There Go the Downtown Benches in Reno

Story and Photos by Jose Olivares for Our Town Reno

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When asked by a Reno citizen why the benches were taken out, this is what the city's Parks Manager was quoted as saying through the Reno Direct program: "The benches at City Center have been temporarily removed due to high level of homeless staying there all day and pan handing people passing by. City Hall had received complaints from the downtown casino's (sic) and the bowling stadium. City Manager, R.P.D. and Code Enforcement made the directive to remove them. They are being stored at the Corporation Yard." photo by Jose Olivares

Spikes in Place of Benches

If you have ever seen buildings with spikes to prevent birds from landing, you may shudder at the cruelty of the situation.

The great thing is that humans are not animals, and in our city we would never treat one another the same way we treat birds. Right?

Well, if you have recently walked around downtown Reno, you may have passed by the old RTC bus station. The station used to have benches circling it, where people would sit, sleep and rest.

This is not the case anymore.

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Where people used to sit and congregate is now empty with police on bikes rolling through.  Photo by Jose Olivares.

It's Illegal to Do This and That in Reno

Recently, the City of Reno removed many of the benches and placed sharp, vertical, metal plates where the benches used to stand. They have also placed these metal plates all over cement blocks where trees grow.

This is done in order to prevent anyone from sleeping, sitting or even resting in the old bus station.

The City of Reno has an ordinance that makes it illegal to sit or lie on a public sidewalk in the downtown area. The city also makes it illegal for anyone to sleep in a park. Sleeping in a park is considered “camping” and it is illegal to do so without a permit.

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A few minutes later, and the busy spot is still totally empty. Who has a right to be downtown? Photo by Jose Olivares

Samurai Jack Speaks Out

As evening settled in a few nights ago, we spoke with Samurai Jack, a man who used to rely on these benches to sleep and relax. He told us of his thoughts on the removal of benches and addition of the metal plates:

Why do you think these spikes were put in to replace the benches?

“They probably put them in because they don’t want all the homeless hanging out here and having fun. I don’t know. They’re just trying to narrow down to less and less places where the homeless can sit.”

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“They want to just push (people) in the shelter, which is basically overfilled. So they push us and force us to leave town and find other places. They’re trying to run everyone out slowly. But it’s not going to work out like that...Not everyone out here is dumb or lazy as people may think.”

What purpose did the benches serve?

“This is a really nice shady spot to relax. A lot of people rely on it out here. A lot of times people come here in the morning to finish sleeping because the overflow [shelter], they make you get up at three-thirty or four in the morning and they just drop you off so people come over here and sleep. I’ve slept here a bunch.” He later added, “I have a lot of friends and family who relied on [the benches] and slept on them.”

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“People are going to do what they have to do. I mean, [the City of Reno] did what they had to do. So they did what they felt they had to do. It’s already done, now we just have to work around it. I just try to be there for all my family on the streets.”

Samurai Jack had one last message to the people of Reno:

“I love Reno and I love everyone. Don’t worry, it’s all under control. Samurai Jack’s got it.”

Photos, Interview and Story for Our Town Reno by Jose Olivares

Teaching How to Grow Healthy Food in Reno's Food Desert

By Ashley Andrews with archive photos by Shelley DeDaw and Bill Kositzky

Northern Nevadans live in the high desert and a food desert. In many parts of Reno and Sparks, it's much easier to find drugs and alcohol than healthy fruits and vegetables. As Ashley Andrews reports for Our Town Reno with archive photos by gardeners Shelley DeDauw and Bill Kositzky, one way to have access to fresh, healthy food is to try and grow some yourself. In this report Andrews showcases the Grow Your Own, Nevada! initiative which has classes and experiments about sustainable, local ways to grow and preserve healthy food. The University of Nevada Cooperative Extension program works with the Mariposa Academy in Reno to teach students and volunteers growing, harvesting and preservation techniques.

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Garden-grown produce is essential to healthy meals. Photo by Shelley DeDauw. 

Stats and Facts about Reno's Food Deserts

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, food deserts are communities that are both low-income and low-access. Low-access urban areas are those where more than one third of residents live more than one mile from a supermarket.

Eight census tracts in the Reno-Sparks area are food deserts. More than 36,000 people live there, where fresh, healthy food is difficult to find.

One mile can be a long walk home if groceries must be carried on the journey. When low-access is narrowed from one mile to one half of a mile to the nearest supermarket, nearly 30 area census tracts can be considered food deserts. Over 120,000 people live in this type perimeter in the area, where good food may be hard to come by.

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Fresh, healthy foods like these Mariposa Academy-grown carrots may be hard to find for many Reno residents. Photo by "Master Gardener" Shelley DeDauw.

A School's Garden and a Learning Opportunity

In a low-income, low-access community near the Reno-Tahoe airport,  the grant-supported food garden is thriving at Mariposa Academy.

“People care about growing their own food here,"  horticulture specialist Heidi Kratsch explains.  "The Cooperative Extension is all based on the needs of the community– and the community has said loud and clear, ‘we need to know how to grow our own food here in Nevada,’ so that’s why we’re doing it."

“I gain a lot of information on how to do a wide variety of things," participant John Davenport says. "Fruit tree pruning, roses, raised flower beds, it never ends.”

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File photo of the garden at the Mariposa Academy, by Bill Kositzky.

 Do it Yourself

A class instructor Wendy Hanson Mazet explains everyone can start growing their own food, in pots, raised beds or even inside their homes. “Strawberries can be grown in the home," she says. "And you can pollinate them very easily by just shaking the flowers by your fingertips. But the thing is, see what you can do in your home. Do something that you like to eat. Not something that someone tells you to do. Do what you enjoy. Experiment. Failure is just an opportunity to learn new things.”

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Do it yourself, and you could one day even start selling your healthy fruits and vegetables at a local farmer's market. Photo by Shelley DeDauw.

Escenthio Marigny Jr., "The Elephant in the Room We Have to Speak About"

Escenthio Marigny, Jr., from the Reno Justice Coalition was one of the speakers at a Stop Gentrification noontime rally on the UNR campus on September 13, 2016.

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"This is tied to the system we call capitalism. It's the elephant in the room we have to speak about."

"Our economic system created a situation where certain people get shafted while others get more money. We should recognize that .... There are people right now who are homeless because housing prices have gone up at ridiculous rates, higher than they have ever been in the history of this city. That's not right. Do you all think that's right? You better act like it then."

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Dozens of students, faculty and activists took part in the rally, with a new UNR gym still in construction as backdrop.

"This system is not equitable for everyone and never has been. We need to explore that. The way to face it now is that we face this housing crisis in Reno head on and we draw attention to the root cause, we draw attention to who gets impacted here. Also, we need to be careful of the narrative being created about the people who are impoverished. "

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"We get told this is an individual issue. If you're poor, you don't have health care, you can't find a job, it's your fault. But we know it's not the fault of the individual, it's structural, it's designed."

"If anybody ever tells you that you need to be afraid of the poor, of people who are low income, of people hanging out down by the bus stop, they're bullshitting.  You need to be more afraid of people making these policies, more afraid about the backdoor deals happening with local government and national government, and these developers that are going to do more harm for our community than they will good."

Barrie Lynn, Trying to Save the Hillside Cemetery and Reno's History

Barrie Lynn, a board member on the Hillside Cemetery Preservation Foundation, has a full agenda this coming week as part of her efforts to save this heritage site in Reno, with a new looming date of September 30th, when the current owners, Sierra Memorial Gardens, now threaten to start disinterring buried bodies.

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“Who we have buried here are the founding fathers of Reno. We have the first county commissioners, original settlers of the mid 19th century, everyone you would recognize by our streets, a former member of the House of Representatives, five former mayors, including E.E. Roberts who was famous for saying he wanted a whiskey barrel on every corner downtown. We have veterans of four wars including the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Mexican-American War and the Seminole Wars. There’s a lot of other people who are buried here.  This isn’t just any graveyard. This is a heritage site.”

A Busy Schedule

There’s a County Commission meeting on Tuesday, a Reno city council meeting on Wednesday, a blessing ceremony at the cemetery on Saturday, and a community meeting at the Washoe County Library on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Lynn is also using social media to help circulate two petitions, as she feels a heavy responsibility.

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This notice posted outside the cemetery in late August has added new urgency to saving the Hillside cemetery.

'A Poor Reflection on Reno'

“The financial gain of just a few people has been placed at a higher level of importance than the dignity and respect of the very people who founded the city we have,” she explains.

“I think it’s really a poor reflection on our community nobody in office has stepped up to say ‘even though we don’t technically have control over this, maybe this is wrong, maybe we should slow this down’. I think it really reflects poorly on us as a community. If this disinterment does happen, future generations will look back on this and say ‘these people had no soul. They destroyed an important historical site, and for what? Some apartments?’”

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"These are people who have come to tie ribbons on the fence to show their support for preserving the cemetery."

What Restoration Project?

Sierra Memorial Gardens say their plan is a restoration project.  A notice posted outside the cemetery in late August says the plan is to take bodies from the wide expanse overlooking downtown Reno into a tiny, already packed, area on one of its current extremities.  Lynn isn’t buying the terminology used. 

“They are calling this a restoration project,” she says. “This is anything but a restoration project. This is an attempt to gain control over a piece of prime real estate for profit. This is a lucrative real estate deal. It’s very distasteful.”

Then, she points to the area where the whole cemetery is supposed to go into.  “It’s already full. That’s where they want to put everyone. There simply is not room. They want to consolidate everyone over there. And then they claim ‘oh well, then we are going to maintain that.'”

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An area where seemingly Sierra Memorial Gardens wants to push the entire cemetery into.

Potentially Hazardous

If the plan were to go ahead, Lynn says it would be devastating, and also potentially hazardous.  One of the prominent grave monuments inside is for Warren Gould, who his family has said was documented to have died of anthrax after working on a diseased cow. 

“Those spores live for hundreds of years. These people were buried in wooden coffins.  When they’re dug up it’s going to be dust. The anthrax spores could still be in the dirt, but no one seems to be concerned about that at the county level. I don’t think the neighborhood has been informed about the potential risk.”

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"Warren Gould had a big ranch on Mill Street.  He is documented to have died from anthrax by cutting up a diseased cow.  His descendants are very opposed to this. They are very active in the fight against development of the site."

Permissions Needed?

Lynn says she is still confident many legal boxes remain unchecked for the disinterment to start at the end of this month.

“They do have to get permission from the local Paiute tribe as there are Paiutes buried here including Chief Johnson Sides. Paiute Nation needs to approve, even if it’s on private land, and they will not give their consent. "

Per state law, Lynn says, owners are also supposed to give a one-year notice before starting disinterment, but signs posted at the cemetery are only giving a one-month notice.

There’s also the strange situation that even though Sierra Memorial Gardens may own the common areas of the cemetery, they don’t actually own the individual burial plots, and the families of those buried there, at least those known to Lynn, have not been personally notified.

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Lynn says Sierra Memorial Gardens owns the common areas but not the burial plots themselves, creating a complicated situation.

Who is Being Notified Exactly?

“I think the county needs to work with the assessor’s office to come up with some sort of an ancestry affidavit to help the people say ‘this is my ancestor, here’s how I’m related to them, here’s an address for noticing,’" Lynn says.

"Right now, the mailing address listed with the county assessor for many of these plots is actually Sierra Memorial Gardens’ address. So if they were notifying the families via mailings, they would be sending mail to their own office. So there are a lot of issues.”

Lynn wants county officials to start overseeing a process she says needs to be transparent and to offer public discussions, especially for health concerns. “They need to require Sierra Memorial Gardens to inform the community of what they intend to do, and they need to let the community know before they begin digging up bodies that there is documented anthrax and other communicable diseases among those buried here.  If people would like to protect themselves, they should be able to.”

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If there has been any restoration recently, including a new fence, Lynn says this seems more to counter volunteers trying to save the cemetery.

New Fencing

“This whole road was open up until last week. They could have fenced it to protect it from vandals, but now they’ve fenced it to protect it from the people who want to protect the cemetery. It’s really unfortunate. All of this fence was torn open, up until recently. They had twenty years to fix it to keep the vandals out. Now, they fixed it to keep the people who are trying to protect the cemetery out. It’s disgusting.”

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The cemetery has had many owners, but for years, it's volunteers and descendants of those buried who have worked on its maintenance.

Multiple Owners, Volunteer Caretakers

In past decades, the city of Reno owned the cemetery, and at another point it was UNR in control, but both times there was community opposition and descendant outrage against any attempt to convert it into housing. 

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"James Chambers died in 1882. His headstone is Vermont marble.  It’s absolutely beautiful with the scrolls on it. Somehow it has miraculously survived after being stolen. It was returned to the Comstock Cemetery Foundation. Someone probably had it in their frat house, felt guilty, and wanted to return it."

Fraternities Returning Markers

It was also once a rite of passage for fraternities and rowdy college students who would steal gravestones, party inside and drive through. Some markers and stones have since been returned. 

Diligent volunteers and families of the buried have also maintained the site throughout the years, and even though the grass is dry, due to a lack of water, many parts of the cemetery are clean and tranquil.

Where poor people were once buried, students now park, amid a crunch for parking spaces in the UNR area.

Parking Over Bodies

Parts of what was once a larger cemetery have already been converted into a parking lot, including where the poor and some veterans were buried in what is called Potter’s Field. 

“These are the people who didn’t have the money for a proper burial, so the county buried them. Most of them had wooden grave markers which are all gone.  Through research and cemetery records, dedicated volunteers found their identities, and the approximate location of where they are buried and the original boundary of the cemetery. But it’s really just poor reflection on this community that we knowingly have a graveyard here that has veterans in it and we are parking on top of their graves.”

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"There are babies underneath where these cars are parked. Their families buried them thinking this would be a final resting place and they would never be disturbed."

A Battle At the Legislative Level

Underpinning the new notice is a question over state laws and the definition of blight.  The owners had a law passed in the state legislature in 2001, NRS 451.070, which opened the way for the current plan, but Lynn says their failure to pass other laws relating to the ownership of the privately owned burial plots makes it incomplete. 

“Basically, they got this law passed that gives them a unilateral right to trespass on someone else’s property and steal a body. These individual burial plots don’t belong to them,” Lynn says.

“This law is unconstitutional. Once they’re done with this process, if they ever get to it, which I don’t think they will, they still have an issue in that they can’t develop this cemetery land until they gain ownership of each individual plot.  The process they are going to have to take to get each individual plot, there’s going to be some holdouts, there’s never going to be enough families saying yes I’ll sell my plot so they can develop this.  So we’ll have a site that can never be developed. If you think this is blight, that will be worse.”

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"We wouldn’t have the Truckee Meadows without his work and the work of many other early settlers.  He was responsible for being involved in the irrigation ditches which allowed everyone to ranch. He was very active in government and in the community.  We have a street named after him.  We wouldn’t have a community to live in without these people."

Can the Law Be Amended?

Lynn would like some consideration at the state legislative level to amend this law, but not the way Sierra Memorial Gardens wants it.  

“There needs to be something added to it so that it is not so unilateral, maybe an oversight committee needs to be created. Blight needs to be proven. We need to see here is the definition of blight, here are the conditions under which something is considered blighted. This is not blighted. This is just a desert cemetery without water. It has clearly delineated paths. It has clearly delineated markers."

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"Just because some markers are missing doesn’t mean it’s blighted. I really am challenging this notion of blight they are using to justify their actions.  Blight is curable. It’s not permanent. Earthquakes, structural damage, fires, those things can be the end of a structure or a site, but weeds, and a little maintenance, that’s not enough to deem it beyond repair.”

Another Vision

Lynn wants Reno to emulate other cities who have taken similar cemeteries and turned them into respectful celebrations of an important history.

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"His relatives are very involved in this process. The volunteers have gone back through all the cemetery records, and have been able to find burial sites even though headstones are missing."

Turning the Cemetery Into a Public Site

It’s believed bodies were buried here from the 1860s to the 1950s. Lynn says it wouldn’t be difficult to turn the current privately-owned cemetery into a public site that would add to Reno’s foundation going forward.

“We can turn it into an interpretive space, like a public park, and that’s really the destiny of this site, that there is our non-profit group, the Hillside Cemetery Preservation Foundation that is prepared to purchase this cemetery and raise funds to maintain it, and return water to it, to improve the roads, and install markers to explain who these people are, buried here."

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"He was a Trumpeter in the Spanish-American War. There’s a lot of interesting and incredible people buried here." 

Will Apartments Be Built On Top of Graves?

"This has the potential to be an educational site, a heritage site. It has the potential to be something that is going to contribute to the fabric of our community so much more than just some apartments. This is really something that cannot be replaced.  If they do go ahead with disinterment, not knowing where every single person is buried, it is impossible to get them all, so they will end up building on top of graves.”

Doug, 72, Living on a Porch in Downtown Reno

Story, Photos and Interview by Jose Olivares

It's a weekday evening. Doug sits on the porch of a condemned house in downtown Reno, with blankets, a couple of sweaters and a few pieces of cardboard for comfort.

Doug lives on the porch of a house that has been condemned, with no trespassing signs all around. Photo by Jose Olivares

Smoking a Cigarette and Feeding Birds

The 72-year-old homeless man smokes a cigarette as he watches birds on the sidewalk pick at bread he throws at them.

“I give them bread every day,” he says with an aged, gruff voice.

Doug gets friendly visits on his porch, including from his neighbor Scott. Photo by Jose Olivares

Homeless but on a Porch

Doug is homeless and has been living on this porch for an unknown amount of time. At one point he mentions five years, at another point, six. A close friend says ten. That doesn’t matter to Doug, though.

“It’s free rent,” he says with a grin.

He suffers from emphysema. Every few minutes he will have a coughing fit with a pained look in his face. He’ll spit on the floor to clear the phlegm from his throat and apologize.

“I’m sorry, I have emphysema,” Doug says. Photo by Jose Olivares

Dealing With Emphysema

“I take Ventolin but I can’t afford it. Every tube costs 17 dollars. It only lasts for three days.”

“My Medicare doesn’t cover it,” Doug says. As a result, Doug has to fight through his illness while battling the elements.

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“I’m old, I’m worn out, I don’t give a f***," Doug says. Photo by Jose Olivares

Memories of Other Places

Doug worked on a farm with his family in Minnesota when he was very young. He fondly remembers when his 8-year-old sister was bitten by a goose while she was trying to feed the winged animal. As she ran off crying, he recalls his grandmother pulling out her shotgun and killing the animal for the vicious act of biting the little girl.

“Let’s just say we had goose for dinner that night,” he smiles.

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Doug cleans windows, and used to work on skyscrapers in Chicago. Photo by Jose Olivares

From Skyscrapers in Chicago to Windows in Reno

Doug lived in Oakland in 1989 during the Loma Prieta earthquake. He also cleaned skyscrapers’ windows in Chicago. He later came to Reno and worked at the Cal Neva as a top-deck porter. He says he lost his job after the Cal Neva hired low-wage workers and replaced him.

The old man defies a common misconception that homeless people do not work.

On his porch, he has a bucket with a window washer and squeegee. He often goes out to the streets, offering to clean people’s windows. He also visits restaurants to clean their windows and make a couple of bucks. He cleans “every day I want to eat.”

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“Nobody gives a f***,” he says. “I want someone to make me clean windows. I’m out of work and 72 years old.”

Seeking More Work

“I used to go out to the streets with a cardboard sign that said ‘Hungry! Want to work! I’ll clean your windows! I’m 72! I’m homeless!’” Doug says. “But nobody gives a f***.”

The few dollars he makes for cleaning windows goes to buying a bowl of rice with two packets of sweet and sour sauce at a local Chinese diner.

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Doug says police have attempted to kick him off the condemned property, but since he isn’t actually inside the building, he says they leave him alone after a few minutes of back-and-forth bickering. Photo by Jose Olivares

Dealing With Cops

It’s not uncommon for cops to bother Doug. When staying at the overflow shelter, he remembers being released at five in the morning. One morning he was released from the shelter and out into the cold.

“I go to the (casino) to get warm, and I get arrested because I wasn’t gambling!” he says. “True story.”

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Scott spends time and jokes around with Doug. He says they have known each other for nine years, since Scott moved to the area. Photo by Jose Olivares

No Family But a Friendly Neighbor

Doug has no family in Reno – or anywhere. His parents and his sister are long gone. His sister was 35 when she died of cancer. However, he does have a very friendly neighbor who visits him every day. Scott lives in a house around the corner from Doug’s porch.

Every evening Scott will visit Doug, occasionally bringing food, but always bringing a conversation. As soon as Scott comes by, Doug perks up. The elderly man will smoke a cigarette while their conversation hits on a variety of topics.

“Doug’s a hard worker,” Scott says. “He cleans windows for a living. You’ll never see him out there panhandling, you know? He works hard.”

The years have very apparently worn Doug out. He is tired and it is hard for him to move around.

“I just want a place and a job. Plain and simple,” Doug says. “I don’t think they have enough low-income housing for people over fifty years.”

The message he wanted to get out into the world is: “He who has no sin can cast the first stone.”

Katie Morales, Removing Barriers for Transient School Children

The new school year recently started and Children in Transition program coordinator Katie Morales has two calendar and email filled computer screens going on in her new office inside the Sparks High School compound.  Other offices next to hers are filled with backpacks and school supplies, while emails are being answered, logistics figured out and phones answered.

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“Our goal is to make sure every child has that opportunity to go to school so there are no barriers to the student’s education," Morales says of her work.

Morales, a UNR grad, coordinates other employees who help the thousands of students in homeless situations throughout the Washoe County K-12 school district. “Every day, we’re helping them with birth certificates, shot records, making sure they are getting free or reduced lunches, figuring out transportation, finding out if they need anything else to help with their schooling.”

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Homeless youths can be a hidden population, especially for those living on the streets, but Children in Transition helps them get regular schooling like any other student.

A Child in Transition in Every Washoe County School

Last year, there was a “child in transition” in every school in the district, Morales says. “We are making sure there are no barriers to a student’s education,” she explains summarizing the 100-percent grant funded program.  Children in Transition also gets community help through backpack drives and people helping pay with school fees.  “We can always use more support.  Backpacks, hygiene supplies, shoes …. School can be expensive. If you want to take an AP class, or be on the soccer team, that can be difficult. People can help with some of those fees.”

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The offices of Children in Transition are filled with school supplies to give to students in the program. “It gives the student the feeling they are like any other student," Morales says.

Nearly 90% Rise of Students Helped This Decade

Our Town Reno wanted to find out more about some of the current trends, challenges and successes of the Children in Transition program locally.

Q: How many students are you helping?

“Every July first, we re-identify our students and we have definitely seen an increase in students in the last couple of years. We’re continuing to see that right now as well. Last year, we served and identified around 3,500 students and that was an 89% increase in the last six years.  We’ll probably see the increase continuing this year as well.”

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The program follows clearly defined federal mandates to help students in unstable housing situations.

Q: Within the different definitions of homeless, what are the trends locally?

“Our largest group are those doubled up with another family, due to some type of financial reason. They lost their house, they lost their job, and so now they go live with a family member, or a friend.  There are those who live in shelters. In Reno, we have just one family shelter, which has a four month waiting list. There are those who live in other shelters like Safe Embrace. Some families live in a motel. There are also unaccompanied youths.  Some might be couch surfing from one friend’s house to the next. There are those who are living in cars, in parks or abandoned buildings.  There are also those who are awaiting foster care.  But the majority are those who are doubled up with another family. We just don’t have affordable housing for our families to go into. Our shelters are full. Our weeklies are getting expensive. The weeklies are also being bought out and we just don’t have the space for those families to live in on their own. With rising prices, many families are facing difficult situations.”

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Children in Transition also points students and their families toward other available resources, like the Family Shelter in Reno.

Q: What kind of Washoe County employees help these students in transition?

“Currently, we have five homeless liaisons.  They work with every single school in our district, so around 114 schools.  Each liaison has about 30 schools they are working closely with where they have to build relationships with counsellors, front office staff, to make sure we are identifying our students and also giving them the resources they need. Every single school has a school advocate. That person usually is a counselor. They’re working with our families and parents and children who are considered children in transition and they are able to get them the resources they need. Our liaisons work very closely with our advocates to make sure they get transportation, clothing, school supplies, anything that could be a barrier to the student’s education.  It takes a village to support our community.  Front office staff, they are the ones who are meeting and greeting our families right at the front door.  Our principals, our counselors, our teachers, our school nurses, whoever that family has that connection with is helping identify those students. We want to make sure our whole school system has that awareness about what our program is and how they can support our students and really work together to support our families.  We make sure they know about us.”

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A backpack drive helps Children in Transition make sure all its students are equipped for school just like any other student.

Q: What are the logistics of pick up and drop off for the students you help?

“The students are very transient, living from one place to the next. Our goal is to make sure that they can stay at their school of origin for the time they are homeless or throughout the rest of the school year.  It’s important that they have that stability, not only for consistent academics but also having somewhere safe, where they know that they’ll have their friends, teachers they know. We use many ways of transporting our students. It might be through RTC. It might be through school buses.  We are always very sensitive of how our students are being transported.  Maybe they are the first ones to be picked up. We always want to make sure it’s safe and in their best interest. We have a homeless liaison who is dedicated to transportation only and she is working with our transportation department. She will arrange to transport our students until they get a bus.  Washoe County is really big. You never want to see a kindergartner on a bus for two hours, each way.  But for a high school student who is about to graduate, that might be in their best interest. We look at individual needs and work closely with each student.”

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"I have a quote I like, it says ‘children lose many things when they become homeless, but education doesn’t have to be one of them,'" Morales says.

Q: What is your personal drive to do this type of work?

“We should all have the same opportunity to get an education. It’s a passion for me. I like what I do. We can really support our community. We’ve seen our graduation rates for our CIT students increase about 16 points in four years, that’s incredible. Our children are amazing. This gives them the opportunity to be like any other student. I think that’s what we really stand by. We want to make sure they have that same education like anyone else. We’re always there with a helping hand. If someone wants to help, they can contact us directly or also help a specific school.”

Interview and Photos by Our Town Reno. If you want to help the local Children in Transition program or find out more about their work please also visit http://www.washoeschools.net/Page/810

ACTIONN, Leading the Fight Against Gentrification in Reno

As community organizers in Reno are prepping for a week of events against gentrification, Our Town Reno wanted to find out more about some of the undercurrents of this initiative and what to expect.

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As more and more people are being displaced or made homeless by new developments and rising prices in Reno, which direction is the Biggest Little City headed?

A Week of Events

Events will kick off with a public conference Monday, September 12th, followed by a noon rally on Tuesday on the UNR campus. A morning potluck and protest will take place at City Council on Wednesday morning. Thursday, back at UNR, there will be an evening public assembly to discuss affordable housing, with displaced people and experts in socially equitable development among those taking part. Saturday the 17th, the action week will conclude with a “Leader Learning Circle” in Sparks to teach methods of community organizing to current and future activists.

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Low-income, rehab program and elderly residents have been kicked out from this downtown block.  It will be demolished to give way to high-end student housing.

ACTIONN Coordinators

Coordinators Aria Overli and Mike Thornton from ACTIONN - Acting in Community Together in Organizing Northern Nevada, accepted to answer a few extra questions over the phone.

Q: Why was this upcoming action week organized, and why is now a good time for this stop gentrification movement to ramp up in Reno?

AO: This is a really pivotal issue in Reno right now. We have a chance to ensure the priorities of the city are in the right place but we need to do it early before things get out of hand, in terms of rental prices, people being displaced. While we are already seeing that happening, I think we still have an opportunity to get to it before it gets really out of control.  For a long time, these issues haven’t been a huge priority for the city council. This is a way to make it a priority for the people of the city and also for our city council.

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From cheap rents to no trespassing in the blink of an eye.

MT: We have a real opportunity to raise these issues in the public awareness. So the public, including those who are not impacted can actually begin to call on our elected and community leaders and say ‘let’s do development right from the start rather than having to go back and try to fix things on the back end’. Many communities around the country are now using 21st century community development practices and policies so that development brings with it truly affordable housing for a broad range of people, also jobs and creates thriving, sustainable communities along the way. It’s really an opportunity to get in on the front end of development as compared to try to fix problems after they’ve already been put in concrete, so to speak.

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City Council recently cancelled a planned meeting on affordable housing to the dismay of those who were hoping to have their voices heard on the issue.

Q: A special meeting on affordable housing was supposed to take place at City Council this summer, but was abruptly cancelled two days before it was scheduled.  Was that a disappointment?

AO: It was very disappointing. There are so many people in this city who need to have their voices heard.  This was an opportunity for them to have their voices heard by the city council and unfortunately that didn’t happen. We’re not likely to have the opportunity to organize people to go to another meeting like that if it ever happens, in the way we had originally planned.  

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Keep walking .... no more cheap rents here.  These old homes are being torn down as new development comes to Reno.

MT: We had organized about 50 residents primarily from the weeklies. We had had a meeting and had talked about how we could get people to come. A lot of people were rearranging their schedules and then it was cancelled very abruptly. It was a disappointment not so much for us but for the people who are living at the tip of the spear who were working and struggling to rearrange their schedule in order to be at this meeting so they could have input into these issues that so directly affect them.

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Members of RISE, holding a free market here at the homeless shelter, will be among those taking part in the week of actions against gentrification.

Q: How do you feel mainstream media is covering gentrification in Reno?

MT: I’ve been pleasantly surprised.  I recently did a program on Channel 2 (KTVN) with council member Jenny Brekhus and also there was another short piece (on the same channel).  This is a complicated issue which is sometimes difficult, particularly for television, to cover. But I think they are really starting to understand how important it is and making a good faith effort.  We’re really going to be promoting the week of actions starting (today) and I’m expecting decent coverage at least that’s our hope.  It really is an issuethat is important to everyone in Reno, whether they know it or not.

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Casino workers and those needing to use the downtown bus station also used to live in this soon to be razed down block, which will also lose its public alley.

Links

For more information here is the Facebook page for the Week Against Gentrification https://www.facebook.com/events/168962960177852/

For more information from ACTIONN, check out their regular Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/actionnNV

Seth Dines and the New UrbVan Dwelling Movement in Reno

On a rare muggy morning in Reno, Seth Dines, 32, looks over his recently $1,000 purchased 1995 GMC Rally STX 3500, a 15-passenger van with a “super strong engine”, which he hopes to soon give away to someone who wants to live in it.

Van renovations are on his mind, which he also uses for branding, marketing, making music, as well as web and experiential designing among other freelance and personal pursuits.

Money Problems in a New Reno

“I took the front seat out and I’m going to make it a cook area, so I can cook outside if I want to,” he says as he gives a tour of the van, which he will be trying out as well. At the time of interview, the van was parked outside a house in southwest Reno where he was renting a small basement room. “I want to create a tray that pivots outward, so I can have a space here. I thought about maybe storing the battery compartment for the eventual solar that I’ll have.”

His overall goal? “I want to show you can live in a micro home which is transportable within city limits."

Seth says his bills have been piling up just to keep his cell phone, wifi and power going. “I freelance, so it’s not a paycheck every two weeks, you get a chunk of change at a time, you have to be thrifty. I am on Social Security disability so that helps. I can’t really do physical labor, so I have to use my brain.”

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There's plenty to fix on this van, but Seth is optimistic he can make it livable and rideable for just a few extra thousand dollars.

Making it Livable and Affordable

"The inside is going to be livable, and it’ll get around the city. You won’t be able to go cross country but the idea is to live in a dwelling that’s yours, that you own 100 percent. You’re not paying rent. I’ll save money on utility bills.  I’ll save money on rent.  I am currently paying $400 a month on a bedroom. I tried to get housing help because I’m on disability.  But I’ve been on a wait list forever.   While living in a van, I’ll be able to work harder on better, more personal projects because my expenses will be down. I love Reno. I want to live in the city.  I want to live downtown but it’s expensive down there.  With Tesla, that’s making house prices and rents go up. I am trying to get ahead of the curve and try do something now, before we get tens of thousands of new people here. ”

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 "I think this van came from Mexico, 'Hecho in Mexico', it says right there on the hubs."

A New Movement Called Urbvan Dwelling

Seth wants to create a “new movement, an alternate lifestyle,” which others can emulate through his example. The project already existing on the web and different social media platforms is called “Urbvan Dwelling”.  Other people are helping him and he wants to help others as well.

He also recently purchased a 1993 Ford E-150 Tierra van, for a little over $2,000, and has slept in it a few nights already on a full mattress he bought on Craigslist, both downtown and on the outskirts of Reno.

“It’s a lot more comfortable and safer than I thought, and I felt pretty comfortable about it before anyway.  When I was downtown, there were some people having a good time nearby, but it was ok. Being stealth, no one knows you are in there.  Just because other people are around and I know they are doesn’t mean they know I’m there.  Now I’m starting to spot vans where people might be living everywhere.”

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On social media, Seth has started documenting his experiences renovating and sleeping in vans in Reno.

Social Media Presence

“I want to break the stereotypes about people who choose to have a transportable home as their primary dwelling,” he writes on his webpage. “Our world is changing, societal ways of living are changing and I want to be a part of that and show other people, normal people, it’s ok to live in a transportable house,” he explains in our interview.

Part of Seth’s experiment will be to document and broadcast on social media his life adventure living in a van inside a city. He also wants to show it can be a green way to live.

“I want to be able to use as little amount of water as possible, get all my electricity from the sun, as it will be in the sun all the time. That’s the best way I can see of having a small footprint without being in a house.”

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"The steering on this one is super loose it needs some adjustments."

Tailoring and Fixing a Van

His main challenges now are funding materials for floors, walls, insulation, and getting the soon to be donated van to be mechanically sound enough to go around town. He is thinking of an upcoming Indiegogo campaign to help with the costs of renovations and repairs.  

“Everyone’s needs are different. I wanted a longer van.  Some people might want a nice shorty to keep things tight.  Some people choose a Sprinter which is very tall, no windows, very clean on the inside.  I’m looking to spend no less than an extra thousand dollars to put it all together, to get started. Later I might add solar panels, and a fan for the vent on the roof.  To get insulation, the subfloor, some walls up, get it to a basic living space, buy a battery, and an alternator battery isolator, so it will charge your battery when you’re alternator is running, that's the idea.  That’s a very basic minimal set up, for probably $1,000. You can use any bed.  A van is big.  You can fit at least a queen.”

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Seth says he is getting other people in the community behind his project, to really turn it into a movement.

A Community Project

He’s already gotten help on figuring out some of the problems, and mistakes he has already made.

“I took it to these guys at CoAuto who I am partnering with. They’re trying to get a community garage together.  It’s perfect for me since I don’t have the money to get the tools I’ll need, but I have some knowhow.  But I should have taken it to them before I bought the van. They do free vehicle inspections before you want to purchase a used vehicle, but I didn’t know that.  Over there, I found all the seals of this van are leaking.”

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Seth says he feels this van project is liberating him.  "I feel free now. I have all these crazy options to look forward to that I didn’t have before.  I love branding and design and technology. To be able to do all that for my own project has been awesome.  I’m going to be as self-sufficient as I possibly can.  I want to get off the grid.”

Simplicity and Minimalism

Seth says he’s tried the marriage thing and the regular company job, but that it just didn't work for him. Simplicity and minimalism are new buzzwords he adheres to.

“I’ve tried to go mainstream, but it’s really difficult for me, so I’ve got to try something different, I’ve got to switch my life up, and this is the way I can foresee doing that.  Older people are buying RVs and traveling. So why don’t I do that now but stay in the city? It doesn’t even cost that much money. I love what I do. I don’t have retirement plans. I just want to live.  This provides a way to live with not very much money.  I’ve been minimalizing lately. I live in a tiny one bedroom, so I'm basically living in a van.  Just in a bedroom in a house.  I wear plain clothing.  Going minimal is my path now even with my designs.  I think our world is so complicated with technology that these analog things, let’s just make them more simple.  Why not? Let’s keep life here simple, because it’s just going to get more complicated.”  

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Seth is giving up the closet and one bedroom lifestyle, but he says he won't miss it.

Giving Back

Once he’s done with this current van, he hopes to build up another one, so he can start a chain process of giving liveable vans.

“I’ve always been helped out in many ways by either a community, a social service, so I feel this is my way to be able to give back. There’s a lot of displaced people in our area who could be helped with this project, if other people helped out with it.  Not everyone chooses to be homeless.  Most people, they just need a tiny kick. Just a little bit, just to help them. Of course, some people mess it up when they get help.  If they smell awful people will say they’re the dregs.  No, they’re a person. I’ve watched displacement happen here in Reno.  It might not be the best solution and it might bring another bunch of stuff, but we have to try something.”

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What about laws preventing people from sleeping in vans?

Breaking the Law?

“I don’t even know what the laws are. But that’s part of the adventure, figuring it all out.  What I’ve gathered is you just have to be smart.  Don’t be conspicuous.  That’s why I’m also building in a van.  A van fits in with other cars.  It’s when you get a motorhome, it’s a little bit bigger.  In a van it’s easier to keep a low profile.”

Seth has experience building up a project others thought was crazy.  While in high school, with his family, he helped build a skatepark in his hometown in Loyalton, California, which is sometimes called the loneliest town in America. “We had to deal with the city, parks system to get it done because they didn’t want to get sued. I have other ideas. This might be super radical but why not have one park in the area where heroin is legal or drugs are legal but monitored. Why can’t we do that here? This is Reno. We do things different here.  Why don’t we just try that? If it doesn’t work, we shut it down, and we go back to the way it was.”

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When he's not around a van, Seth can often be found at The Basement, an underground incubator space in downtown Reno with vendors.  “The Basement down here has become this hub where people are meeting at these tables, with people who are trying to come up with their own ideas and build new connections. Anyone can come do homework, have an important meeting, have a party, have some sort of event."

Any final words of wisdom for other Renoites?

“I implore our community to just ‘give a shit’. Quote me on that.  Care about people. Why not? Even if you don’t want to talk to them or look at them or smell them give them money and say you’re welcome. Try something different.  Be nice. Dude, be nice. Hashtag #dudebenice.  Let’s just help each other out.  Some people think it’s real hippie. But if we could all help each other. We all have things we can offer to other people. Even if we don’t think so.  We all have something we know how to do which is of value to someone else.  So why not help them out? Go out on a limb. You might get burned but that’s how you grow as a human being. I just want to try the urban van life out and show it can be done.  I feel comfortable.  I’m going to choose this. The home is where you make it.  My home is wherever I’m at and feeling comfortable. I actually already spend a ton of time in my car, a Honda Element. I sit in there, watch movies, hang out, listen to music, everyone does, we all do.  Cars are a big deal. Why not just stay in one which you make your home?”

DIRECT LINKS TO URBVAN DWELLING

Here are some of the websites where you can follow Seth and his Urbvan Dwelling movement ...

urbvandwelling.com

https://www.instagram.com/urbvandwelling/

urbvandwelling.tumblr.com

https://www.facebook.com/urbvandwelling

And today he started a YouTube channel with his first video here and above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecEZ-q4NZuw

Wendy Wiglesworth, A Salty Saint Along the Truckee River

Wendy Wiglesworth has a distinct aura about her as she presses out her wet, wavy hair by a small campfire on a recent morning, next to the Truckee River near the Sparks/Reno line, across from the Grand Sierra Resort in the middle of a tent city mostly hidden by thick trees and foliage.

Moods lift, and ears perk up as Wendy’s musical, raspy voice fills the crackling air with salty empathy and critiques of the world around her.

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If she could, Wendy says, she would start “a transitional house for all the forgotten, all the misfits, who don’t fall into the grooves of the housing programs and the resource center here in Reno.” She says she would have fewer rules, and do without drug testing. “I don’t care what you do in your personal time if you can function when you have to,” she explains.

Wendy, a Washoe High School graduate from the 1990s, and a former salon owner, now 42 and living in a tent along the river, says she helps “lost boys of all ages, old and young,” cope with life on the “outside” as she calls it.  “Everybody is somebody, everybody came from somewhere,” she says, a warm oatmeal bowl by her side.

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Wendy, who has severe arthritis in her hands, preventing her from doing extensive manual work, lives off of food stamps, even if it gets more and more difficult as the month goes by. She’s also a dumpster diver.  “We are doing the actual reduce, reuse, recycle.  We find everything.  Sometimes we find steak. Sometimes we find packing material we use for bed rolls. You can find so much for free.”

On The Other Side

“I used to donate haircuts when I owned a salon, now I’m on the other side but I prefer it this way.  There’s actually less drama. Out here, you appreciate everything. I can probably sleep better than a lot of people doing the 9 to 5.  At the end of the day, I am ok with everything. I’m not trying to be something that someone else wants me to be.  I’m not working so I can just keep up with bills, and not have time to enjoy life because I am working so much.  We stay busy just keeping camp, figuring out our next meals, and fixing the tent. There’s bad days just like inside. We also have to keep an eye out for vigilantes who sometimes go through our belongings and bust everything up. We don’t know how long we will be allowed to stay. But I still like it better here.”

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This sign on an overpass to the river path makes people camping there, out of necessity, fear every day they might be kicked out.

Why Not Have Inner City Camping?

Wendy would like the city of Reno to allow inner city camping. “It should be just like an RV park with tents allowed.  If you have just a few rules, there’s no reason it couldn’t work.”

But right now, she says, tent cities keep getting pushed further and further away from Reno. “Is today the day we’re going to have to pack up everything and move?” she wonders.  “Where are we going to move? How are we going to move all our stuff?”

Wendy has been in her current spot a few months.  She says the tent she sleeps in was found floating in the river. She calls the Truckee river “her river”.  She often wades through it with a bag, collecting trash flowing downstream, keeping it clean around her.  

Her Current Spot

“It’s nice here. You can leave your stuff inside or next to your tent. There’s people around, it’s not far to go to the GSR to charge your phone, or Walmart, or Quik Stop. Sometimes if I have a dollar, I’ll go gamble, sometimes I’ll win five, cash it out and go buy cigarettes.  It’s a tradeoff being further from downtown Reno but there are advantages as well.”

One neighbor, who goes by Tarzan, has set up a bike shop for the homeless and cyclists coming down the riverside path. Another neighbor, a woman helps other campers use lavender to deal with bugs. “There are also a lot of spiritual and metaphysical people,” she says.

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Cleaning up the camping site is part of Wendy's daily routine.

Camping Neighbors

Others from the tent city work day labor jobs.  They keep each other company when they’re back together by the river.  

“People don’t pretend they’re something they’re not here.  As campers, my neighbors are great here.  They’re being who they are.  They’re not lying. Some people do leave all their stuff or trash behind and that’s not good, but most people here are good people. We’re normal people.”

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Outside her tent, a dream catcher. "Everybody has bad dreams. This will catch them." 

Visits from Police

Wendy says there’s no telling how long this camping situation will last. They get regular visits from police and city workers recommending different services, offering water and sometimes help with trash, but the underlying message is that they shouldn’t be there.

“They keep wanting to push us further away from Reno into Sparks.  They say if we go by the Alamo casino they won’t bug us. Since they keep pushing us away from Reno, it sends people hiding in residential areas in Reno, like behind schools.  That could freak some parents out, if they see a homeless person in the morning on their way to school, but remember it could be someone’s dad or brother pushing that cart.  They’re just trying to live too.”  

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Wendy says she loves it by the river, but is uncertain how long she will be allowed to stay.

Pushed Further and Further from Reno's Downtown

Wendy once started building a brick entranceway with steps in another spot she previously kept underneath a bridge on Sutro street,  but got booted out from there.  Most recently, she was camping on what she though was someone’s private property, who said he didn’t mind, but it turned out to be airport property, so she was forced out from there as well.  

“Sometimes, I really don’t get it. I’s not like we are terrorists, planning a homeless takeover. We’re still a part of Reno. Don’t be embarrassed by us. We’re not going to go away. A lot of us don’t want to live on the inside.  A lot of us love it out here,” she says.  

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"I will not push a cart.  And I’m not going to have a shopping cart. But I will pull a wagon because it’s cute.  I love it."

Frustrations With Services

“When the cops come out with Catholic Charities and the Volunteers of America, they say, well you should really check out the resources. But then when you start going, a lot of them want you to get hooked up with Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services, and take the brain meds.  If you don’t need them, or you don’t want them, then you’re not sure what to do.  There’s other problems with the help. People with animals can’t go into shelters or even the overflow.  They say the SPCA is offering a program to help board their animals until after they get on their feet.  But I’ve heard the SPCA is going to give you a bill for boarding. And anyway, pets is what keeps a lot of people going, so why would I separate from my pet and have to pay for that?  Couples you can’t go together. If you’re not a vet or go to Mental Health Services, you wonder will I really get housing through their resources?”

There is persistent frustration in Wendy’s voice about how the programs are designed, how they make most people scared, and how most of the housing options in Reno are worse than living outside. 

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When interviewed about services, many homeless living along the path, say they are more often more headaches than actual help.

Avoiding Roach Coach

“If you’re inside the shelter with one of their programs, you can only have limited visitors, there’s checks on them, you can’t have overnight guests, the rules just can be too much. Everybody that’s out here is so used to being around others, and a group mentality. Now you’re inside, lonely, and bored, so you go back outside, and then mess up the whole process to get housing.  Inside and alone can be much worse than outside and with people.  And then, some of the cheaper housing options in town, the motels and weeklies are really roach coach. I’d rather stay outside and be irritated by spiders, than inside and be worrying about bed bugs and cockroaches.  It’s foul in some of those places.  I understand people want people to be inside, but putting them with roaches and cockroaches is not ok.”

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Wendy prefers to control her environment outside, than being at the mercy of unsavory conditions inside.

Stay Humble Reno

She says current changes in Reno keep her on edge.

“I don’t know if I'm scared or excited. Artown Reno is making it more art focused instead of the gambling and hookers, that’s cool. Small business owners look different, they are fully tatted now, that’s awesome too. But I don’t want Reno to get carried away with itself either thinking that it’s too cool for this or that.  Or that Reno is embarrassed by people like us.  I used to make jewelry. There’s people down here that make a lot of cool things. One girl here was painting rocks.  People do rock art.  You also have to watch out if we all start getting priced out. I love local businesses that have made it. But stay humble.”

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"The skulls make it cool.  I cut up an old shirt and cut it cast length with thumb holes.  Maybe I could go into business to make these."

Challenges and Donations

Even though she likes living by the river, Wendy faces plenty of challenges.  She recently broke her wrist and arm falling on some bike parts, requiring “needles, screws, and stuff”.  She was due to start therapy, so she was looking for ways to get bus passes to get there.   

Food and survival items are not always easy to obtain, so she says donations from those who care about her plight are always appreciated.

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Wendy says she doesn't understand those who leave stuff behind, which makes others who clean up look bad.

Very Grateful for Help

“The other day, these ladies gave us tarps, which was awesome.  There was a couple that gave us fried chicken once. Downtown it is easier to get food than here.  Amber (Dobson) always gives out food downtown. I love Amber.  She’s awesome.  If anyone wants to come by and say hi, and donate, ice is always good during the summer, so is coffee, or dog food and pet leashes, bike locks, and clean blankets. We can always use old tents too. We really are very grateful to those who help.“

She says batteries are always needed as well, AA and AAA, and bug spray, especially when it’s been raining like the past few days. After the interview, a neighbor passed around chocolate for everyone to share.  After the interview, a neighbor passed around chocolate for everyone to share. 

Interview and Photos for Our Town Reno, August 2016, along the Truckee River, near the Reno/Sparks line.

Grackle, Making People Smile (On the Way to a Pot Farm)

On a recent weekday in Reno, Grackle, who got his name from the small black bird while tree sitting to protect redwoods from logging companies in California, was holding a jokes for money sign under the arches.

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“One of my favorite signs I make is two sided. One side just has a giant smiley face and says smile. The other side has “You’re Beautiful” and it has a bunch of hearts and peace signs and stuff.  That one makes people’s day. When I get done flying that sign my face hurts because people smile at me and I smile back at them. It’s contagious.”

Dirty Jokes, Clean Jokes, Hippy Jokes

A man, dressed like a tourist just leaving a casino, approaches him and asks ‘do you really tell jokes?’, tossing him a quarter.

Grackle, 29, offers three, non of them printable, for the price of one, eliciting chuckles.

“I have lots of dirty jokes,” he explains after the tourist leaves, “but I also have clean jokes and hippy jokes. Here’s a clean, hippy joke …. ‘Do you know why the lifeguard couldn’t save the hippie? He’s too far out man.’”

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Grackle's goal when asking for money is to make people smile, even if it doesn't always work.

Figuring out Reno's Police

Grackle, who says he is just passing through Reno, is starting to figure out the biggest little city, after earlier difficulties with police.

“I got harassed by the police here by the arches. I like to do things with a sense of humor. When I ask for money, I try to have signs which make people laugh, smile or spreads good vibes.  I don’t want to be winey, or to illicit sympathy. I prefer humor and joy.  So I was flying a sign which said “Smile if you Masturbate, Give me a Dollar if You Enjoy It.”

That didn’t go over too well.

“The cops came up and were like, that sign is inappropriate. But they also said, ‘technically it’s your First Amendment right and we can’t really say anything. But it offends us. And it probably offends a lot of these people’. They kept coming back and checking on me, so I’ve decided to use other signs.”

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Grackle's pants are made up of different souvenirs and patches, including this one. “This one shows a cop on a leash being walked by a fancy bastard in a top hat. “

Don't Sit on a Sidewalk

Grackle has also figured out how to sit in Reno while displaying his signs without also drawing more police attention.

“The first time I was sitting on the sidewalk which I guess is illegal here. So I asked them a lot of questions about the local laws, every town has their own thing, where you can sit. Here, you can sit on something raised, like these raised circular mounds which look like gambling chips.  But sitting on the sidewalk, I think first time it’s a warning and after that they either write you a ticket or take you to jail.”

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Grackle recently lost stuff and was down to blankets, a sleeping bag, a tobacco can without much tobacco left, food stamps, a flask and a lunch sack.

On the Streets Since 15

Grackle says he’s been living on the streets since he was 15. He was a “headstone teenager”, going to a “prestigious inner city prep school” in Seattle, where he says he fit in better with the bums selling pot on school grounds than with students.  One day, he pretended he was sick, packed up, and went to live with the weed-selling bums who were sleeping on loading docks.

He eventually went to college, and got “half a degree” in renewable energy, and still hopes to one day become a solar panel installer.  For now though, he describes himself as a “traveling hippie gypsy”, a rough lifestyle full of twists and turns and never a dull day.

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“It’s a community with a family sense of everything and it’s also a gathering to pray for peace,” is how Grackle describes Rainbow Gatherings.

Rainbow Gatherings

Most recently, he took part in the latest “Rainbow Gathering” in Vermont, a pro-peace and pro-nature congregation of different groups who gather in remote forests to eat, sleep and live together for one or several weeks at a time.

“One of the biggest things of Rainbow is everyone will shout on three from wherever in the forest, ‘We Love You’. There are lots of people from different walks of life. There are rainbow kids who are full-time travelers and train hoppers and what not, and there’s also people who work on a farm and come to a few gatherings every year. Alcohol is highly frowned upon in the woods.  So all the drinking takes place at the front gate or in the parking lot which kind of acts as a filter. Once you get in the woods, it’s more hippy-dippy.”

There are national gatherings, and more localized ones, each with its distinct traits.  One of Grackle’s favorites is the so-called Katuah gathering in North Carolina.

“They do a thing called the angel path. Basically, there’s two lines of people facing each other, usually a couple hundred people. And the people at the end of the line walk through with their eyes closed and then everybody kind of guides you along, and stops you to give you hugs and compliments.  Most people end up crying by the end of it.”

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His last road trip was when friends alerted to his misfortunes in Illinois through Facebook, but already in the area, went to pick him up and then dropped him off in Reno.

A Rough Trip West

After his last Rainbow gathering in Vermont, he did cleanup with the “Fat Kids Kitchen crew”, one of the many collective groups who take part in the gatherings, picking up trash, “renaturalizing” areas, spreading new seeds.  Driving back west with his new girlfriend though didn’t turn out so well.  She was arrested on an old warrant in Illinois.  Everything he owned was in her rental truck, which was impounded.  

Friends who were alerted by a Facebook message picked him up on their way west in their RV and dropped him off in Reno.  So now, he’s got even less stuff than usual. At first, he was staying in Reno with a friend in a weekly motel, but the landlord there said he would have to start paying extra money to stay there.

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In Reno, Grackle was staying with a friend in a weekly, but then was told he needed to pay, so he was going to look for a place to sleep outside.

Sleeping Outside in Reno for the 1st Time

“I’ll just have to find a place to sleep outside tonight,” he explains. “Since I’ve been on the streets, I’ve never slept in a homeless shelter. There are too many rules there.”

He takes a swig from an alcohol flask hiding himself behind his sign.

“I like to drink a little. If you live outside, with open container laws in many places, like here in Reno, there’s no non-public place where you can stop and enjoy a drink.”

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His next road trip should be shorter and will hopefully lead to seasonal work in a pot farm near Garberville, CA.

Next Stop, A Pot Farm near Garberville

Once Grackle has enough money to travel, his next destination will be a pot farm, near Garberville, in Humboldt County, California.  

He will trim weed there, alongside other travelers, including some from other countries.

“I think it’s kind of a grey area legally,” he says. “But I really like my job. I just listen to music and I make about 200 dollars a day. I get to talk to people from all over the world.  At night, we pitch our tents and sleep outside.”

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There are hundreds and hundreds of pot farms in northern California. People who work on them are often called "trimmigrants."

200 Dollars Per Pound of Trimming

He usually trims marijuana plants up to 12 hours a day in an outbuilding with bright fluorescent lights, putting buds in plastic baskets and leaves into bags.  

“We get paid by weight. 200 dollars a pound of buds.  One friend from New Zealand once trimmed four pounds in a day.  I usually average about one pound a day.”

He also has a rainbow gathering on his radar in his home state of Washington in September.

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Grackle says good shoes are very important for the traveling lifestyle.  He said the ones he had on now were too big, so he needed to find new ones.

Tips for Young Runaways and Fellow Travelers

As we leave him, we ask him if he is any advice for young runaways or kids living out in the open.

“Avoid hard drugs, a lot of people get caught up in meth or heroin. It can really mess you up if you develop habits,” he says. “Also don’t use needles, that’s when it gets really bad.  I’ve had a few friends hospitalized or even killed by hard drugs and needles. “

Any positive insights to finish the interview?  “Yeah, if a kid is on the streets, and lonely, they should come to a rainbow gathering.  They can get started at www.welcomehome.org.”

Photos and Interviews for Our Town Reno in downtown Reno, August, 2016

Pan Pantoja, Leading the Path of Reno’s Potential

The Potentialist

If there’s a place where Reno’s full potential takes on bigger and better dimensions, with mind expanding creations by artists reclaiming their hold on how to live in our biggest little city, it could well be in a gritty, paint splattered street level space filled with works both in progress and completed, a trippy, clean, gallery, a topsy-turvy sculpture yard, a velvety theater, a music jammed basement, and a smashed front window turned into art with murals outside all around.

That would be one way to describe the Potentialist Workshop on 836 E. 2nd street.  

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“I’ve never named a spot the Potentialist before, and that’s what I am,” art director Pan Pantoja explains in between feeding a bottle to his infant son and adding items to an already busy fall calendar. “This is where I create my work.  And sometimes my works involve a lot of people. 257 people are using this space almost daily. In some form or another we collaborate on greater projects. We encourage our people here to be multi-disciplinary and to have multi-potentialities.”

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A space baby mural by Pan. "We needed to cover poorly done graffiti that was done on the side of the building. My boy was just born when I did this. " 

Pan often recites his foundational spoken word poem when asked what exactly a potentialist can be. It begins like this: “I am a Potentialist and I want to take it too far. I want to leap off the edge of the energy I put out…”

Turning Buildings Into Art Spaces

A Butte, Montana, native, who sold his first painting when he was 6, Pan has had a habit of turning buildings into collective art spaces or what he calls his sculptures.  Rising rents and new projects have kept him moving, including in Reno, but he seems set on continuing this project, at least right now.  Shoes he used in previous work are part of an art piece he keeps near the front door.

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“This one is called Golden Carrot. It’s made of all of my work shoes for five years and rollers for the murals I did for three years. I purposefully bought the same cheap style of shoe knowing I was going to turn them into this.” 

From Criminology to Puppeteering

Pan has degrees in criminology, sociology and counseling.  He’s a teacher, filmmaker, monument maker, muralist, student project leader, sculptor, actor, playwright, puppeteer, author, painter, poet, the list goes on.  He also gets invited to “Reimagine Reno” type get-togethers. 

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Shmork, who “steals money from the average, but gets away with it” is part of a current puppet show going on until August 14th called Power .

Our Town Reno wanted to get insight about where the city might be headed generally and in terms of art as nowhere it seems are the #keeprenorad, #keeprenoartsy, #keeprenoweird hashtags we use on our Instagram feed, more put forward than in this Potentialist space.

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“This is acrylic on brick. The cash cow’s got our building on his back, with a little bird of hope at the top.”

Our Interview

What do you tell people who have thought of becoming an artist? 

“You’ll probably barely get by. You’re either an artist or you’re not. You’re either bat shit insane or you’re not. Everyone can do art and it’s good for everyone. But artists they cannot do anything else.  I’ve been doing this my whole life… But I’ll say this …. what the world needs is more healers, and more artists, and more creators and a lot less billionaires. Trump, Kardashian, get real.  That needs to end now. That needs to be the most uncool thing, not the most cool thing.”   

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The gallery space currently showcases the work of Guy Gilmore. This piece is called “Pennyroyal Tea”. “It looks to be a crazy broken doll holding a dead bird. You would put the water in the head and it comes out of the bird’s mouth. Enjoy your tea.”

It seems something exciting might be happening in Reno right now though, in terms of arts and artists. Do you agree?

“This is the wild west. Here, anything you can dream of, you can do. If you have the drive, you can do it. It’s getting set, don’t get me wrong, but there is not a set way here yet. To some of us, that’s very exciting. I think eventually, they’ll write about Reno like they did about Seattle in the 1990s. I think what we’re doing now, when America looks at us, I think we’ll change America. Me and my friends are taking over whole city blocks growing food, living off the grid, putting up our own solar panels. Those things they say are impossible, we’re doing it and have been doing for years. We can point to it. We don’t need to do things a certain way.”

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 “Some cats threw a rock through our window and so I just put the rock back in the window and turned it into this stain glass. That’s an example of you’re never wrong, learning to love anything, and creating from garbage.”

On the flip side, while there is talk about a Reno rebrand, or a reimagining of Reno, it seems we are seeing people displaced, empty lots, old motels to be demolished and not replaced, a lack of affordable spaces. Is that a concern for the future?

“As an artist, I get invited, for whatever reason, to these meetings with these suits. I can only assume it’s because they have no imagination. The way they do things, I can’t even see, it makes no sense to me whatsoever. Sometimes we yell at each other, but they keep inviting me back. We need to punish those who would let a place rot in order to make money. They shouldn’t be getting a break and get more money. They should be punished. They need to be taxed. And that tax money can go to beautification until they fill those buildings. For a company to let blight sit there is ridiculous. I’ve already been run off two streets that I helped fix in this city. It’s getting more and more gentrified.”

Weighing some of this, should more people join the art world then?

“They’ve made it so it’s the same risk. All of you might as well go be artists. Quit your jobs. Quit helping these people. Let them tank and do your own thing. I can’t stress that to everyone enough.”

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A painting someone made of Pan’s Potentialist poem is near the front door. 

Art shows are held evenings at the Potentialist in the four pm to midnight range Thursdays to Sundays, with at least one never before seen production a month, with additional participatory art throughout the week, including spoken word and improv comedy. There’s also a full recording studio in the basement, a band practice room, artist studio spaces, and a sculpture yard for those interested in making their own creations. 

Interview and photos at the Potentialist Workshop, August 2016. Note: Some of the questions were rearranged and answers trimmed for clarity.  

Hagen Sandoval, Documenting the Rise and Fall of the Mapes Hotel

The “Believe”-adorned plaza in downtown Reno, where once stood the Mapes Hotel in all its glory and demise, or “The Queen of Virginia Street” as Hagen Sandoval calls it, is empty on a recent Sunday morning.

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Hagen holds the Reno Gazette-Journal covering the Jan 30, 2000, demolition, which took just a few seconds and 75 pounds of dynamite to wipe out more than 50 years of history.

Remembering the Demolition

“I was 4 years old when it was torn down. I briefly remember watching a building come down on television but at the time I didn’t know anything about it. And then in high school I really got into it. I love history. I love anything about Reno. But all the history we have in this town just slowly seems to disappear. Back then, buildings were built to stay. You look at the post office. It wasn’t as temporary as buildings seem to be these days.”

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“The plans were made in the 1930s and it was built in the 1940s. It was very modern but at the same time very classic. Compared to today’s hotels it was tiny. 300 rooms is nothing.”

Digging Through the Days When Reno was The Mapes

Sandoval, a sixth-generation Renoite still striving for a journalism degree after several attempts, works in the mortgage lending business by day, and then spends his spare time on a documentary film project about the Mapes.

“I’d rather read through newspaper clippings than go out,” he says.

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Hagen shows an old photo of the Mapes provided by Neal Cobb, a local photo collector. “This is Reno, probably 1947 or 48. That’s the entire town, and there’s this structure standing tall and that’s the Mapes. The place had class.  Everybody went there. If you wanted to meet someone, or if you wanted to be seen in town, you went to the Mapes. I think Reno lacks that. ”

Personal Connections and Celebrities

His own great-grandfather who worked over three decades for the Reno fire department once met John Wayne at the Mapes.

“It was a celebrity town back then. You also didn’t have to have backstage passes. People mingled at the Mapes. It was a more social town.”

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Clark Gable, Gloria Mapes, Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Mapes at the Mapes during the early 1960s. “Those names do resonate because they are classics. Our generation is still motivated toward retro. Marilyn Monroe is still a huge icon. But people don’t know the history of the Mapes.” The last film for both Gable and Monroe was the Misfits in 1961 and they were brought to the Mapes during its filming.

High School Projects

Hagen’s own passion for the Mapes dates back to high school projects.

“The more research I did, the more I found out about this place, it was something special. The more people I met who knew about the Mapes, they showed their passion and their love for such a place. This was just a hotel but to many people it was a place where they had some of their most important memories, their high school prom. My great-grandmother who actually got me interested in the Mapes had her 21st birthday in the Sky Room (the nightclub at the Mapes). Her mother worked in the coffee shop as a waitress. It was a big employer in this town. Those personal connections give me the drive to keep going. This place meant something to people.”

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A Flyer for the Mapes from the 1970s. “Towards the end it started to class down. It was a cheaper hotel towards the end. Big name entertainment there ended around the late 1960s. But even when it was closed people would come downtown and say wow that’s a pretty building and wonder why is it closed? It was still magnificent but it was neglected.”

The 'Interview of the Century'

One of his first interviews was with Gloria Mapes Walker. She co-owned The Mapes Hotel and Casino, with her brother Charles, before competition from other casinos, the recession and the failure of another casino they opened, The Money Tree, forced them to close their Art Deco structure in 1982, 35 years after its opening.

“I was so excited. For me, this was like the interview of the century.  To me, she was such a celebrity. She was living in south Reno. And I guarantee you if you ask someone my age, they would have no idea who Gloria Mapes was. She was very closed up, extremely closed up. I also had no tape, I just had my notes. She’s since passed (in 2014).  I’ve had a lot of conversations and interviews and notes, but I need more on camera interviews. A lot of people know about the fall of the Mapes, but much less about the Mapes itself.”

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“When you watch footage from the demolition, you hear some people cheering, but then you hear some people crying. This was the end of a time period for them. This was where their memories were. I think their memories are still there and that’s what I would like to preserve. People should know about the Mapes. It’s scary how quickly many people can forget something which played such a vital role in our community. “

Unanswered Questions

Hagen still doesn’t understand why the Mapes wasn’t saved. It was last owned by the Reno Redevelopment Agency, the city’s economic development arm.  Unanswered questions are part of his documentary’s quest.

“They had six proposals to renovate the Mapes when they voted to demolish the hotel in 1999.  They rejected all of them. What I want to know is why was the city so quick to tear down a place to have a city plaza. I have a lot of questions which I’m looking to answer. We also need to talk about its legacy. It was the first place to have entertainment and gaming and lodging all under one roof.  For ten years, it was the tallest building in the entire state, twelve stories."

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An article from San Francisco from right before the demolition was titled: "Lady Luck Jilts the Mapes. Reno landmark casino has one last chance before being blown up."

Why was the city of Reno so quick to tear it down?

"It was built so you could add another wing. It could still be here, but it sat vacant for 20 years and no one did anything with it besides stripping all of the hotel of its hardware, locks, everything. It just fell into disrepair. When the city got it, they just saw it as an eyesore.  But they were too quick to tear it down. Why were they so quick to tear it down? Why couldn’t the Mapes be saved? Was the construction really faulty as some people say? You hear both sides. But the Mapes was very modern, as far as architecture.  A lot of what they attribute to tearing it down was that the rooms were too small. But any building can be saved. It just takes a matter of motivation.”

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“This article is so passive aggressive.  It says Reno the Biggest Little City in the World is apparently not big enough for the Mapes hotel.”

Outside Coverage

The content of a New York Times article written after the demolition is now shocking to Hagen, as is the eerie emptiness of where the Mapes once stood.

“Jeff Griffin who was the mayor then said, we are building a new Reno. They said this is where Reno is heading. What we are going to put here is going to be extremely important. I don’t know that this is extremely important. It’s a beautiful plaza and it’s finally getting some art but is it the same thing with other properties we are going to tear down?  I’m not saying motels we are tearing down have as much significance as I think the Mapes does but I think too often we’re too quick to dismiss history and move forward. What’s the new Reno now? Is it the same Reno they dreamed of in 2000?”

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Hagen stands next to a small tribute to old buildings on West Street, which includes a broken terra cotta tile salvaged from the Mapes.  “I think it’s awesome. I wish it was closer. It would have been cool if they would have incorporated this into the new downtown plaza where the Mapes used to be."

Believing in Awareness for the Past and Revitalization

Hagen, who sees himself as a future preservationist now building awareness, and saving stories from the past, is also a strong believer in revitalization for old structures still standing.

“I’m extremely impressed with what they’ve done with the post office building. That’s what we need more of. It saddens me to think there was a point in our city’s history they weren’t focussed on preserving the past. The only way you can move forward is to learn from what you did in the past and from what your strengths were.”

For any tips, suggestions, help, or comments, Hagen can be reached by email at mapeshotel@gmail.com or via his film’s Facebook page “Reno’s Mapes Hotel: The Queen of Virginia Street”.

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Hagen is now trying to collect as many historical videos and pictures as he can, in addition to on-camera interviews. He welcomes any help or suggestions for his documentary project. Photos and interview for Our Town Reno on July 31, 2016.

Christian, Playing the Didgeridoo On the Streets

Christian Montgomery, 40, gently asks for some money in downtown Reno on a hot, dry morning, trying to get money to buy some coffee.  He’s going through a rough patch, having had lots of his possessions recently stolen from his shopping cart.

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"I’m just holding on to my life,” Christian says of recently being robbed of many of his possessions after getting some money from a passerby to get some coffee.

“There’s a group of people in Reno that goes around stealing people’s stuff.  I was one of the unlucky people who got robbed. I’m down to nothing almost.  At least they didn’t steal my Didgeridoo.  My girlfriend is holding on to my cell phone so that doesn’t disappear."

What's Left In the Cart

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“I’ve got rugs in there to lay down on the ground, a blow torch and a Didgeridoo.”

Playing, Selling and Teaching the Didgeridoo

The Didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians. Christian plays the instrument, usually by the arches in downtown Reno.  “It sounds like a low growl, with some barking in it. You do the circular breathing thing.  It’s entrancing. I discovered it at a hippie shop as a kid, and liked it ever since.”

So-called first amendment artisans are not required to obtain a business license, but Christian says some officers think you need to get a sound permit. “That’s $35 but they’ll usually leave me alone. It’s up to them to decide if you’re a douchebag, or if they want to mess with you really.”

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Christian usually plays the instrument for money by the arches in downtown Reno. He also sells them custom-made for about $100. “I cut them out of conduit, hammer out a mouthpiece and fan one side out. I can bend it a little or keep it straight depending on the sound you want out of it.”

Back in His Hometown

He says he’s been living on the streets for about 10 years, previously in San Diego, the Bay Area and Portland and back in Reno for the past three years, where he was born and raised.

“Reno has everything other places on the West Coast have and more. I came to realize my hometown is probably one of the coolest places on the West Coast.  There’s a ton of good people in Reno. There’s enough good people in Reno to help you get up and moving if you need help.”

He says he has some money saved, but doesn’t like renting out apartments or staying at the shelter, even though he says he’s been arrested a few times because of his situation.

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Christian says he's also available for lessons if you can find him.

Dreams of His Own Place

He says he’d like to buy his own lot or his own place if he finds something he can afford.  In the meantime, he doesn’t understand why police don’t let him be at spots he finds usually not far from the Truckee river.

“You have people who don’t have homes, but they need to sleep too. You need a place to prepare your food. If you’re poor, you shouldn’t have to live like an animal. You should be able to sleep and be left alone, without being bothered. Usually anywhere you go, you eventually get bothered and run off.”

He understands though that when too many homeless congregate in one area, it doesn’t always work out well.

“You can’t just pee all over the place, and dump your garbage all over the place and expect it to look and smell nice and for people to be ok with that.”

Stephanie, Once Homeless While Pregnant, Now ‘Thriving’

Stephanie Taitano remembers all too vividly the harrowing days in Reno eight years ago when she was more than eight months pregnant, separated from her boyfriend, and without the money she needed to make rent.

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Looking back through a box of mementos, Stephanie says becoming homeless while pregnant helped turn her life around.

“The recession was happening. It was happening everywhere. I was working at Atlantis in the buffet and they kept cutting my hours further and further, and I just couldn’t afford my rent anymore. I was supposed to stay with another friend, but that fell through. I hit rock bottom. For me, it was the scariest thing. My Dad even offered me to go back to Seattle, but I just couldn’t see myself living with my parents again.”

The Family Shelter to the Rescue

Luckily, she says, the Volunteers of America Family Shelter in downtown Reno, which had just opened a maternity ward, saved her.  “It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she remembers, even if it took some major adjustments.  

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“There’s always someone out there. There are resources. You just have to meet the right people who can help you. If you truly want help for yourself, if you truly are scared, you shouldn’t be afraid of others, including the city of Reno, which helps those in dire need with children. Good things do line up if you go and look for them, if you seek help.  You won’t regret it.”

“I was freaked out. I was so scared. I didn’t talk to anyone in the shelter for two weeks.  I didn’t know who these people were. I was so afraid. But there were some good people there.  You are going to find those who can’t learn a lesson. They are going through a spiral and they may not learn from it. Their poor children are being dragged through it. But there are also people who are going through hard times, and things happen, and there’s help.  The shelter may be a first stepping stone.  That’s what happened for me.”

A New Life

She got help to apply for Medicaid. Her son was delivered at Renown on Jan, 20, 2009, just as President Obama was being inaugurated so Stephanie gave him Barack as a middle name.  Becoming a mother also changed her life.

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Stephanie says in her previous life, she partied too much, drank too much and looked for love in the wrong places.

“Before I had my child, I was living a very partying type lifestyle. I worked in casinos where alcohol was available at all times with bartenders who would hook you up."

Climbing Upward

Stephanie stayed six months at the shelter.  A social worker signed her up for food stamps and helped get her own subsidized place in an apartment building she still lives in. She got help with child care and decided to go back to school.

“Everything was realigned. I started from scratch. Because of the shelter I ended up in college. I didn’t want my son to see homelessness ever again or the fear of not having food or shelter. I purposefully chose to do something for him.”  

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"My son is an angel.  He’s here so that I can learn how to love and see someone else grow and not think about myself so much. That’s why I’m thriving right now because of him. I am trying to create a world he’s going to live in, and before I didn’t really care much.”

Child Advocacy

Stephanie has decided her long term goal is to become an advocate for children, especially those in poverty or from abusive households.

“The shelter made me realize what poverty can do to a kid. When you’re in the shelter I would say keep it light if you can for young children. Let them know it’s not forever, it’s not the end, but just part of the adventure. Kids don’t need to know all the facts of what’s going on. They are in a different way of thinking."

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Advice: "I know it’s hard for homeless parents, and it’s ok to cry, it’s ok to be scared. The shelter is a hard place to be but you can explain to your kids that things will change.”

A Difficult Journey

Stephanie’s own childhood and early adulthood were mired in constant difficulties.

“I didn’t come from the best home. I lived in foster care for a while, with three different foster homes. They kicked me out when I was 18.  My childhood was very disruptive. When you have lost trust in adults, it’s especially hard.  I went through that and tried to find love in the wrong places because I was confused.”

She now teaches physical education in the local school system, making $10 an hour, and works summers in activity camps with the City of Reno.

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Stephanie has keys to her own place, her car and her work, but still relies on government help she's very grateful for.

Even though she gets government help and works, she sometimes seeks extra help in charity food lines.

“I’m not embarrassed to say it, but it’s a little humbling, Food prices have gone up. Everything is going up.  Fruit has gone up a lot. Fruit is so sky high it’s easier to buy boxed food and they are wondering why we are having an obesity epidemic. I myself am always fighting my weight. I know it’s easier to buy the things that last. With everything going up, it’s keeping people poor. I get help for my rent. If I didn’t have that, I don’t know if I’d be able to stay in school.”

Help Don't Judge

She doesn’t understand why some people look down on people in our community who beg for money.

“We’re seeing a lot of people out on the streets asking for money. Some of them are doing it because they really need it. Some of them are doing it because we are giving it to them. I say we can’t judge. You never know until you’re in their shoes, what’s going on in that person’s life. I know because I’ve been there. I was homeless. I was scared. I had no one. You can’t judge the homeless. You can’t judge a family with a whole bunch of kids. We need to pay attention to how we can help people and less about judging them.”

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“Whatever the challenges, I feel like I’ve made it.  The homeless shelter showed me what can happen, good or bad."

Stephanie is scheduled to graduate next Spring with a UNR bachelor’s in human development and family studies. She hopes to go to graduate school next.

"Fear still comes into my life once in a while but I don’t let it thrive. I know where I am going, so I strive because of that.”

Bean, Giving Back in Memory and Mourning of Her Homeless Father

There’s a just started crossword puzzle with neat writing.  There’s a book with a page marker in the middle.  There’s a dirty shirt inside a plastic bag.  There’s a fateful bus ticket marked January 27, 2006. 

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Bean holds dear the bags her homeless Dad kept at a shelter, which were sent to her after his killing.

These are items Bean keeps with her to this day in her bedroom in two bags which belonged to her homeless dad. Thomas Leech was killed getting off that bus in the rain in a hit and run car crash when he was 52.

“It always feels like yesterday,” Bean remembers on a sunny day at a bakery in Reno. “When you know your dad is on the streets, you figure you are going to get a call from the cops one day that something horrible happened, and I got that call one day.”

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Bean was her father's only child.  He no longer lived with her though by the time she was one.

Prized Possessions

The shelter he was staying at sent her the two bags. They are still neatly organized as they were when she received them with a towel, an old cap. cutlery, pens, newspapers, foot powder and many other useful items for a man who lived on the streets. 

”I only take his stuff out when I feel like crying. It’s rough,” Bean says. “It’s like a historical moment in time.  These bags have found a home with me. I was his only kid.”

The stay at home mom, who is also a Girl Scout troop leader, keeps everything in her bedroom closet, with picture books she’s made from old photographs sent by relatives, and even her Dad’s ponytail he had once sent to her. “Why would I throw it away?” she asks.

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An avid reader, this was the last unfinished book Bean's father was reading.

Helping the Homeless and Vagrants

In her Dad’s memory, Bean also helps the homeless everywhere she finds them. She says she sees her father in every drifter in a park, in food lines, in a parking lot, along the river, on a sidewalk.

“When I was a teenager I started volunteering because I was trying to find my Dad. I knew he was on the streets and he would go to soup kitchens, so I started volunteering at the Detroit Rescue Mission and I would help with holiday meals and serve there.  I’ve always felt connected to that community because of my Dad.  I would start seeing him in every guy, but I never found him there.  I kind of feel like every guy with a backpack walking around downtown is my Dad. And so I want to help them in any way that I can.”

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This is one of the hygiene kits Bean has assembled to leave behind in a restroom as a surprise gift to someone like her Dad who could use it.

Bean leaves winter hats she makes on tables at the downtown library during cold months.  She donates money and helpful items to the shelters her Dad used to stay in. She started a sock donation drive for the homeless in Reno. She has Girl Scouts leave hygiene kits behind in bathrooms as a surprise gift for whoever might need one.   

A Daughter’s Advice

Does Bean have any advice for anyone who has a homeless relative, or anyone who cares about the homeless?

“Just give more.  It helps you feel better.  It helps you know you are making a difference even if it’s not directly your own family member’s life, it can be in someone else’s life, because we all did start out as someone’s beloved little baby. My Dad was his mom’s favorite.  She loved him to death. When he died, I sent his ashes back to be with his mother’s ashes which an uncle took care of.  She died a year before he did, and he didn’t even know she was dead.  Everybody should smile more, especially to people they meet on the streets. So many people feel invisible.  Eye contact and a smile can really mean a lot. If you don’t have anything else to give, give that.”

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A tattoo in honor of her Dad.  He "was homeless because he wanted life to be as uncomplicated and free from obligation as possible," she was quoted as saying in an article shortly after his death.

Another Car Crash Scarred Her Dad

“When he was a teenager he got in a car accident with his friends and he was dragged on the street and he was in a coma for a while and had to relearn how to walk and talk.  I think because of that brain injury he’d been in a downward spiral all his life.   He was just never the same after that.”

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A picture Bean keeps of her Dad of when he was in the service before being medically discharged.

He enlisted, but got a medical discharge in 1974.  Despite his mental health issues, Bean’s mom thought he was hot. She loved his thick mustache and wavy hair.  But he was out of Bean’s life before she was one.

“I loved him to death and he loved me too. Above all else, I always knew that. I talked to him on my birthday every year when I was a kid.  I saw him once when I was a kid at an aunt’s house. He was pretty cool. He loved the Beatles and Grace Slick. He followed her around the country one summer.”

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Bean treasures the craft books she has made with mementos and pictures of her Dad's past.

Life on the Road

Her Dad moved to Oklahoma in the early 1980s, and then moved to even warmer weather which he liked in Texas, where he would travel between San Antonio and Forth Worth, and work day labor jobs when he could find them.

Father and daughter would call each other from time to time.  She’d get news from people working at the shelter where he stayed. He told her he loved Thanksgiving and Christmas. “He loved feasting, who doesn’t?”

A picture Bean keeps on her phone is from the last time she was with her Dad.

A Visit Cut Short

When she was 18 or 19 and living in Tahoe in the late 1990s, she can’t remember the year exactly, her Dad came to visit, but his stay was cut short.

“His brother gave him money for a Greyhound bus ticket out here, and he stayed for a few weeks. We got along well but he didn’t like it that it was cold. And then he got arrested for vagrancy in Reno and he was given a bus ticket back to Texas by a sheriff bus ticket program and so he went back to Texas.  It was part of his release that they gave him a bus ticket out of town.”

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Some of the items her Dad always had with him: tobacco, foot powder, caps and newspapers he loved to read.

It was the last time she would see him.

“He called me back in Texas. He was embarrassed.  He didn’t want me to take care of him. I think he was happy I had a good life and he got to see it. And then it was back to the same old, same old. He didn’t want to live in my house and mooch off me.”

After his death in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2006, a reporter did an investigation and was able to interview Bean and other relatives.  The article led to the driver coming forward and eventually serving time.  He died of cancer five years after getting out.

Discrimination

Bean first got in contact with Our Town Reno angered by an anti-homeless discriminatory sign outside a McDonald’s on Keystone Ave.

 "It’s obvious discrimination. I know if I went there as a middle aged white mom with two plastic bags that I wouldn’t get kicked out of that McDonald’s. I wouldn’t because I don’t look like I’m homeless.  But my Dad was.  Sometimes I take guys to that McDonald’s and I’ve gone in there and bought guys lunch.  They don’t get kicked out when they are with me, but otherwise they would. A guy I met a couple of months ago was really nervous going in.  That’s just not right. The discrimination is deep.”

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“Why do we judge people because they’re broke? It made me really mad," Bean says

Improving the Plight of Homeless in Reno

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"Showers would be cool or if places which had showers would give out tickets for specific times.” 

Does Bean have any overall advice for Reno/Sparks politicians to improve the plight of the homeless here?

“I would say let people sleep in parks. I don’t see what the problem is with letting people sleep in public parks.  Don’t our property taxes pay for their maintenance? I wish that park bathrooms were open 24 hours.  I wish that there was access to clean water for 24 hours, a pump, a spigot or something to fill up water jugs. " 

Is there anything that hasn’t been done here which also seems doable now to help the homeless?

“We should have some kind of boarding house.  You could even just pay one dollar for one night and get a decent breakfast. I would love to open one of those, but I don’t have the money, which is always a barrier for every good project. A hostel with a shared kitchen wouldn’t that be great? We don’t have any kind of hostels here, or a public campground, that’s cheap, with running water, a bathroom and a pay shower. How easy would that be?  There are so many empty gravel lots you could build on.  You could have a tiny house village, rather than having piles of gravel. There are several big abandoned motel lots which are also near all the services for the homeless which could be used for that.”

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The unfinished crossword puzzle with the neat handwriting went back in her Dad's old bags, as we finished the interview.

Bean then puts all the pictures away, zips up the two bags, and holds them close to her heart, her eyes moist, before lugging everything of her Dad’s she holds so dear back to her home. 

Niesha, Guerrilla Gardening and Activist Camping Along the River

While glowing media reports about police outreach were quickly followed by citations to homeless living along the Truckee River in Sparks, activists with the local Food Not Bombs chapter decided to increase their presence there.

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Niesha Jones (center) goes up and down the path along the Truckee River with other activists to help the homeless living there.

This past Monday, in addition to holding their weekly evening food and water distribution at Fisherman’s Park, activists also pitched a tent within other tents further along the river path to have a permanent, around the clock place for monitoring and support teams. 

Setting up the Tent: Niesha and other activists found a flat spot with enough shadow where they could have an on the ground base of operations to help others.

The activists also started guerrilla gardening cucumbers and tomato vines.

Our Town Reno interviewed Niesha, who also works in Reno with Resource Action Programs, building kits to teach children how to save energy and water.

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The activists with Food Not Bombs try to establish pesticide free, public gardens wherever they can.

What was your reaction to last week’s positive media reports about police outreach within the encampments?

The media portrays the police as trustworthy so of course no one is going to question it.  Second, the police are trying to be looked at in a better light because of everything that’s happening in America right now. Anytime they have a good story they put it out there.

Niesha (r) takes part in healthy food distribution for the homeless at Fisherman's Park every Monday evening.

How do you think most people view the homeless among us?

Everywhere in America right now people are thinking of homeless people not as people but just as a thing, a homeless, not what their name is.  When they do see the homeless they usually don’t know how much they are in need. They don’t bother to find out. Most of Reno doesn’t know about the situation here.

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The activist camp is set up with a cardboard message for police. Photo provided by Food Not Bombs.

Why is it important to help the homeless?

We all have our time when we are down and out. We all need help, whether we want to ask for it or not. Homeless people need that same help. Even just talking to them. If you don’t have time to come join us on Monday evenings, you can still come here and pass out your own water bottles and sandwiches.

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More plants for the homeless, who said they appreciated the help and healthy food.

Photos and Interview by Our Town Reno, July 2016, along the Truckee River in Sparks

City Council OKs Motel Demolition Despite Vocal Opposition

Inside Reno City Council Chambers, July 6, 2016

The mayor's 'favorite artist' Rich VanGogh was disappointed by Hillary Schieve and the three other council members who were present on July 6, 2016, after they approved city funds to demolish two downtown Virginia street motels.  The properties the motels now occupy will remain in the ownership of the mysterious group called the Northern Nevada Urban Development company. 

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In the rear view mirror: Despite opposition from vocal activists that Reno was putting profits over people, City Council approved the use of blight funds to demolish these two motels on Virginia Street, even though they will remain in the property of a group of developers who have refused recent offers to sell their downtown lots. The Mayor said the demolition would give the city more leverage on the razed areas, as developers would eventually need to pay back the demolition cost.

The demolition approval, which took just seconds after more than 90 minutes of public comment, gave those against, including VanGogh, a heightened sense of loss and misguided priorities.

"They're going to use $230-thousand dollars. I am still totally opposed to it.  I would much rather see that money go to ending blight in another way, not by tearing something down but by fixing something up."

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VanGogh, who unsuccessfully ran for the Ward 1 council seat in the most recent primary, brought some of his views to City Council on July 6, 2016

VanGogh gave the example of the Art Deco historic district in Miami as an example to think about, with its saved 1920s, 30s and 40s structures .

"I know we can't compare these two things but if you look at all the mom and pop hotels on 4th street and you rehab them all as a set, that's a weird funky kind of architecture that we're known for, that's part of our shtick so I think they should fix them up and put that money to some other use," he said.

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City Council members were shown photos of the motel structures they decided to demolish as part of a "fight on blight" and remaking downtown.

Councilman Oscar Delgado used the word "slumlords" to describe the developers, who are usually only identified as a group of 62 investors who bought several downtown properties and lots pre-recession. Real estate developer Ken Krater called them "mom and pop investors". Delgado said he would have saved other motels, but that these were on Virginia Street, which he called the main corridor essential to Reno.

Media reports usually indicate the group had plans to build a large mixed-use development, but it never happened. Their website has contact information and a tagline that reads "The Reno Renaissance".

Before the vote, activists spoke about keeping all opportunities for affordable housing intact and not helping developers with city money. Representatives of business interests and city staff spoke in favor of the demolition.

Fuzz, Looking Out for Homeless Friends and Wary of Police

Along the Truckee River near the Sparks/Reno Line, July 4, 2016

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Kenneth Norton, better known as Fuzz, says homeless here just want to be left alone, but that they face constant police harassment. July 4, 2016

Visiting Friends on Independence Day

It’s July 4th, 2016, and Kenneth Norton, better known as “Fuzz”, is visiting homeless friends living in tents and sleeping bags along the Truckee River bank opposite the Grand Sierra Resort, making sure everyone is ok on Independence Day. For these area residents permanently living in the outdoors, though, the long weekend did not get off to a good start.

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One day after positive media reports came out about police, homeless residents here say they were issued citations for illegal camping. July 4, 2016

Calling Police 'Help' Into Question

Last Friday, one day after media in Reno released glowing reports about Sparks and Reno police doing outreach here coinciding with the opening of a new overflow shelter, he says many received citations for illegal camping.  Most, he says, ripped up the citations, even though they are due to appear in court later this month.

“They started ticketing us for being out here, for being around the river, for camping, for being homeless. They are telling us to move on out of town.”

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As homeless camping areas have increasingly been fenced off or disbanded in Reno, many tents are now on the Sparks side of the Truckee river bank. July 4, 2016

Staying Away from Shelters, But Having to Deal with Police

Norton, like most others here, doesn’t want to stay in a shelter, where pets, like the two dogs he has as companions, aren’t allowed. He also say the shelters are dirty with lots of stealing going on.

Despite the recent media reports, Norton says police haven’t been friendly at all.

“They’ve been harassing us really early in the morning, often before five in the morning, honking their horns.  They don’t come out to check if we are ok.  They just want us to leave.”

Norton has been living here over a year, and he says there have been several unpleasant interactions with police.

“If we don’t fit in their society and their standards, we’re nothing to them, we’re just considered pests. Last year, two police officers started ripping up tents one morning, until someone said something and we asked for their sergeant’s badge number.  They didn’t give it to us. They just left.”

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Many homeless here say they rip up the citations they receive.  They say they keep the area clean, and want to be left alone. July 4, 2016

Out of Prison, Into the Wild

Norton says he makes some money recycling cans, but since being released from a more than six-year prison stint in 2006, and losing access to his children, this is the lifestyle he prefers.  Several times a month, he will pool resources with other friends here to get a motel room, take showers and clean up before returning to the river's bank.

In addition to police, Norton says there’s also a “homeless vigilante” from the nearby trailer park, who once shot his brother, wounding him seriously, and who keeps waking people up with a gun in their face telling them to get off the river.

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Fuzz returns to his own spot along the river after checking up on his friends. July 4, 2016

Feeling Scorn

Fuzz also feels scorn from people who aren’t homeless walking down the river path.

“People from the quote unquote normal society, they’ve got jobs, they ride their bikes up and down the path. Everybody’s polite to them, but it seems they just don’t like the sight of us.”

What’s his message to police and local politicians?

“Leave us alone out here. We’re not doing anything wrong.  Sometimes there’s a fight. Someone will get drunk and fight.  But we’re not killing each other out here.”

What about a message for regular citizens on this 4th of July?

“Say hi instead of ‘oh gosh’ or say ‘how are you doing today?’ That’s about it. We’re misfits but we’re not bad people. Some of us bite but not all of us.”

Interview and pictures for Our Town Reno, July 4, 2016

Chad Galloway, A Painter in a Motel Room

During the recent Nada Dada, a yearly Reno tradition when local artists rent out motel rooms to display their art from there,  painter Chad Galloway was in familiar surroundings: a cramped room of the Town House Motor Lodge on W. 2nd street where he’s been living for the past five years.

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Chad poses in front of a work in progress painting possibly called “My Shadow”. “My paintings just come out and end up looking like they do," he said during a recent visit.  This photo was taken during Nada Dada 2016.

A Nadaist

For Chad, it makes sense to be a “Nadaist”, even if some years bring more visitors and more sales than others.

“It’s a pretty good idea,” Chad said on a recent morning from inside his motel room, shades drawn, his paintings intricately filling up entire walls. “It’s real good for those of us who aren’t in gallery spaces to show what we can do.”

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A detail of his motel room, where Chad's been living for about five years.

A Broken Car

Chad, an Indianapolis native, was driving through Reno in 2007 when his car broke down. He’s been living in the Biggest Little City ever since, and never got another car.  He walks to work -- a nearby maintenance engineering job on the graveyard shift, to do his laundry, and up to a mile to go grocery shopping. “It’s good for my health to walk around,” he says.

After deciding to stay in Reno, Chad became an avid photographer taking city shots, before turning to painting two summers ago. “I was going to art galleries, and I saw a lot of other people’s stuff and I was like I can do that.”

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His first painting on cardboard was based on an inside joke.

A Self-Taught Painter

His first painting was on cardboard. He watched YouTube tutorials to get tips. “It’s cheaper than going to classes,” he says.

Working with acrylics, oil, spray paint and enamel, he says “it’s fun creatively. I’m just getting started. It’s also a good stress reliever. It relaxes me”

He especially likes to paint mornings after his shift is over, or late at night and into early morning hours when he’s off. To get in the painting groove, he puts on his headphones and listens to “anything but hip-hop. I block out the world,” he says.

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The church across the street should be safe if big development comes, but not the motel where Chad lives.

An Uncertain Living Space

Chad's current living arrangement may soon come crashing down though.

If plans to rebuild the entire West Second Street District were to go ahead, Chad says the motel he’s living in could be the first structure to be demolished.

“This would be where it starts at. They can’t tear down the El Cortez (across the way) and they can’t tear down the church (across the street) because those are both historical. It would be starting from this way out.  The Greyhound bus station right by would also go.”

Chad says he understands all cities need to grow, but he still has some concerns.

“Some of the abandoned motels need to go.  But for the ones still operating it’s going to be hard on the people living there, like the elderly, and your fixed-income people and your druggies.”

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Cleaning day at the Motor Lodge. Photo taken in June 2016.

Not an Empty Space

Chad doesn’t like the term ‘empty space’ which is sometimes used to describe his neighborhood.

“It’s not empty space,” he says.  “There are people living here, and you’ve got small businesses. I just don’t like that term.”

He knows there are problems though. One Nada Dada artist who stayed at the Motor Lodge for the first time in June complained of waking up with his arm full of bites.

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Cheap, convenient and easy to access are some of the reasons many motel rooms fill up in Reno, and serve as housing for Reno's low-income population.

Police and Crazies

“There’s problems here,” Chad says.  “If we don’t see the police, it’s not an ordinary day. Police are here a lot.  We have a lot of crazies here.”

Chad says most people stay here because it’s fairly affordable and convenient.  He says most long term residents pay between $500 and $600 a month.  He prefers to pay his sum on a weekly basis, because "if you get kicked out, they don't pay you back for your month."

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A detail of some of the paintings covering up Chad's motel room. He says he wouldn't mind becoming a full-time painter if he could sell more of his work.

'Flinging Paint'

Chad says he may ride it out though, and stay in his motel room until he’s forced to go.  He says he also plans to keep “on flinging paint.  It gives me something to do, and keeps me out of trouble.” But he says he needs to sell more of his paintings or else he might run out of space to put them up in his motel room.

You can follow or contact Chad Galloway here https://www.facebook.com/chad.galloway.9

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Interviews and Photos for Our Town Reno, June 2016.

Aria Overli, an Anthropologist Working for a Better 'University Town'

Reno, in the Displacement Block, June 2016

The dilapidated homes are boarded up haphazardly, sidewalks are cracked more than ever, residents are nowhere in sight — but UNR student, “public anthropologist” and activist Aria Overli remains upbeat and clear-minded. She has come along for a few pictures a few days before the landlord's June 30th deadline of turning this entire downtown block into a demolition zone to give way for high end student housing.

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Aria Overli is a UNR student who has concerns about how the university and its elected student leaders claim the mantle of speaking on behalf of the entire student body.

Before we leave, mumbling workers spit words in our direction.  An agitated woman follows us in her car photographing us.

Many Questions In Search of Better Answers

How did this overall situation come to be? How could Reno be a better university town?  What is public anthropology?  What was the reaction to Aria's recent Reno Gazette-Journal op-ed titled: “City Council Should Have Prioritized Residents Over Sidewalks”?  (Not much actually). Where does Aria's courage to speak out come from?  Our Town Reno wanted to find out.

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Why do sidewalks usually only get fixed when wealthier individuals come into a long overlooked area?

Rattling Business as Usual in Reno and UNR

Aria, a fast-talking, full of ideas native of Carson City, with a Bachelor’s from UCLA, says she got angry when the Iraq War started back when she was a teenager. She hasn’t looked back since on being a progressive.  Aria became involved in the homeless issue in Reno when a group got kicked out from under the Wells Avenue bridge last year.

She also gets angry when elected student leaders and university officials say they speak on behalf of the entire student body. She says Reno and UNR don’t have much of an organizing culture but she wants to help change that and throttle the powers that be to put pressure so there can be more affordable housing and wider access to education.

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Homes where ex-convicts and participants in rehab programs could easily get cheap rooms for rent in a convenient downtown area are now all boarded up.

Here are excerpts of a recent Q and A from the safer confines of the off-campus Bibo coffee shop.

What is a public anthropologist?

It’s about going out into the community and effecting change.  It’s not just publishing in journals and hoping ideas trickle down to the masses.  It’s about trying to be a positive force and providing solutions. (Aria is currently in UNR’s cultural anthropology master’s program). We take people’s words and people’s lives and we try to contextualize these realities within larger systems such as neo-liberalism or capitalism.  I work side by side with research participants.  They serve as co-authors.

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Just walking around and taking pictures from the sidewalk, we were made to feel unwelcome by people working on boarding up homes on the displacement block.

The current displacement on the downtown block has been presented as one part of expanding Reno into a so-called “university town”.  What are your current thoughts about this situation?

I don’t oppose the idea of a university town but I see community development as being most productive when all people are included, rather than trying to force people out.  This is also a student welfare issue because with rising prices of rent, with a lack of access to high paying jobs, with high amounts of student debt, many students who are graduating are going to be pushed out of living in Reno because they just can’t afford it.

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Low-income students were among those living on this soon to be demolished block, where few belongings remain.

How can we make it a better university town then?

I think it’s expanding the idea of education to the community as a whole. We say that education is the key and it is, but when so many people are pushed out of education, then it’s only a key to maintaining the system that exists for the most wealthy and for the most privileged at the moment.  When you have a university town, I think it should mean providing university to everyone, regardless of your income, and not just pushing it out so only people who currently have access continue to have access to it, and don’t have to see the people who don’t have access to it, which is basically the tack they are taking now.  There should be programs and resources available to the entire community if we are going to make it a university town.

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No longer wanted here: Residents on the block are being moved, so the old homes can be demolished and the block can be sold to an out of state developer to build high-end student housing.

How crucial is the issue of affordable housing, including for UNR students?

Students have just as much trouble finding affordable housing. They’ve largely been ignored too.  They say this new housing on this block we are talking about will be for students, but at $800 a unit a month, that’s not feasible for most students.   The graduate student housing on campus is $1,000 a month usually and so most graduate students can’t afford that when we are being paid $700 a month to teach classes.  We need affordable housing downtown.  

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Time to pack up: City council members have said they are leading a fight on blight, and making Reno into a university town, but some activists worry there is collateral damage, including displacement, and making life more difficult for lower income individuals.

What about Reno’s fight on blight?

The city of Reno never saw improving this neighborhood, these sidewalks, these roads as necessary or important for the disabled, the elderly, the low-income students now living here and walking to school until all of a sudden the idea that wealthy students were going to be living here and then all of a sudden it became a priority for them.

We’re concerned with the idea the city only became interested in improving areas when there are going to be wealthy individuals living there and not caring for the communities that need the support.  We’re not opposed to the idea of improving communities.  We need to be doing this equitably and for all communities and not just for ones we see as bringing in the most wealth into the community.

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The sidewalk and everything in it will also soon be gone, as this part of Reno gets glitzier.  But will it lose some of its biggest little city quaint character?

Is it difficult to be an effective activist in Reno?

Reno is so used to not be challenged on things. There is a lack of an organizing culture here.  If we can bring things to the table, people can be thrown off.  If we show up at a council meeting, if we can keep this momentum, we can push things at least in a better direction than they’re going.

Interview and pictures for Our Town Reno in June 2016.