. It was snowing bad that day and I was thinking that day I was going to die. Mickie took me in that day.

Under a Bridge with Seizures

Me and Sarah got close after that. We were like sisters. Well, I had a crush on her and still do. We did everything together.

About two years later, Mickie got a job at the Volunteers of America and I couldn’t live with her anymore because it would affect her job there. I was sad and upset. I didn’t know where I was going to go.

I then went to the homeless shelter and I didn’t like it but I stayed there til my time was up. Then back to the streets I went. That day I met a good friend of mine, who is still my friend today.

We stayed under the bridge together because I have seizures and he watched over me. About a couple of months later I left and went on my own. I was living on the river after that. Two days after that I got a ticket for living on the river for $100 but I got it waived.

Kicked out of the Shelter

Then I went to Volunteers of America to try to get housing. I had to go to classes to get housing. I was a troublemaker and one day I was watching tv in the tv room at Volunteers of America and (someone, name redacted) came up to me and told me I had to leave. Well I got mad and went off on her.

She called the police and I then tried to leave after that. I didn’t want to go to jail so I tried to leave quickly. When I was exiting an officer (name redacted) was blocking the exit. I tried going through him but he tased me.

I then went into a seizure and they had to take me to the hospital. I don’t remember what happened but I know I woke up in the hospital by myself. I was a troublemaker.

I found out the next day that I was 86ed from the Volunteers of America for six months. It sucked because back on the streets I went for six months. Then I went back after it was done. I had to do the classes again so I did.

Kicked out of an Apartment, a Facebook Friend and Meth

I then got my own apartment. What got me to lose my place was my neighbor downstairs and I got into a loud fight and I got kicked out. Mickie helped me pack up and move. I was so sad.

Back on the streets I went. Then I went to the library the week after and was on Facebook. I found this girl on Facebook and she asked me if I wanted to come to Pennsylvania to be with her. So I said I would. So I did. The next day, I went to a church and asked if they would help me to go to Pennsylvania.

They said they would. So the next day I left. I wanted to get out of Reno so bad. Three days it took to get there and when I got there I called and she picked me up. It didn’t last there though.

I came back to Reno and I was on the streets when I got here. I went to the homeless shelter. They were all surprised to see me. I stayed there for six months and meth (was my) life.

I didn’t know what I was doing to myself. All I know was it felt good. It was fun then. I felt like I was on top of the world. Then I found out what it was doing to me.

Quitting Drugs and Finding Mickie Again

So I quit six months later. I had more seizures. Nobody wanted to hang out with me. My life was getting way worse. So I went back to pot. Now I am realizing how my life is different when I am not on drugs. I wish I never started but I did and I am sorry. 

But then I moved back to my parents and that didn’t work out because my brother and I got into fights. Because I was trying to protect my Mom …. I never knew family was that mean. 

I then went back to the streets and I don’t remember any of it but I know it wasn’t fun. Then I went to jail for hitting a cop. I left my stuff at the homeless shelter and it got thrown out. 

I got out of jail after a month and went back to the streets. Mickie got another job and she was looking for me. Then I got arrested again. I called Mickie from jail and when I got out she was there. I’ve been there ever since with Mickie and I am still there. 

Story by Shawna from the V.O.I.C.E. writing workshop shared with Our Town Reno

Is Now the Time to Push for Universal Access to Affordable Housing?

"Good Luck" in Finding Affordable Housing in Reno

A recent Reno Gazette-Journal article wishes “luck” to anyone looking to buy a single-family home for less than $300,000 in our area.  This affects everyone from first-time buyers, to people who want to sell their home or relocate, and college students.  

A new study from the apartment rental company Zumper says Reno, the 85th largest city has the 66th highest rent in the country, while a one bedroom apartment in Reno is now nearly 16 percent more expensive than it was a year ago, when prices were already climbing.

Even prices of long term rooms in motels are going up, amid the city's fight on "blight", leaving even fewer shelter options for those with records, bad credit or not enough money for down payments. 

I'm a Student Living at Home, What about Others? 

As a local college student myself, I have opted to live at home with my parents because it is truly the best option for me. Being a full-time student and part-time worker does not give me the financial independence I would need to afford renting a home on my own or even with roommates.

I am fortunate enough to be local and have family to live with while I study and save money, but many other students do not have that luxury. Out-of-state students, or even some Reno natives, have opted to live on their own and then face the grueling challenge of having to balance their schoolwork and their part-time/full-time jobs to cover their mounting housing bills.

A screengrab from recent reporting by NPR Next Generation Radio which can be found here.

The Dire Situation Elsewhere as Well

NPR’s Next Generation Radio covered this trend, with reporter Laura Tsutsui focussing on students in the Sacramento area. Rebecca Rodriguez, a student at Sacramento State, is “one of about 48,000 California State University students without reliable housing,” according to Tsutsui's reporting.

As a twenty-something college student who already faces an overwhelming amount of uncertainty in her life, housing definitely should not be one of those uncertainties.

But, as Tsutsui's report states: "the University of Wisconsin, Madison found that 50 percent of community college students across the nation are housing insecure and 14 percent are homeless.” These high percentages speak volumes to what tens of thousands of people and families are struggling with across the entire country.

Students and youth in Reno are among those struggling to find safe shelter they can afford. 

NIMBY Opposition

While people are fired up to demand solutions to affordable housing, others still oppose the idea of setting up more homes for people who have been struggling. For example, Shelterforce magazine stated:

“First, the most commonly reported reason for opposition is fear of increased crime and decreased sense of safety—heard by over three out of every five developers experiencing opposition. Half of the developers also regularly hear community concern about tax burdens. This concern comes into play with many development projects, but more typically with developments such as affordable housing that normally seek some type of property tax concession from local government, and thus are viewed as not paying their “fair share” of the costs of public services to the site.”

I think this statement accurately demonstrates the amount of discrimination that people who search for affordable housing face regularly. Their potential neighbors believe them to be dangerous or even criminal. But, if affordable housing were made more accessible to people forced to live through homelessness or unreliable housing, would we not potentially see more stability?

Universal health care is important, but maybe we could start with figuring out how to provide universal affordable housing first. Studies have shown a housing solution also greatly reduces health costs and addictions for those now currently living on the streets.

Citizen's Forum Opinion Piece by Jazmin Orozco-Rodriguez shared with Our Town Reno

Change and Change Back

A photo essay by Deborah Achtenberg

Some people live on and off the street. Others get to move them around.

The Standard at Reno planned to build high-end student housing in an area with lovely historic homes near UNR.  As a result, the buildings were boarded up and the low-income residents were moved out. Then, the Standard changed its mind. The buildings are still there, boarded up and deteriorating.

Here's an elegant one. It once was a boarding house.

Can you imagine conversations around the boarding house dining table?

Here's another. Some people are living there again, as you can see from the signs

Here's a smaller one that looks as though it got a fresh round of paint  recently. All the improvement work was for nothing.

And here is another, with its once welcoming porch hard to discern due to the boards.

The properties are for sale, as you can see from the sign on this beautiful pink one.  Where will the people allowed in it go?  How sad for them to leave a welcoming home.

But the hosts can withdraw their original welcome. They own the house that made the welcome possible--and no law keeps them from taking it back.

Who owns the law, I wonder?  You and me??

It doesn't take long for property to deteriorate. The elements take their toll.

And how easily we deprive the young of pasts that stimulate emotion and imagination-- of porches where people sat, talked and watched the world go by. Imagination that could help us change our world.

All will be gone soon. Change and change back. On and off the street.  Power and powerlessness.

And we just watch as beauties like this old boarding house deteriorate and pass from the scene.

Photos and Essay by Deborah Achtenberg shared with Our Town Reno

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.

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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. 

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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.

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

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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

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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.

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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."

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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.”

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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.  

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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.”