Lola Mana Yarrow, An Artist Entrepreneur With a Giant Heart for Reno

A New Phase in Reno

Yarrow, 24, is just starting to establish herself at Reno Art Works, and she is full of questions, energy, enthusiasm and wonder, traits she puts to both cosmic and worldly uses in her art and advocacy for a better Reno.

"Reno, you know, there's a lot of heat here. People are pretty fiery, but also there's this element of actually getting things done," she said. "When I'm here, I'm here and people are like, well it's so weird that you moved back and like, yeah, I moved back, like I came home, I came back to myself, I came back to my work with fresh eyes."

She used to base herself at the Generator and went to Burning Man twice, but that was before her three-year detour in Seattle, making her ready for new beginnings in her hometown.

"I'm fourth generation here ... and so sometimes it's a little bit unnerving to not have my own identity.  So Seattle was my way of creating my own identity but I was also having a little bit of trouble just really establishing myself in Seattle. It was really fun, but the gentrification there is even worse.  My house got sold from right underneath me. I had a month to move out."

A screengrab from the Electric Moon Boutique Instagram Yarrow runs. "I haven't even started my Etsy," she said. "My friend is doing all of my product photography, so I'm in the midst of really establishing myself as a business and mostly I've just been selling stuff through pop up events."

The Electric Moon Boutique Adventure

Having cycled through a few other names for this current venture, she has no problems though explaining her deep rooted vision.

"I've been doing this my entire life which is refurbishing old clothing and making it new and fresh and this ability to just be authentic and creative, just to be ourselves in the world," she said. 

Both her boutique though and her work as a nanny could be preludes to otherworldly artistic pursuits. "What I'm really hoping to do by establishing my business is also to be able to support and facilitate some of my other pretty, wacky creative art, because I kind of have some crazy stuff and sometimes I just display it," she said.

She says she is going for "non-gendered, playful, sweet, poppy, light and colorful pink, blue and yellow" aesthetics to balance her deeply intense darker sides.  She has been working with friends, but wants to involve more people in her project.

"The way we express ourselves is like an artistic expression and I definitely have people that I have on my radar for that. But really bringing it together is going to take some time because I still need to let myself establish myself." 

"This is something that I found, a seventies little headpiece that I found for $5 and I put these pieces on it and this chain. This is what I do. I take things that people kind of throw aside and they're like, 'oh, that's whatever.' And then I turn it into something that's like wearable art. I think someone could probably wear this to Burning Man. I'm not really a burner brand, but I do make some eccentric stuff. I feel like it would be really good for Burning Man," she said of a recent piece she was going to display at Reno Art Works.

Apprehension for Reno

"I don't think people in Reno are prepared for what we're about to go through," she says of the affordable housing crisis, gentrification and the current boom which is putting a strain on services and public spaces.

She would like to see more of a communal response to pressing issues such as creating better public transportation, as well as improving education and helping those with mental health issues.

"I'd love to see some creative projects with the university and really utilizing that young creative talent because a lot of these older people are pretty set in their ways. I don't think it just comes down to building homeless shelters," she said. 

"I love all of the people that I've met here and feel super supported here," Yarrow says of Reno Art Works.  "I want to do my art, but I also don't want to be like this lone wolf. I want to have my space, but I also just really, really believe in community.  It feels like a safe haven in Reno when there's so much upheaval and stuff."

Ideas from Seattle

Better pay is one idea she believes Reno could try to follow other cities such as Seattle, where officials voted to incrementally boost the minimum wage up to $15 an hour.

"I can't even believe that people are still paying $10 an hour. No one can afford to live off of $10 an hour in this city. It's crazy to me. I'm not saying that there's one solution, but it's insulting to be paid $10 an hour in this day and age. $10 doesn't even get you a meal anymore," she said.

She also believes there should be more corporate accountability for companies establishing themselves in Reno.  "It's really important to establish boundaries and Reno is not good at that," she said.  

"People, businesses want to move here. They could move elsewhere but they want to move here. I think that the city and our government really needs to take a step back and ask how these companies are actually contributing. Like Tesla has a ton of money. I would love to see them create public transportation in some way for their employees. In Seattle there were van pools. And Amazon bought all these vans to pick people up in different parts of the city. Things like that make a huge difference. So I'd love to see companies really take accountability for what they're doing to our city," she said.

"I think that everything comes with kind of a shadow and a light," Yarrow says of recent changes in Reno. "And so there's always gonna be some benefits and there's always gonna be some setbacks."

Being an Authentic Leader on the Homefront

Yarrow comes from a long line of Reno entrepreneurs, and she says she is now ready to pick up the mantle in her own way. 

"I think being really authentic is my value," she said.  "And by being authentic, it's sharing what's not okay with me and what I'm really excited about and that these can coexist," she says of her role in Reno's current upheaval.

She often interacts with others through social media, and engages in constructive discussions to find solutions, to understand all sides, such as with the current destruction of motels.

"My mother is an architect and so I told her, 'I think that it would be really great to turn these motels and to protect them.' She said, 'well, you know, those places are run down and they're not worth saving and they just need to be torn down.' And so she, she has a point, right? There's never a one sided issue. But really understanding the other person and seeing their perspective and saying, 'okay, but this is an issue for everybody and how do we address it? Yes, maybe people can't afford to live in these places that are like $1,600, $2,000 in Midtown, but these cheap places that are being built are not sustainable either. You're being ripped off, everyone's being ripped off because it's just happening so quickly."

Original Our Town Reno Interview and Photography, Summer of 2018

Cheryl and Terry, a Resilient Love and Life by the Truckee River

A Riverside Community

Terry, 45, remembers well when he recently "graduated" from the local Ridge House recovery program for those struggling with addiction.  He quickly found himself sleeping in a stairwell in downtown Reno.  It was people living in informal encampments along the Truckee River he says who gave him what he needed in terms of communal support and living arrangements.

"They helped me set up a tent and helped get me going again. Nobody goes hungry there," he said at a recent meeting set up by a friend who has been checking in on them regularly since the police operation.  "If we see someone's hungry, we'll share food or make sure we find food they can have."

After recently being uprooted from his most recent riverside sleeping spot in a cleanup operation led by Sparks PD, his possessions either thrown in a big dumpster or inventoried and taken away, it's others along the river who once again stepped up and gave him and Cheryl a new tent and tarps to set up their new sleeping spot. 

He says the police said he should go to the shelter, but he couldn't envision being separated from Cheryl and their dog Bubba. Still it was traumatic. "We had all our blankets, our ice chest, full of food and dog food ... my tools I had saved up for to be able to do mechanic work .... We had been there a year," he said.  

A baby bird Terry says was caught up and died as part of the police cleanup. Photo provided by Terry and Cheryl. 

Protecting Animals along the River

Terry says he tries to be a force for good along the river, including saving animals during and after the cleanup.

"There was a skunk, he had his head stuck in a yogurt cup and he was on the main part of the drag. They also uprooted a lot of animals. We called the Humane Society and they were taking too long where I thought it was going to die, so I grabbed it and removed the cup from it so it would survive. You know the skunk sprayed me, but that's ok." 

He says a cat and a hawk died as areas were bulldozed. "It wasn't just the homes of the homeless they destroyed, there were bluejays too." 

"I can understand it from both sides," Terry said of the recent cleanup.  "I see what they are trying to do. We're a mess, but if we're there and these people are stuck in these kinds of situations why not say 'you need to be out of sight for other people,' but you got people living in the community who also leave their mess and trash along the river and stuff, and it's not all from us. We try to pick up after each other and encourage each other to do the right thing and say 'hey, you can't do that.' The police they need to be fighting the real crime that's happening." Photo shared with Our Town Reno by Cheryl and Terry.

Uprooted but Not Gone

Cheryl suffers from recurring seizures and first ended up sleeping under a bridge after being kicked out of an apartment with an ex-boyfriend for making too much noise. 

She says despite the warnings and the clean up operation, and talk of anti-camping ordinances, those living along the river are still there.

"None of them really left the river. They just relocated to a different area of the river. It's just a matter of where. A lot of them just went back to the Reno side. I'm not going to lie about that either. So now it's Reno's problem. They're talking about anti-camping ordinances but a lot say it's ridiculous. You guys can consider it camping, but it's not camping for us, it's living. That's how we survive. Most of us aren't making a mess or causing trouble. We're just trying to get by and live our lives."

Cheryl and Terry say they've noticed more and more people actually coming to live along the river, not fewer, despite the occasional police operations.  They say it's often new people adjusting to a new situation of homelessness who are angry and depressed who make everyone along the river look bad.

"There's messy people and we try to regulate that stuff we really do," Cheryl said. "I've walked down the river path many times and picked up garbage. I've yelled at people who do drugs along the river, or who drop a bag or a needle or something, and I'll scream and holler at them because it's disgusting. You just don't do that. But it's also people who just come to the river on the weekends who also leave trash everywhere," she said. 

Cheryl is trying to get Bubba certified as a service dog.  She says she couldn't fathom sleeping without her dog and Terry as would be required if she went to a shelter.  "They keep me more focussed. They keep me grounded," she said.  

Looking out for Each Other

Both say they were derailed in their lives previously by bad relationships and also "bad choices." Now that they've found each other, they don't want go to shelters and be separated.

They barely get by, with Terry sometimes finding jobs helping people move or clean out lots for businesses. A former musician and certified mechanic with a bachelor's in engineering, he's also worked helping with events at the GSR, and says he's available for any honest job. Cheryl uses pot to deal with her seizures, but the recent stress and heat are worrying her. She says he helped her deal with not "totally losing it" during the police cleanup, and making it worse.

"He's kind of my good angel on my shoulder...." she said. "He's the only person I listen to in the world. I don't know why but I do. With him around, I also can't do something stupid, because he needs me too."

Reporting by Our Town Reno in July 2018

Kenneth Dalton, Preserving the History of Minorities in Northern Nevada

A Mission to Share History

Dalton's mission with Our Story, Inc., is to seek out, collect, preserve and exhibit the contributions, heritage, culture, and accomplishments of people who have not been well represented in Northern Nevada’s public image. Artifacts and memorabilia in his possession include those of boxing legend, Jack Johnson, and activist Bertha S. Woodard, who petitioned the Reno City Council in 1959 to lift a ban on minorities in local casinos.

A Tacoma, Washington native and former firefighter in Reno, Dalton has been living in the Biggest Little City since the mid 1980s, where he's also coached football and track.  He sat down with Our Town Reno reporter Prince Nesta and Emily Hodge for a recent interview.

A map created by Our Story, Inc., outlines some of the black experience in Northern Nevada history. 

Q: When did you start preserving the history of minorities in Northern Nevada?

Dalton: When I came to Reno in 1985, I was one of the six first African-American firefighters in all of Northern Nevada. I was like, 'that’s ridiculous.' In my quest to find out more about that history, I started seeing some other things that happened in Reno like, the fight of the century. I could ask ten people if they had heard about the fight of the century, when Jack Johnson came to fight in town and helped put Reno on the map and they all said they had never heard about that. Most of them only knew about Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King. So, I thought it was important to remind people that we have people right here that have made a difference not only in our lives but in other people’s lives in the country. Like my good friend and board member, Andre Berry, one of the first black generals or the first black general for the state of Nevada. He lives right here and most people don’t even know that, but are always quick to question where I heard that from. I’m like, you can go down to the library and find out.

Q: What are some of the important artifacts that you have preserved in your organization?

Dalton: Some of the artifacts that we’ve preserved is how we stay true to people like Paula Williams, an African American architect, who largely based his practice in Los Angeles, but designed structures in Northern Nevada including; the Lear Theater, the Garvey House, the Rafael Hermon House, the Loomis Apartments and El Reno Housing Project. Bertha Woodard, one of the founding civil rights activist in this community and also known to have petitioned the Reno City Council in 1959 to lift a ban on minorities in local casinos, personally left me her memorabilia to preserve. We’ve also kept the personal history of Jim Beckwourth, an African American who was very important to this community by playing a major role in the early exploration and settlement of the American West. We went up there and took pictures of the trading post that he built. It’s about 40 miles north from here, out through Hallelujah Junction. We have also preserved the history of Ben Palmer. He was one of the first black ranchers in the Carson Valley. In fact, one of the first ranchers, period. Let’s take the black off of it. If you go to Carson City and pull up all the people that were paying contribution and taxes at that time you’ll confirm what I’m telling you.

Dalton holds the framed certificate issued in May 16, 1981 by the University of Nevada, Reno and approved by the Board of Regents recognizing civil rights activist Bertha S. Woodard as a distinguished Nevadan. This is just one of her plaques and awards that is in Dalton's possession. 

Q: Who finances the organization?

Dalton: I finance this project. I also have friends who donate money. That’s it. We don’t get grants. Nothing. It gets a little expensive but I think it’s important. When we get some funding, we also have to be careful because when you get a certain amount of funding people expect certain things, you know.

Q: Apart from funding, what are some of the other challenges that you face as an organization?

Dalton: Some community members don’t value history. They say 'That’s old stuff, that don’t mean nothing.' I also don’t have enough people on board and it takes a lot of work to research, and money. Also, I’m not a historian as such. I don’t have a degree in history. So a lot of times, better historians say, 'Well you know, you don’t have the qualifications.' Yes, I don’t have a degree but I do have a historian on my board who has a PhD in research work. So I’m attached to people that do research. What I’m doing right now is just to tell you and then maybe that will inspire you and then maybe you’ll go find out a little bit more of what you heard.

“I’m also looking for somebody else to get the passion that I have because this is important and we need to keep this organization going. Hopefully you’re interviewing me and you get inspired enough to get involved and maybe you’ll be the one to take it over and take it to the next level. If I stop doing it who’s going to do it? Who do we have out there? I don’t know." Dalton asked for help during his interview with Prince Nesta.

Q: So, if I have a historical artifact or information, what process do I need to follow?

Dalton: Well, send us an e-mail or contact us. Hopefully you’ll have some kind of references or something that we can check and then we follow up on whatever the information is. We’re not going to put it out there in the world of fake news until we follow up and counter-check its authenticity by going through records in the library, public records, newspapers and whatever we have access to.

Q: What if you still can’t find the information?

Dalton: We always wait until we come up with a more substantiated piece of information. If somebody else has more information they can always feel free to send it to us so that we can follow it up. I mean that’s about the only thing we can do.

Q: What are some of the most exciting moments that you’ve shared as an organization?

Dalton: Two years ago, we celebrated our 20-year anniversary. It was a big moment considering where we’ve come from. When we also find and hear about new stories, that’s always a big moment for us. I’m like, 'oh man isn’t that cool when people talk about what we’ve been talking about?' For instance, when people talk about Jim Beckwourth’s trail going through Reno into California, Ben Palmer’s bar, which is still standing, and we always go down there just to make sure it’s still standing and repaint it, same with this church, Bethel AME Church, which is the oldest black church in the state of Nevada and is still standing. I’m always like, 'that’s so exciting.'

A screengrab from the front page of the Our Story, Inc. website.

Q: Where do you see your organization 10 years from now?

Dalton: That’s probably one of your best questions that you’ve asked all day. I hope to see it still functioning. I hope to see it expanded and keeping up with the times. Particularly how we disseminate information. We want to be at the forefront in the African-American experience in Northern Nevada. A dependable site for the history of minorities. Since 1996, we haven’t also had a physical location. We keep most of our artifacts at home and some at the Nevada Historical Society. It would be nice to find someone to finance or donate a physical building where we can keep all the artifacts and memorabilia. I mean, you know, it’s pretty expensive right now to get to a place or to be able to pay somebody to be a curator and all of that. I wish that we could have that in 10 years.

Q: How can people find your organization?

Dalton: Through our website, ourstoryinc.com. You can go through our site and if you see some information on the website and you think that you know something, send it to us so that we can adjust what our information is. People should also feel free to write and send us any new information as long as we can verify its legitimacy. We can also give them their own area on the site to talk about history. I mean that’s what it’s about, the history of the Northern Nevada community.

Q: How would you like to be remembered?

Dalton: I’d like to be remembered as a person that was passionate, fair and treated people the way he wanted to be treated. That’s pretty much me.

Interview, Photos and Reporting by Prince Nesta and Emily Hodge

Greg, Out of the Workforce and on the Streets with Multiple Health Problems

Feeling Bad about Being Homeless

"I'm not feeling too good my knees are bad and my ankles are bad and I constantly have to go and get them checked because I don't know what’s wrong with them. They are swelling up and I can't stand too long and that really hurts," Greg said when we met him.

He tries to help others who need help on the streets and gets some help for food from local aid programs and relatives, including two younger brothers and cousins, but he says he's just in a deep hole right now.  He has a secret spot in downtown Reno where he usually tries to sleep, as best he can.

He says he doesn't like staying at shelters. "I don't like it there," he said. "Not the way they have it right now. I'd rather stay out on the streets so that I could have a better way of protecting myself."

But he says being out on the streets is also very challenging. "I don't like when you go to sleep, you know, you're looking at a place and then when you finally go to sleep and you wake up and sometimes you don't realize where you are. You are homeless. You just pack up and it's another homeless day," he said.

Greg says he has a lot of ankle problems. "I'm trying to get a date for them to do I think it's an MRI on my ankles to see what's wrong with them," he said. "That's what I'm trying to fix because it's making me overwork my knees and grinding, and it's just giving me incredible pain and I'm trying not to go to the opioids." Photo by Prince Nesta for Our Town Reno.

Ideas for a More Caring, Accessible Reno

Greg says he doesn't like the direction things are going in Reno for people suffering. 

"They've knocked down most of the motels that we could afford," he said. "So, you’re starting to see more and more homeless people and that's bad.  It's just, you know, they're knocking those down to make money and those guys (at City Council) are saying 'hey you know we got a homeless problem now.' But you're making it kind of like a little worse than it is. Reno's got to step up and either help or quit knocking them down."

He would like to see more affordable housing options, and also more jobs accessible to those with disabilities. 

"I just have my phone that doesn't work, a blanket and a jacket," he said. Photo by Prince Nesta for Our Town Reno

Dreams and Regrets

"I'm hoping to get better so I can go back to work and do what I'm supposed to be doing you know supporting myself for retirement and you know get everything ready," he said. 

He regrets not going further in school. "When I was younger, I regret not graduating from school, you know I sort of went back and tried harder. I got my GED. But you know that was one of my regrets, not getting a high school education or college. The other ones were just like little regrets where you know you make the wrong decision this way and then you have to go that way."

He also has a son who he thinks lives in Las Vegas who he misses terribly and hasn't seen in 20 years. 

"I hope that he's making it. I'm hoping he found a wife, had a family and had a good job you know supporting them. If he can come back and contact me that would be nice. I want to make sure that you know he's doing okay."

Reporting by Prince Nesta for Our Town Reno

Tyrone, Making Sure His Wife is OK on the Streets

In Between Housing

Tyrone said he had recently lost his apartment in a fire, but that he was trying to get transitional housing through a Northern Nevada Hopes program.

"We had to move out and I lost everything except my wife," he said of the fire. "That's all I care about though, everything else can be replaced."

He used to get job in warehouses with temp agencies, he said, but now he has feet and ankle problems and also doesn't feel he would get hired because he can't shower much.

"I'm not afraid to work though. I don't scrounge, I don't go through trashes.  I try to work for my money.  I do some yard work, I fly my sign," he said.

"She fell in my lap by the arch," Tyrone said of Courtney in the background. "I like her sense of humor. I like how she helps people. She is like me. If someone needs help, she'll give her last bite to somebody else, to feed them, that's what I love about her.  She'll give her jacket if someone needs it. When I wasn't homeless, I would give people dollars to help out.  Or I would get them something to eat."

Running Away from an Ex-Wife

Tyrone is from Texas, where he did time in jail, and where says he was also harassed by his ex-wife. 

"I did some time in jail in Huntsville, north of Houston, got released, but my ex wife ... kept hassling me, so I decided to move away to Nevada," he said.

Tyrone flies this sign, but also does paid yard work if he can find some. 

Full Shelters and Tickets for Camping

Tyrone said it's not easy navigating Reno homeless when the shelters are full. 

"Over here, all they do is give you tickets for camping. The churches help out and then there is the shelter, but the shelter can only hold so many people. There's more homeless people than there are spots. Every time we go down there, it's full. But when we get tickets from police for camping they call down there and they say they have openings. If you put us in jail though, all you are doing is filling up the jails with homeless people," he said.

He feels homeless aren't wanted in downtown Reno. 

"They're pushing us out, trying to kick us out, run us out of town, but for us to eat we have to come back into town.  Now I see homeless people everywhere, because the motels that they were living in are being torn down," he said. 

He has so common sense ideas, but doesn't think the homeless would be trusted by local authorities.

"They have so many empty warehouses they could use and put beds in, put a kitchen in there.  Let the homeless run the warehouse.  We'd have our own security if they let us have it that way. It would be fine," he said.

Reporting and Photos by Prince Nesta for Our Town Reno

Arianne, Isolated from Her Family with Addictions

Drug Addictions and Bad Karma

"I made bad choices and you know karma. I've had to be out here now from choices I made so that's what it is. It's no one's fault but my own. I had an addiction to pills and I started stealing them from my mother and lying and you know just all that kind of stuff so I had to leave my parents' dwelling, and my children were there. So, it was the best thing for me. This was about five years ago."

"Once that happened I started drinking and then I started doing other drugs so I didn't have to feel the hurt and the pain you know. So, you really can't get anywhere if you do stuff like you know what I'm saying. So, you know these are the consequences of my actions right now. I've been on the streets of Reno for around five years. It's off and on. You know I get things stolen from me or I'm too nice or too kind to people. And when I have a place I let them stay so they're not homeless like I was and they just mess it up, you know, because they don't care. So that's why you know usually I'm out on the streets because I'm giving to people you know."

She doesn't like the shelters, where she says she also gets her things stolen, and doesn't like the overall vibe. 

"Nobody there really wants to help themselves," she said.  You know so if you're around people that aren't positive and they're not willing to help themselves It's kind of hard for you to want to do it yourself too.

Seeking Help in the Wrong Places

She says she's tried craigslist seeking help for her and her boyfriend, but that usually it ends up being men who want to have sex with her. 

"I find these gentlemen and they take us both. But if I'm not with them sexually then, they just kick us away and toss us out, you know, basically they're not here to help. I get taken advantage of because they want to sleep with me and I don't want that. I'm good."

She says she's reached out to church organizations and hope they will help, as she says she feels like she is reaching the end of her rope, missing her family and feeling so much pain. 

"Hopefully will help us get a place because I have blisters on top of my blisters. That's why you see me like this because I can't walk really anymore right now. It's like this big you know on the bottom of my foot. I wish people would be more understanding and understand that you know this could be you one day. I'm a human and I'm a mother, I’m a daughter, I'm just like everybody else. I just made the wrong decisions. You know. Yeah, I got two kids. I got a 14-year-old boy and a 9-year-old daughter you know. They're with my mom and dad, my mom and dad take care of them," she said.  "I don't feel like I'm good enough to be with my children. So that's why they're there."

"I have my makeup and I have clothes," she said of her possessions.  "I got shoes and clothes. That's basically what I have. I have a body spray and stuff like that on my jackets but this is what I carry with me. He's got ten times more things than I do. He's worse than I am," she said of her boyfriend. Photo by Prince Nesta for Our Town Reno.

Hoping for Help to Get Her Own Room

She'd like to see the city of Reno convert more abandoned lots and buildings for housing for the homeless, or for teaching people new trades so they can get back in the workforce. She says even one month's free rent in an actual home could maybe get her going back on the right track. 

"I would like to be able to get back on my feet," she said. "I'd like to be able to have a roof over my head. You know stability is key with everybody, everybody needs stability, to feel comfortable and to feel something you know what I'm saying. I would like to have a roof over my head, I'd like it, but that's all the help that I would ask for. Maybe if they could get me a monthly or something, a month paid on rent and then I could go. I have my ID, everything like that. Out here you can’t have a job and be out on the street, it just doesn't work. And then the shelter is no good either. So, I just would like if someone would help, they would help me with a month on a room or a place so I have some stability."

As she continued talking to us, she revealed she had had another child with Brian next to her, but that she decided to give him up for adoption, describing it as one of the worst moments of her life.  "Him and I, he's my husband, I was pregnant and we had a son and because I didn't feel it was appropriate for him to be with us, with the issues that we have. I gave him up for adoption. You know losing our son was the hardest. I know that I can do anything and I know that I have the mind frame and the mindset that I could do whatever I want. It's just you know right now I'm stuck," she said. Photo by Prince Nesta for Our Town Reno.

A Relationship on the Streets

She met Brian four years ago, and they've been together ever since. 

"He was sitting on a bench over there, by the Sands and asked me for a charger to charge his phone and I had a charger to charge his phone. He asked me if I could help him with something ... He just kind of followed me around everywhere. And from then on, we were together I guess. He's really nice. He's really a good dude. He's always polite and does everything for me. I don't know where anything is in my backpack. He's the one who packs everything up and finds it for me. He knows what I want before I want it."

She says she wants him to step up and help more, but that she understands since they're homeless, her expectations are unreasonable.  She says not having a home creates a vicious cycle of unemployment and addiction.

"Because we're homeless, it's harder to get a job. It's harder to get another chance ... The reason why people are out on the streets and they're doing a lot of the crystal is because they have to be up 24/7 because they don't have a place to lay their head and if they go in and lay their head somewhere like right here they're quickly swooped up. So, they have to do stimulants so they can stay up and be out and about all night long. Because if not, they'd be falling out everywhere you know. I mean that's a big thing. They don't have a place to go you know so they don't have a place to lay their head so they're always you know getting high and stuff."

"I want to go to school ... And you know I want to be a nurse and have my family and you know just be I guess what they say normal," she says of her own dreams.

Dreams of a Better, Simple Life

She says she could be a prostitute to make some money but stays away from that lifestyle.

"I don't want to be out there on the street asking a guy to pay for me," she said.  "I want to be able to be a lady like I am, and go and get a regular job and do it that way, every day. I don't ever have a break to where I can just sit and collect my thoughts and think about what I want to do in my life, because I'm constantly going ding ding ding ding. I'm just constantly trying to hustle or try to find money so I can have a roof over my head, and nine times out of 10 because I don't do mean things to people, I don't get money. So, I stay broke because I'm trying to be right about things you know," she said.

"Homeless people are good people too. They're just like everybody else. Like if you saw me on the street you would not know that I was homeless because I do not carry myself that way so you can't judge a book by its cover. And help them out. Do something to help them. You never know, there could be one thing that you did for this person that helped change their life. I mean I've had a heck of money. I've had lots of money. I've had no money. And I know what it's like to be both in both places and if I had one person that came up and helped, I would appreciate. I guess love one another. Stop being so judgmental, judging everybody, I don't think anybody has the right to do that," she concluded. 

Reporting by Prince Nesta for Our Town Reno

The Reno Housing Authority, Dealing with a Declining Budget and Rising Demands

A Busy Afternoon at the Housing Office

It’s a busy afternoon at the federally funded Reno Housing Authority with a packed parking lot and lobby on East Ninth Street, as local residents patiently wait in chairs to be called by seemingly overworked staff.

“There are many reasons they could be here,” explains Brent Boynton, the community outreach director. “If you are receiving housing assistance from us, it’s based on your income. So if you change jobs, you have to let us know that. If your cousin comes to live with you, we have to approve the cousin. Or it may be someone who wants to move. If you have a housing choice voucher (defined by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development as its program for assisting very low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to afford decent, safe, and sanitary housing in the private market), you may be saying you're going to California and we make it possible for you to make that transition and get your voucher payments there. So people come in for many reasons, as well as the people who are here for the first time to fill out an application.”

Executive Director Amy Jones (right) has been with the local Housing Authority for 13 years. “I love helping our families," she said. Brent Boynton (left), a “former TV news guy", has been the community outreach coordinator since earlier this year. “The Reno Housing Authority has been doing a great job helping people afford to live in northern Nevada for 75 years, but most people don't know about it," he said.  "We help about 4,000 families afford to live in northern Nevada and that's a very important job.”  

Clearing Up Misconceptions About Its Role and Wait Lists

Boynton says there are often misconceptions as to what the Reno Housing Authority does, with some people calling to complain about a neighbor or asking about their yard.  There’s often also gripes among those in need of housing, that the requirements are too stringent (no one accepted with a drug-related crime during the past three years for example) or that the waiting lists are too long or simply closed.

“We have 2,500 vouchers and that's through the housing choice voucher program and then we have 751 public housing units, units that the Housing Authority owns,” says executive director Amy Jones, when asked of a rundown of what the RHA currently handles in terms of local affordable housing.  “And then the remainder of our units are scattered site properties, so condos, single family residences…. We also own a number of apartment complexes that have market rent, so there's no subsidy tied to those units.”

Jones also explains why wait lists are sometimes closed when they get too long.  “When those wait lists start getting very large, they're hard to manage,” she said. “We have preferences on our wait lists. So when our wait lists are open, somebody may apply and be number ten in line, but due to those preferences, if somebody applies that has higher preferences, then they could move ahead of them. We also don't want to give a false hope to somebody that's applying that they're going to receive housing today and we have a limited staff to process those wait lists, to process the families on those wait lists. So we do close them up once they start to get large, so we can then work through them. Then, we reopen them as those numbers get lower. So we do have some of those wait lists currently open for our public housing programs,” she said. 

Jones said there are currently about 3,000 families on their wait lists, including those seeking vouchers and public housing.  

Boynton explained there are also certain priorities for those on the waiting list. "We're going to let a veteran move up in line," he said. "We're going to let a victim of domestic violence move up or someone with disabilities. And if that happens a little bit, you're going to find that your part of the line just doesn't move. So it seems that the best way to be fair to everyone who is standing in line is to allow it to clear a little bit. Plus, we don't want to give anyone false hope. By the time you fill out an application, you should be able to believe that you are going to have a place to live within a reasonable future."

A screengrab from the Affordable Housing Online advocacy website concerning Nevada.  Note, this information was not independently verified by Our Town.  Reno. More complete information can be found at their website: affordablehousingonline.com

A Declining Budget and a Rising Market

Jones did not give specifics but pointed toward a dire and hard to plan financial situation. 

"All of our funding comes federally from HUD," she said, "and so that funding has been continuing to be decreased year over year, and our budget is being cut for both the voucher program and our operating subsidy, which is for our public housing. We also receive moneys to improve our public housing sites, and we're seeing those cut every year as well. So the trend is the monies are being cut and we just have to do more with less."

Another problem is that when working with landlords and amounts for vouchers, HUD works with data which is only renewed every three years and which can quickly become dated in a rapidly changing market. 

"When you think about what has happened to our market in the last three years, you could have lived in an $800 a month apartment three years ago and now you're paying $1,200 a month in rent," Boynton said. "You can see where the problems come from because even if you've had cost of living increases, even if you've gotten a raise or a promotion, chances are your income has not improved enough to make up for that deficit," he said.

"We are basically always playing the role of the advocate for the renter, going back to the federal government and saying you need to raise our ceiling here a little bit because our prices have gone up ...." Boynton explained of the role played by the RHA which serves Reno, Sparks and Washoe County. "The voucher program is basically a three part relationship between the renter and the Housing Authority and the landlord. So if you're the renter, you have an agreement with us and you have an agreement with the landlord. Likewise, we have an agreement with the landlord and with you, and with a voucher you pay a portion of the rent based upon your ability to pay and then the federal subsidy pays the rest." 

A Deal with Jacobs Entertainment

The Housing Authority was recently in the news for an exchange with the Colorado-based Jacobs Entertainment company, which has been buying up lots and tearing down motels in and around 4th street, for a yet to be detailed or built fountain district. 

"Jacobs did purchase a parcel from us on 4th Street," Jones said when asked for an update." It was just vacant land that we had no use for. So he (Jeffrey Jacobs) did purchase that from the Housing Authority, and then he also did make a donation to the Housing Authority. He initially purchased three homes, part of the donation, that we could use to assist more families. And then the remainder of the donation did come to the Housing Authority, that we have earmarked for our development on the Sutro Street site that we own. "

More info on that senior housing project can be found here: https://www.reno.gov/home/showdocument?id=73397. Jones gave no details on the total monetary value of the Jacobs assistance. 

Brochures and application forms on display at the entrance of the RHA offices. 

Seeking "Creative Partnerships" but Frustrated

Amid these current realities, both Jones and Boynton say they are open to new ideas and new ways to help with the deepening affordable housing crisis.

"We are looking for creative ways to find solutions to the problem because again, you know, we're not getting as much money as we wish," Jones said. "So we look for those creative solutions, those private public partnerships. It's also asking the community to come to us with creative solutions because we're open to those ideas and what would work best for the community. We have to do more with less and that's what we continue to do and we look at,  how can we partner with another agency or with the city that we can do more for the families we serve." 

She also points to frustration.

"It's frustrating because we do know that there is a big need out there and if we could, we would help everyone and we are trying to help those families as much as we can by providing them the resources we have or if we don't have those resources immediately guiding them to other resources that may be able to help them in the interim with our partnering agencies or other properties that may have some type of subsidy for them. So we want to help any way we can, even if we can't immediately offer them that assistance." 

After a long period without wait lists, some have finally reopened. This is a screengrab from the RHA website. 

No Sustainable Replacement Solutions Yet

"I think this is a time of great challenge for our community and this housing shortage is a serious challenge," Boynton said.  "Anytime anyone becomes homeless, we all pay the price."

He also says the RHA has traditionally worked with dependable, continuous funding, something which can't be replaced by one off donations or help. 

"Whatever solution we come up with as a community has to be sustainable," he said.  "If we were to get this wonderful donation of millions of dollars to house people this year, but we didn't get the money next year, we can't just put them back on the street."

"This was built in 1958," Boynton said of the Mineral Manor apartments where the RHA offices are located.  "This has been a sustainable housing model for the people of Reno. I hope that where we go from here is a community discussion where we come up with new ways of funding that's not entirely dependent on the federal government and that the Reno Housing Authority is able to help in new ways."

The Pains of Rapid Growth

Boynton said over a third of their clients are seniors or people with disabilities.  He said he's glad to see growth, but as he explained at a recent Ward 5 Neighborhood Advisory Board meeting, more jobs, which is good news for some, also now means a housing crunch for others.  

"I am thrilled that this community's economy is improving," he said.  "I'm glad to see the growth. I'm glad to see that more people are working, but the very improvement in our economy is causing our shortage of housing and when you have a shortage of housing and more people moving in who have the money to pay rent, it puts more pressure on the people who can least afford to pay rent and that's frustrating. It's frustrating to see people getting crowded out and to know if you're already living in the cheapest place in town, where can you go? One of the questions that we got, I thought was rather telling, and that is with wages up or with more people employed, and unemployment down, isn't that counterintuitive that there are more people who need housing assistance?"

"This is a challenging time, but it is giving us the opportunity to think outside the box and you know, we are a partner in this community and we need to play a bigger role in assisting our community. So we are looking at creative solutions on how we can do that. We need long term solutions, viable solutions," Jones concluded.

Interviews by Our Town Reno in May 2018 at the RHA offices

The Community Foundation of Western Nevada and Its Push for Affordable Dorms

Still in Need of Final Votes and Money

The money or promised in-kind help isn't all there yet, and the final vote hasn't taken place at City Council, but Pfrommer is confident the Foundation's 200-unit dormitory plan, praised in local media and on national blogs, will go from prefabricated dorms typically used by miners in Wyoming where they would be bought, to the Sage Street site, cornered by salvage junkyards, train tracks and the highway.

"Our timeline is really probably four to five months to really tackle most of this monetarily," Pfrommer said at the Community Foundation's downtown office this morning.  "I think through our connections with the various philanthropic work that the Community Foundation is involved in, unrelated to this project, it will bode well and provide a lot of goodwill and assuredness to the community to step up and participate, given our track record."

Pfrommer says the Foundation still needs to raise an estimated $3.2 million, "but that's before taking into account the current campaign to have essentially donated services and products from various subcontractors on the project. So it's a moving target. We hope it's a lot lower as more and more developers step up to the plate to help out the community," he said. 

He's also looking for big individual donors. "While we certainly would love to have, you know, thousand-dollar donations, most of these are going to be pretty good sized and so we're hoping to engage more and more people in philanthropy," he said.

There have been concerns over environmental issues from past use at the Sage Street site, to which Pfrommer responded:  "There's been a phase one that's been done in our understanding from the engineer who's contributing his services, that it's just the typical underground storage tank, but with no leakage or any of those issues. So it's going to be remediated with very little issues," he said. 

Minimum Income Needed and Other Requirements

The rent for the single bunk bed units is being planned at $390 a month, for those with an income of at least $1,300 a month, who must also pass other requirements.

"There is going to be a criminal background check, and drug testing, that type of thing. So I think that will set the criteria for the type of person that comes in," Pfrommer said. "So it's not somebody who is not working who will qualify for this honestly. And that's a different population. This is a niche, I suppose it's one rung up from the shelter ... but it's not going to be for somebody who's not working at all. This is really meant for the working poor to give them a hand up so they can get stabilized," he said. 

A few small family units are being planned, but Pfrommer said it would be mostly for one person occupancies. He also wanted to make clear this would be different than a tiny home village. 

"Tiny homes, even though they're tiny, they are self contained in the sense they have a bathroom and some limited kitchen facilities. So the dorm really does distinguish itself from the tiny home in the sense that it's like a dorm where the bathrooms are down the hall. It's a communal kitchen across a walkway. So it is different from the tiny homes. And honestly that's what makes this housing affordable is to have something like this set up where it's not like a tiny home. It's not like typical low income housing. But then again, the rent's only $390."

The detailed drawings for the planned dorm can be found here:  https://nevadafund.org/dorms-sage-street-envision-realty/ "The feedback we've received is overwhelmingly positive," Tscheekar said. "People know that this isn't going to solve our housing crisis, but it is going to supply a big inventory of units. We're anticipating 200 units that would truly be affordable. So this is really the only project right now that is developing that if you are making minimum wage, you would be able to afford a safe and dry home."

Volunteers of America in Charge and Support from Other Organizations

Pfrommer said Volunteers of America, which runs the main shelter in downtown Reno and the overflow shelter just a few blocks away from the Community Foundation's headquarters, will be in charge of many operational components, including wraparound services.

"Volunteers of America will be responsible for operating everything above ground, including vetting the potential tenants, taking care of the property, providing the security and also coordinating social services for those people that do need a hand up."

While other organizations are working on their own 24/7 housing solutions for those they help, such as the Eddy House for at-risk youths, Tscheekar said they would be welcome to live at the dorms. 

"Other organizations are supportive of the project," Tscheekar said, "so we do know that for many of the youths at the Eddy House, they may get a job or start pursuing education, but they simply can't afford a place to live. So we do anticipate that as some of the youths stabilize from receiving services at the Eddy House, that then they could move to the dorms on Sage street."

Following Other Models and Bringing Down Prices

A community land trust according to Wikipedia, "is a nonprofit corporation that develops and stewards affordable housing, community gardens, civic buildings, commercial spaces and other community assets on behalf of a community."  For this purpose, the City of Reno is selling the 250 Sage street property to the non-profit philanthropic group for $1.

"We have seen other communities who have done a community land trust and this is actually the first one, at least in northern Nevada," Tscheekar said. "A few months ago, we went to the Bay Area to research some of the work that was being done there, to address gentrification and the housing crisis in San Francisco... And so we started to share this information with the City of Reno and they got very interested in the idea ultimately leading up to the recommendation that they donate the Sage Street property for this. So it's a new concept for our area, but it has been done.... If you can eliminate the cost of land automatically, that reduces the cost of housing," he said.

"We know with affordability that's a relative term,"  Tscheekar added, "but, what the people involved in housing consider affordable is 30 percent of your income. So if you are making $8.25 minimum wage in Nevada, that's about 26 percent of your income. So as long as you're working full-time, it is truly an affordable place to live."

Pfrommer made clear the dorms will also be available for long term rentals not just transitioning. "It's not necessarily transitional," he said. "If somebody wants to stay there for three to five years, 10 years, that's fine. It's not by definition going to be six months and you're on your own," Pfrommer said.

"I think it's fair to say too that for some of the clients at least, that they may live here temporarily until they can save up money to put a deposit or start having their own apartment for example. But then others may stay long term," Tscheekar added.   

A Hoped For Thanksgiving Timeline

According to the Community Foundation's website, the first $1 million is needed no later than July 4. The money will be used to transport the modular structures from (the Afognak Native Corporation making these units typically for mining workers out of Big Piney) Wyoming to Reno, for disassembly then reassembly, utilities and hook-ups, site preparation and improvements.

"The trucking costs will be about half a million, but the disassembly in Wyoming and then the reassembly here and everything is about a million.... I mean our goal is to have these on trucks ... in July and having them set up in August, early September and then we would be up and running to start getting applications in September, October and then fill it up by Thanksgiving," Pfrommer said.  

"Well we do feel confident that we can make it work," Tscheekar added.  "I would say one challenge is that it is moving very rapidly and that there are so many different partners with the project, with various construction companies and other real estate developers as well. So there are a lot of caring people, but it can also be difficult to keep track of all the work that's moving so rapidly," he said. 

"It's obviously great for the 200 or so people that will have (access) to the dorm village," Pfrommer concluded before getting back to work. "What I'm also excited about is the fact that it's encouraging or forcing people to think differently about how to address this (affordable housing crisis). We have always had low-income, Section 8 housing, which the groups that do that do fantastic work, but this is another way to help increase the inventory and make housing affordable for that many more people. So I'm glad it's forcing people to think outside the box."

Interview by Our Town Reno on May 30, 2018

William Mantle, A "People-Focussed, Free-Thinker" Running for Mayor and a More Affordable Reno

Outspent but Undettered

"I really just wanted to take the advocacy that I've always had, and practiced, and bring it to the city," Mantle says explaining his motivation to run, even if he knows he might be a long shot to make it to a second round general election finish when results are counted after June 12th.  "Think people first and absolutely be a voice of reason and scientific, evidence-based rationalization for our development projects and our future here."

Mantle says he feels he's up against the odds in terms of fundraising and name recognition, but that his campaign is still worth a shot.

"This is my first go into local politics ... It's not that I haven't been in the community doing things, I mean being an advocate is certainly, important work, but it's not very visible work because I do it at like 3 AM sometimes or 5 AM or 11 PM, you know, when there's a need for service and that doesn't get you the visibility, nor do I seek it. That's not why you do that stuff. The sheer amount of money that is in contention with some of these candidates .... I looked at all of the filing reports and it's already been $126,000 spent collectively between the candidates. (Three candidates) have spent over $40,000 each. So that's a lot. That's a lot. And I don't have that kind of funding or backing, but there's no reason to not try and put yourself out there because I still believe that we can do better. And I don't think that the other candidates are as people-focused as I think they should be."

"I am a free thinker. I believe that there should always be fiscal responsibility. I believe that we do need programs in place that elevate those most in need to a higher status and well being in life. I believe in redistribution of wealth as appropriate, but not in such a way that it would economically disincentive people's desire to earn in our capitalist economy.  I would consider myself in general a moderate towards all things. Like, I take an issue, I look at whatever evidence and best practices we have and I go with what makes sense. I don't hardcore swing one way or the other. I'm not devoted to any one path.... I can change my mind based off of what's presented to me. You should always take the data that you have available to you and work with that and never off of just impulse or any knee jerk reactions because that's not good policy making, that's just good agendizing and I don't believe in that," Mantle said

A Q and A on Affordable Housing, Anti-Vagrancy Laws, Strip Clubs, Homeless Services and Grading the Current City Council on These Issues

Question: The City Council we have keeps saying affordable housing is the most urgent issue facing Reno. Given this awareness, what kind of grade would you give them on what's actually been accomplished over the last term?

William Mantle: "I would grade them a D. I would grade them a D because when I first started my campaign I went online to all of our various news organizations in the area and I looked for every article I could find on the Fountain district, the tearing down of the weeklies, anything from the City Council saying publicly what we're going to do and what we're planning to do. And what I've found is since an awesome article came out in The Atlantic (in early 2016), that was really like, 'hey, northern Nevada has this amazing issue that it's going to have to deal with.'  And that was affordable housing and people spoke to that. And I don't think anything has happened. I've heard things, I've seen quotes, but from everything I can see, there hasn't been an ordinance put in place to prevent the tearing down of structures that are still usable... There hasn't been an ordinance put in place for a percentage of affordable housing as part of a development project, meaning that either you have to commit a certain number of units to being affordable housing for say individuals or families making under 40,000 or have special statuses like senior citizens or veterans or they have to pay monies into a pot that then, the city would use that money to do its own public housing, maybe in coordination with the Reno Housing Authority, which is federally mandated."

Above a screengrab from Mantle's Facebook campaign page. "I've been mostly pinning my campaign on digital advertising through Facebook. Other than that, I work eight to five, so I go door to door after that when I can and just try to make it work," he says of his campaign style.

Question: What about the idea of rent control or a version of that? Should the City Council be pushing for that? Can we learn from recent initiatives in other cities?

William Mantle: "I haven't seen any ordinance be put in place for any kind of semblance of rent control and I know that's a very complicated issue because rent control has been shown to not work in certain ways in Chicago, in New York, but I think that we could easily put an ordinance in place or ordinances that give a little bit more rights and security to the renters and limit to some degree the landlord's ability to just bump up the rents. When I hear stories of individuals getting up a 25 percent rent increase month to month, that's not a thing most people can just adapt to."

"What I've seen in other cities is absolutely the emphasis on percent affordable housing. What I've seen is that, okay, you want to develop here, great, we love, we love your investment and your desire to be a part of this community and building in this community, but we need you to ensure that if you're going to build this project, you're going to build either another project that can be dedicated to (affordable housing). Or you'll have a part of that project be put towards it, or you can collaborate with other developers who are also building the area to do something together."

"This isn't a Reno-only crisis. The whole nation is facing a rental crisis... Wages are a major part of this. A lot of cities have confronted this by also raising wages because if the rental prices go up, okay, that means the inventory is still the same in the area and that's an ongoing crisis for Reno especially. But if people can afford more, maybe they can live farther out, they can commute more easily... "

"I think every debate is important. I think any opportunity where you can get people to sit down and answer a question, any question truthfully is important," Mantle said of the upcoming debate. 

Question: What do you think of the anti-vagrancy proposals which are slowing making progress towards implementation despite opposition from many quarters?

William Mantle: "Telling somebody that they can't sleep where, where they don't want to sleep anyways. It's not that somebody is like, I would really love to just cut up some cement and lay down on that. That's not where somebody wants to go to bed, but if you're that tired or just that out of sorts, you may need to rest. And if you would be thrown into jail at cost to the public for that just doesn't make sense in terms of an economical impact that we want to be putting our money towards. That's just more costs to jail and to the Washoe County sheriff's office or RPD that we don't need. So I'm not a fan of those vagrancy laws. I think they're very misguided."

"My belief is that no one would prefer to be homeless first and foremost. I know there's a lot of rhetoric out there.... such as, 'Well, these people are choosing this (life) ....' There are some people who I believe aren't in a state of health to know what choice is best for them or what choice could be best for them. So I don't believe anyone goes out there and says, 'I can't wait to have a lack of security, no protection from the environment and no security of food or comfort.' It doesn't make sense to me. So I don't like that rhetoric. What I think we need to do is really take a broad-handed approach," Mantle says of dealing with homelessness.  Our Town Reno photo from this early Spring.

Question: The strip clubs also seem to be taking a lot of the City Council's attention. What do you think about that?

 William Mantle: "I've been a supporter for the strip clubs' rights, to stay where they are. I think that it's actually incredibly silly that this is a discussion that needs to be had.... The city is risking a rather hefty lawsuit of 50 million dollars that's probably going to be brought up again. It got dropped when the city council started making some overtures saying, 'hey, you know, maybe we can work this out, find a compromise.'  Then they reversed direction .... saying, 'no, we're going forward with seeking not only your relocation, but also further enforcement'.... I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think think it's appropriate. I think that we're talking about individuals who are autonomous, have their own agency, they have their own money and they're deciding to go to that establishment and enjoy those services, whatever those are. What I'm more concerned about are the rights of the contractors, aka the dancers. They're being appropriate and proper .... I'm very concerned why we're making it more difficult for people to get jobs that they're seeking. And these clubs pay a lot in taxes, tens of thousands of dollars per month to the city coffers...."

"There just isn't any hard evidence to support that move.... It sounds like this is mostly focused on the Wild Orchid and I don't think that building is in any way beautiful. I don't think it's, you know, some Victorian architecture that we should all love and adore, but I think there's things that can be done. You could put trees in front of that building," Mantle says of other options rather than relocating the Wild Orchid from the Midtown district. "You could ask for the facade to be redone or something with the lights. Definitely remove the digital sign. I don't like it, but I also don't like the Nugget's digital sign or the GSR's digital sign. I don't like those digital signs, period. One thing that I thought was funny was that Harrah's was advertising a rather burlesque show with a huge sign of a woman who was showing all of her midriff and her panty line .... and a very tiny digital sign that says Girls, Girls, Girls is more offensive than an actual full frontage of a woman's bare body.... " 

Question: What about helping the homeless community? What should the City Council be doing better?

William Mantle: "We need better mental health services... We need to make sure we have adequate resources for mental health. We don't... We need to make sure that people get off their substances and can transition off of those without being afraid of being thrown in prison or jail for their addiction. And that's a disease, that's not a choice. People aren't like, 'oh yeah, I chose to be addicted.'If they don't have a place to live, maybe they're going to use substances or maybe you get them a place to live, but they're hooked on a substance. They're not going to be able to control their finances. Oh wait, what if they don't have a job, they can't afford where they're supposed to live and they still have an addiction. So all their money they would have is going to that. It's a hydra of a problem. It has so many heads and I feel like for some reason we're always trying just one approach, one approach, one approach. It takes a collectivist approach to solve these issues and talking with people. I'm for far more social workers and case managers to get out there."

"If they need police escorts to go to those camps, I'm totally fine with that," Mantle says of having more social workers doing outreach in homeless encampments. "Police are there for security and safety and code enforcement. That's what they're there for. They should be used like that. They shouldn't be used as our social workers .... Well, we'll just put you in jail for now until we can figure out how to get you better off. That's not the way I want things to develop. I think we can do better. It does take community investment. It takes empathy. It takes time and it takes money.... I don't have the answers right now. Nobody does. But that's something that I would absolutely look into to find out because we can do it.  Other places are doing it better and .... are trying new things. We can learn from other cities. We can adapt and make it right for us."

Question: There are also concerns about more and more of what's being built is luxury high priced housing, including for students.  What are your thoughts on that front?

William Mantle: "It is worrisome. Last I checked the majority of students aren't affluent....
They may have affluent parents but ... if we don't start creating affordable housing options, there will not be people who will support the economic livelihood of this city and you're just going to not have people who can afford to live here, (to be a student,) to be a grocer, to be a shelf stocker, to be a librarian, to be even an EMT personnel."

"We're going to lose our services because people are like, 'I'm just going to move somewhere I can afford or I can make better wages because Reno is not doing anything to increase that either. And we have extremely high taxes in comparison to the rest of the state. We have super high gas taxes, high property taxes. But we still don't have enough, unfortunately, for all that we need... The solution isn't easy." 

Note: Some of the questions and answers were trimmed for clarity and conciseness.

Interview by Our Town Reno in May 2018 at the downtown library

Joyce Kay Cowdin, Speaking on Behalf of Endangered Motel Residents

An Eviction Taking Place and Misconceptions

It's a sunny, breezy day in the angular, repaved parking lot of the El Tavern motel in late May 2018, and an eviction is slowly taking place. A taxi pulls up, waiting.  Beat up mattresses are strewn on the ground.  Neighbors walk back and forth to each other’s rooms, some of them tripping over and speaking incoherently.  As Joyce Kay Cowdin walks around the complex, though, her dog, Aurora, a two-year-old Shih Tzu, Maltese, Cockapoo and Chihuahua mix, brings many smiles.

“People have misconceptions about people who live in these motels. We're not all drug dealers and drug addicts, we're not all prostitutes. We're not all... whatever. Some of us are just in the position where this is all we can afford and we're good people,” Cowdin, 59, says. 

Cowdin used to work doing phone surveys, in casinos and for the city’s ice rink, but her poor health now keeps her mostly in her room.  She’s been at the El Tavern Motel on W 4th street, scrunched between storage facilities for two years now. She’s angry at some of the comments she sees on social media when she reads stories about the local homeless, motels and the affordable housing crisis. 

“We used to work, and we've been in the workforce,” Cowdin says of residents at the El Tavern and other motels. “Some of us have been working for years. Some work every day and they have to live here. ... Don't make assumptions. You don't know us. You don't know me. They make all these assumptions about the kind of people who live there, and yes there are places that are like that. But not all of them. That really bothers me. Don't assume you know my story. Don't assume I'm a certain way because of where I live. Some of the new people moving to Reno are bringing prejudices with them,” she says of comments she hears and sees on social media.

Sharing What She Can Afford

Cowdin shares a two-bedroom unit of the motel with a friend.  They both collect disability and food stamps, which allows them to get by but just barely, as the room cost is about to go up to $800. They have no car so they use buses to go grocery shopping, and spend wisely, with coupons and special deals.

“We still struggle every month. We still struggle to pay bills. We have phone bills, medication to pay for. We don't have enough to actually get into an apartment, because it's too much,” she says. “You can pay background check, credit check, and the application and still not get in and you never see that money again. Sometimes it's a lot. And then, they want first and last. Even the Courtyard Centre apartments where my friend used to live at, which was really low income housing, really reasonable, they're raising their rents too.” 

There’s problems living here, even if she says it’s better than nothing. “We have had bed bug infestations. We have mice. We have the power that goes off a lot, because there are people who are using too many devices. Electrical circuits need to be upgraded And they're raising our rent again in June. It's been not even six months since they raised it last time.”

A back view of the El Tavern. Cowdin says neighbors also do cause problems, and cops and ambulances to come over at all hours, for fights, drugs, domestic violence issues, overdoses.

Worried about Reno's Direction

Cowdin closely follows what’s going on in Reno, but feels frustrated so far at the worsening situation in terms of affordable housing.

“I am on social media and I worry about things like this. I read and I try and find the information. I call people in government. I love to research and get answers. I will bug the crap out of people to get the answer I want. Hopefully, it's not a lost cause. Hopefully someone is going to step up who actually can see what's going on, who actually listens.”

She’s been homeless before, and fears she could be homeless again.  She’s also lived at the Carriage Inn, which was recently torn down, as part of the still mysterious but ongoing destruction of motels and other properties on 4th street by the Jacobs Entertainment group.

“Some people say ‘oh just another blighted hotel gone’.  But we don't know what Jacobs is planning on doing. I don't think the city knows. It's like well, ‘you are showing us a lot of money and you're going to buy up all these properties we won't have to worry.’ It's going to bring tax revenues so here you go. But this isn't a high priced area. I don't see who they are planning on attracting.”

She's also not impressed with the local Homeless Advisory Board. "They need more people there who have experience with homelessness, who understand how many different layers there are to being homeless, and all these different issues.  Try living on the streets for 24 hours and see how you survive," she says. 

The door to Cowdin's room. "I found that in a dumpster, I fixed it and tied all the feathers to it and hung it to my door. I have to make this home, because this is home," she says.

Losing Charm and Attracting Outsiders

Cowdin is also worried about the destructions of motels and low income housing taking place for plans for high end student housing.

“All the apartments they are building for students seem to be for students who aren't from here, but for students from other places with parents who will pay their way.  Reno has lost its charm. It used to be a really cool, quirky little town. They are trying to turn it into another what Silicon Valley? Or some top tier college town? Sorry it's never going to be that,” she says.

Instead, she would want to see more charities and organizations who build their own complexes or take over other apartments, with a simple application process, and short waiting lists, for low or fixed income residents, as she's seen in Oregon, where she's also lived. 

"In Oregon, they have city and county-sanctioned tiny home villages and tent cities and places for vets and that's how they are handling it. It's housing, it's not transitional, they are there ....  A lot of places will require them to do some work around the place, or grow vegetables and contribute to the community. I wish we had more of that here, because I'm worried, for myself and for others."

Reporting by Our Town Reno in May 2018

Joey Thyne, A Student Documenting Reno's Stripped Down Gentrification

Bursting the Student Bubble

Thyne, 22, a transplant from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and new graduate from the University of Nevada, Reno, says many students live in their own bubble, unaware of some of the rapid transformations their host city is going through, including its traumatic lack of affordable housing.

"Like people who live in the Highlands (luxury student housing) will say 'oh my rent's going up for next year so I have to find somewhere else,' but it's not as dire as 'oh, I'm going to go live in the streets.' I think it really sucks a lot of these lower-income motels are being torn down to build more student housing. I mean I didn't even really understand it was such a big issue until we started talking to people about this," he said, looking back on the past semester during which he produced A Gentleman's Disagreement (watch below) with a team of classmates in a documentary class at the Reynolds School of Journalism.

A Story of Rapid Gentrification

Thyne himself has lived with several roommates as a student, meaning his rent has only been about $500 a month. He says he believes the Ponderosa hotel which goes for over $700 per month is overpriced. He sees no good sides in the ongoing battle between strip clubs and City Council, with vulnerable residents as "pawns."

"I think people always talk abstractly about gentrification, and I think that this is one of the most concrete storylines I've seen of that actually happening. It's sort of happens gradually over time and like suddenly Brooklyn is full of hipsters, but I feel like this City Council is trying to fast track Reno's gentrification," he said. 

The Wild Orchid / Ponderosa Hotel Keshmiri-owned combo sit on prime real estate at the entrance to Reno's much promoted eclectic Midtown district.

Changed Perceptions

Working on the film changed Thyne's own perceptions of Midtown Reno, the entrance of which is now occupied by the threatened Wild Orchid and the many residents clinging onto sheltered life at the Ponderosa Hotel.

"I used to think that the Midtown district was so cool," Thyne said. "I mean it is like hip, and they have all the nice shops and they have Junkee's (Clothing Exchange), and Sup and the place where you can get ice cream sandwiches (Simple Ice Cream Sandwiches). But I think through all this I've learned that there's something sinister underlying it, where a lot of stuff's getting torn down. A lot of people are being displaced in order to ... I think the City Council wants Reno to be like hip, like a Californian town, but it's at the expense of a lot of people and their well-being."

Thyne's film played with other films from a class taught by documentary filmmaker Kari Barber. "People are really excited about the issue and a girl came up to us after the film festival and said she wanted to take the documentary class next semester and said she wanted to do a follow up or something similar," he said of some of the reaction he received. 

What Does the Future Hold?

While the film itself goes into detail of the see-saw multi-front battle between Reno's strip clubs and members of the City Council, with the future of the Wild Orchid's location hanging in the balance, and residents of the Ponderosa Hotel seemingly caught in the gentrification winds, Thyne believes the outcome is inevitable.

"I think that a lot of people want downtown Reno to just turn into one big UNR campus and I think it's sort of heading that way," he said. "I mean as it stands now, I guess they are still seemingly going to kick the strip clubs out.  I guess the Ponderosa residents will probably all have to leave because they can't afford their rent and I'm sure the Ponderosa will get torn down and turned into like Whole Foods or something," he concluded.

 Interview with Our Town Reno in May 2018

Legendary Baby Bleu, A Homeless Prostitute Striving for Better Days

Legendary Baby Bleu, 24, has an active Go Fund Me page, Instagram, Twitter, and a couple of polished websites offering her services. She is trying to rebrand herself as "Reno's Little Princess". She also has a backpack full of drawings and books with life plans.  What she doesn't have is a home.

"So I'm homeless right now," she said during a recent interview on the UNR campus, where she spends hours inside quietly working on her websites and journals.  "But I'm dressed well. I do my best to shower and still do my makeup so I can walk around and smile. But it's hot outside, and my legs hurt. I've been walking from north to south Reno, maybe just because I'm killing time."

Growing Up into Prostitution and Brothels

She spent part of her teenage years in shelters with her mom in California, a time she became a cutter. (Listen to her poem above).  Her aunts gave her tips on how to be a prostitute, as they were, and when she came to Reno, she followed in their footsteps while still a young teenager going to Hug High.

"I started working when I was 16," she says. "I just basically walked from school to downtown. A couple of guys would pick me up here and there and then eventually I was making like $1,200 a week.  With this one guy, we would do these crazy threesomes."

After going back to California and being arrested a dozen times there and doing community service, she was advised by a judge and social worker to work legally in a brothel, which she did for a couple of years in Elko. She was making about $50,000 a year, she says, but eventually she was back to being a prostitute for herself, finding the brothel work stifling. 

"It's hard, because it's like an institution," she says. "You work when you work, and then when you're off of work, you can do whatever you want, but it's still locked down. You're not going to your friend's house around the corner, and I'll be right back.... You're at work and you're not allowed to leave the brothel even if you're not working."

Her journal is full of sketches and detailed to do lists for all her entrepreneurial ideas.

Sober but Struggling

She says she was living in an apartment with a boyfriend last year, but that when things got nasty between them in the fall, she says she had no choice but to be homeless again.

When we met her, she said she had been off alcohol and cocaine for six weeks, drinking lots of Red Bull and doing arts and crafts to stay sober. She now avoids shelters, where she doesn't get along with other homeless, so she hops around between motel rooms, whether she is working or not as a prostitute, and a few secret spots, "on the concrete or in somebody's grass", where she tries to avoid police.

"The birds chirping will wake me up and that's right when the sun is coming up. I try and go somewhere with a public restroom and that way I can wash my face up real quick, and do a little makeup or something with my hair," she says of her early morning routine. "And then I wait until I can get into the Eddy House. Luckily I can still go to the Eddy House (a drop-in center on 6th street for street adult youths), as I'm still under 25.  They have a shower there and they also have food and groups."

She said she had recently gotten her ID stolen, so she was trying to figure how to get that back.  She also said she had applied for several regular jobs, but repeatedly got turned down, and was giving up on that. Now, she spends a lot of time in libraries across town, working on her own ideas and web presence. 

Legendary Baby Bleu (right) has been seeking help from different organizations as well as reaching out to help with their own programs, such as with Alejandra Hernandez Chavez (left) who works with ACTIONN, a faith-based organization working on social justice issues including affordable housing.

'No Sex Trafficking' or Pimps in Reno

Despite what others say, including activists, politicians and organizations, Legendary Baby Bleu doesn't believe there is sex trafficking going on in Reno.

She says there is widespread "guerrilla pimping" in southern Nevada and California but not in the Reno area. She says she believes some who make these claims have something to gain by saying there is lots of sex trafficking. She says 4th street is now mostly "trannies" working on their own trying to get some money.

"Guerrilla pimps are people who forcibly take women. In SoCal and southern Nevada, they just sell girls back and forth.... There's a ton of girls like me who started prostituting at 16 and then you meet the girls from Oakland who started prostituting at like 12 because they're guerilla pimped and then that's kind of the only skills that they know.... But there's no sex trafficking going on in this area. It's all the girls' choice here. You don't even need a pimp anymore.... I mean, usually when you meet guys in this industry, they're your age and they're trying to figure it out, the same stuff you are. So it's not like working for, it's more like working with. But I've never had a pimp. I've always had boyfriends. They would like to be pimps, but they're like emotional."

She has the marks to prove she was a cutter, but she says she is resilient, and will also survive her current ordeals. 

Trying to Reverse a Downward Slope

"Just because I present myself a certain way, doesn't mean it's not horrible," she says.  She tried going back to live with some of her family in California, but that didn't work out either.

"By the time you get to the end of the day, you're just exhausted. My legs hurt, my feet are constantly swollen. My makeup has become more raggedy," she says.

She didn't show up for a third meeting for a planned interview.  A recent Instagram post from a few days ago partly said: "I did everything on my own until October 2017 when I fell off ..... I hate that they hate me and ruined me for no reason. But I will get everything back by myself like I always do." 

Interviews by Our Town Reno in Spring 2017

Amy, Kicked out of the Ponderosa

Amy, a struggling sketchbook portrait artist who moves back and forth between Arizona and Reno, is sitting outside the Ponderosa, hoping a previous acquaintance will invite her in for the night, but the receptionist keeps pushing her away.  "This isn't a flophouse," the receptionist says.  "I'm tired of this place," she adds. "The music is too loud everywhere ... and people don't have their IDs like they're supposed to." 

Amy used to live here and says it's better now, with more rules and fewer drugs, but that when she lived at the Ponderosa she wasn't "a good person." She says she got in trouble and that now for some reason she's banned. She doesn't give too many specifics.

"It's a good place to be short term," she says, "but long term, it's best to make other plans." Still for one night here and there, she says "it's good enough, if I was welcome."

Some amenities have been cut down at the Ponderosa, as indicated by the above sign. 

Life at the Ponderosa

The lobby entrance is filled with fifty and sixty somethings, many of them in wheelchairs, many of them with tiny dogs.

If they can afford it and aren't kicked out, Amy says, "it's ok. They just need a place where they can lock their door and try to be happy and well inside." Amy says ambulances often come by for people who are sick or also for those who overdose or have bad reactions.  "There's drugs," she says, "heroin and meth.  But people are pretty discrete about it."

She said when she lived here, she was in a bad relationship and also had a drinking and gambling problem.

"I messed it up for myself by gambling," she says of her life. "Gambling is not a good thing. I have also been conned, scammed, railroaded for money …..  I borrowed money to gamble more," she said. "You make mistakes and there are repercussions. There is balance in the universe."

She says she now gets a monthly Social Security Disability Insurance benefit of $740, and tries to make money by salvaging, and reselling what she finds for people who hold regular yard sales. 

Despite what she says are frequent cockroaches, she sometimes misses sleeping inside. "I got pneumonia from too much freezing and thawing outside.  But other motels, where I don't know all the seedy people, I don't want that," she says.  Monthly rent at the Ponderosa can still be had for below $800 and Amy says she'd be happy to come back.

A few minutes after our interview, Amy had left into the night, looking for a camping spot. 

Back on the Streets

Amy says she usually finds spots to camp in alleys in Sparks or Reno. She doesn't like the main shelter or where homeless like her congregate.

"Oh yeah I want to listen to old guys bickering, whining and screaming and bugs," she says. "No! I’m a camper. "

She says she's also been kicked out of a local RV camp, but stays despite all the challenges because she has two kids who live here.

But she says she does want to go back to Arizona where she also has family and used to help people she knows there with furniture refurnishing. She also used to make and sell walking sticks.  

"Maybe one day, I could write a book about homelessness in Reno," she says. "It’s a sad place. It needs a lot of help. Lots of people are sad here," she says before packing her bags, and thanking us for a cigarette.

 

Stevi Goletto, Finding the Time and the Courage to be Kind

Food Not Bombs Reno and Hairstylists Along the River

As she helped organize hairdressers parking alongside the river and another Monday evening food distribution, Goletto said "not good", when asked about the number of tents currently propped up along the very high Truckee River.

"Gentrification is happening," she said. "We are dealing with that and we have 25-40 over in this area, and 15-20 over there, just in this tiny part. It says a lot about how rent these days is theft essentially and how we're falling into that trap and we're just excluding people."

She said the idea of adding free haircuts was important in combating some of that exclusion.

"Our friends by the river can't always get a haircut so we just asked people if they would like to help and we got a really good response," she said of hairdressers from Maxwell's Barbershop and Tabu who showed up. "People did want to help. Good haircuts, they make us feel so much better and cleaner, and it makes us feel included. A big part of the lives of our friends by the river is exclusion and feeling lesser of a person, and so we are all about solidarity and we are here to show them that we are all equal. Having a haircut, feeling like you're just like everyone else is important," she said.

"I do believe camping should be legal. I don't understand why there's a problem with that," Golleto said. "We have a lot of old motels and housing that we can really make into affordable housing or even free housing for our homeless. Other cities have done this. We need to give and not be greedy." 

Relying on Help Previously and Now Helping Others

Goletto works as a photographer, photo editor, artist and as an assistant gallery manager in Carson City at Western Nevada College. She says it's important even with her busy schedule to find time to help others, as she once was helped.

"I think it's important to show people how much we need solidarity, how much we need equality," she said. "This is the way that I can show it. This is the way I can be a part of it. Being busy is not an excuse."

She also knows first hand the difference these types of events can make in a person's life.

"When I was in high school, I actually couch hopped a lot, so I didn't really have a stable home life," she said. "I grew up very poor in the Bay Area and in central California. It was actually through programs like Food Not Bombs and the Salvation Army that some days I wouldn't have eaten without these people. I've come through a few precarious situations but things like this, and the love of strangers, who had faith in me and they didn't even know who I was, was the most beautiful thing I've probably ever experienced."

"Food Not Bombs Reno ... we are an anarchist collective. We are all about that food is not a privilege it's a right. We believe in solidarity for everyone and we are all about hands on action. We're not a charity at all," Golleto said. "We are just friends helping friends as equals and that's our purpose and that's what we do. We see a problem and we do our best to fight it." 

Joining In

Dozens of people lined up for the food and many of them also walked away with new haircuts. Volunteers for Food Not Bombs includes teenagers, college students, young professionals and retirees. Goletto says anyone tempted to join on a Monday around 5:30 pm is more than welcome. Businesses can also reach out she said if they want to offer food.

"Come on by. We would love to have you," she said. "We all make food from our own kitchens. We also have local places donate. Every single one of us it comes from pure love and from our heart. We don't ask for anything. We just want to be here. A lot of us know what it's like to need someone. It's every Monday without fail at 5:30 pm. You can bring something that you make. We usually feed between 30 and 50 people. When it's a nice beautiful warm day, we've gotten 50 plus. If you feel like you can't bring anything, or you're not sure, just bring yourself and you're always welcome. Just say 'hey I'm here and I want to help'. That's all you need to do."

Other Food Not Bombs volunteers prepared the food.  Goletto said she would like our culture to be less judgmental of those in need. "We say 'oh I worked hard, I deserve this. And they didn't just work hard, they did drugs and that's why they are there, so they don't deserve my help. I'm going to just do nothing,'" she said. "But I don't think any person has the right to judge another person. Or what they need, or what help they deserve.  And if we can just have empathy and have the courage to be kind, that is important. Just open your heart. Just maybe look outside money and look outside greed."

"We all Need Somebody"

"Time I personally don't really have it, but I do it anyways, because I'm no better than these people and I've been in tough places in my life, and we all need somebody to be there for us and sometimes strangers are the best people with the kindest hearts, and so to see people, it feels good to know there are others out there who have love for you, who are helping you, so that is what inspires me," Goletto concluded before getting back to coordinating the event, as those helped ate their meals and went back along the river. "My inspiration comes from I feel good. It makes me feel good knowing that I am doing more for others and not just for myself. "

Interviews and Reporting by Our Town Reno on a recent Monday Evening along the Truckee River

Lisa Lee, Pushing Back Against the Tsunami of Opioid Addiction

Despite recent improvements in combating the epidemic, more than one Nevadan a day still dies from an opioid-related overdose. On the third floor of the Northern Nevada HOPES building on 5th street, members of the Reno community recently gathered together to address this very serious issue. A panel of experts in different fields including a judge, police officers, and community leaders gave their viewpoints on how to help addicts.

The event was officially titled The Northern Nevada Opioid Awareness Summit, and according to organizer Lisa Lee of the Life Change Center, a recovering addict herself, the goal of the event was to “bring the community together and to get us talking about these things.”

Talking to Addicts Directly

If we want to help an addict, we asked Lee, how should we start? 

"I would like you to tell them that someone gives a shit about you, that even when you feel like no one cares about you there's somebody out there that still thinks you're worthwhile and that there's a way out of this. You know there is a way out of this and there's people that will gladly help you. All you have to do is say, 'hey you know I I don't want to do this anymore'. I think everyday ordinary citizens should stop judging other people and start connecting with other people. And the thing that I think we tend to do as human beings, if we see somebody struggling, we push away. We're like 'oh man, you're messed up ...' You know we push away and that further isolates somebody and can really spiral that behavior by pushing away. And I think what we need to do more of is lean in and be like 'I see you struggling. How can I best support you and let that person answer for his or herself? Not with all of your ideas and judgments about how you can fix them and your solutions to how to fix them. But hear from them like how can I best support you? What do you need from me?"

Picking up a pamphlet can be the beginning of seeking out help, and getting on the road to recovery. Photo by Jordan Gearey for Our Town Reno. 

Compassion over Judgment or Not Talking About It

"Sometimes it's a hug," Lee said of what an addict might need to start helping themselves.  "Sometimes it's just to have somebody notice you. You noticed me right. You see me. You didn't judge me. Lean in. That's what I think we can do. We need to talk about Grandma taking her opiates. We need to talk about your son, your daughter. Like stop hiding that stuff from other people ...  talk about it. It can't get better if we don't talk about it. And that's where the judgment comes in. And you know, it's like nobody wants to talk about their uncle that just overdosed last week. You know nobody wants to talk about Grandma who fell in the living room because she forgot she took her oxi and then she forgot and she took another oxi. Oh my gosh, like we don't want anybody to know this. We need to talk about this."

The conference room was filled. Microphones were passed among the crowd where people could voice their concerns about substance abuse, or asked questions about what is being done. 

Requests for More Funding

Sgt. Wade Clark of the Reno Police Department stated that “we cannot enforce our way out of this.” 

John Firestone, the Executive Director of the Life Change Center, asked for the city's help in terms of additional funding.

The Northern Nevada Awareness Summit plans to have two more similar community meetings in the near few future in both Carson City and Fallon. For those wishing to attend a future meeting they can visit http://www.tlccreno.org/ for more information.

Story by Jordan Gearey and Prince Nesta for Our Town Reno

Jordan Hughes, Worried about Reno's Growing Divide Between Rich and Poor

"It's also about the divide between the rich and the poor that is increasing that also brings me here. There is a crisis on our hands and people are losing their homes and we are not seeing wages increasing. The fact of the matter is it will bring more homeless people to the streets," Hughes who is a student at the School of Social Work at UNR, said of Reno's current development.

"A lot of times, we see people building all these nice gates and nice big homes keeping themselves away from impoverished areas and the distancing drives the separation. People should remember that the people on the streets are still people and no matter how they appear or the actions that they make, it could happen to a lot of people, so they should just remember to have a human heart inside of them."

Photo and Interview by Prince Nesta for Our Town Reno

A View from City Council and David Bobzien: "We're Going to Have Growing Pains"

In this Q and A with Our Town Reno reporter Robyn Feinberg, Bobzien weighs in on the council's challenges with economic change, making downtown more attractive to local residents, more inspections in motels, losing local history amid development, impacts on affordable housing and the rise in homelessness among other hot button growth related topics.

Robyn Feinberg: Why did you decide to run for City Council and what does the job entail?

David Bobzien: Before I served on the council, I represented pretty much the urban core of Reno in Assembly District 24. The last issue that I was involved with in the legislature was the Tesla Special Session; so following that session and securing the Gigafactory, it was very apparent to me that our community was going to face some tremendous opportunity as a result of that, but also some tremendous challenges when it comes to growth in particular. And what it would mean for our quality of life, and what it would mean for our community, our community character going forward. So, as it happened, a couple of months later, the 2014 election happened and Hillary Schieve was elected mayor, thus creating a vacancy on the council in the at-large position, and I was encouraged to run, and it lined up really well for me because I sort of realized ...'You know what, I feel a certain responsibility to be there, to help with the situation, having played a part in the Tesla Special Session.' The opportunity to work on these very local issues was something that was very appealing to me, so that’s why I applied and was selected by the council to serve out the rest of her [Schieve’s] term, and then I stood for election in 2016, and to this day, all of the concerns I had about what is this going to mean for our growth, what’s it going to mean for our population, and what’s it going to mean for all these pressures of this rebounding economy - a lot of that is coming true and so I feel grateful and lucky that I am able to be there to work on this stuff and try to make things a little bit better.

"We get tons of emails, tons of phone calls, we get tons of public comment all the time, but that’s our job and it is our job to get stopped in the community, and stopped in the grocery store, and hear people's perspectives and opinions on different issues," Bobzien said of the City Council's role. Photo by Robyn Feinberg

Robyn Feinberg: Going off of that, how do you see the future of Reno, especially in light of all of the development with companies such as Tesla coming in, and the effects it’s having on the city’s economy?

David Bobzien: I am cautiously optimistic. I don’t want to say that everything is going to be great, and everyone is going to have jobs and all of these problems are going to sort themselves out. We have real challenges, we have real issues that we have to deal with. But I still would rather have this reality than the reality I had of my constituents during the downturn/great recession, where I’ll never forget, knocking on doors during campaign season in say 2010, and where every fourth house was foreclosed, and every third or fourth conversation I would have at the door was somebody with a spouse who had been out of work for eight months. It was bad. This new energy and economic resurgence, I would much rather have this than those previous conditions. Now that said, I think we have a lot of challenges in making sure that those opportunities are available for everyone, and that as we go through this period of growth and resurgence, we’re creating long-lasting prosperity for everybody, and in such a way that we don’t lose what it means to live in a really cool city. Things are going to change, things are going to be different, we’re going to have growing pains and not everyone is going to be happy with some of the things they see, but I want this to be a community that twenty years from now, I can feel like we didn’t get everything right, but we got a lot of it right, and my children are now starting families here and they’re proud to call Reno their hometown and they’re still here.

"There was a variety of things that were done, clean-ups, graffiti abatement, and one of the bigger picture items was a loan to knock down one of the boarded up hotels that had been vacant and that got turned into the Playa Art Project that we have on Virginia street," Bobzien said of the so-called fight on blight, criticized by some as further reducing affordable housing options.

Robyn Feinberg: I read that $1 million dollars has been spent fighting blight in Reno and cleaning it up, can you talk about that and who or what were the targets with the money spent?

David Bobzien: Yeah, it’s not complete. The theory was that we needed to allocate some money to make blight a priority and deal with vacant properties, and to deal with some of the problem properties that we had. There was a variety of things that were done, clean-ups, graffiti abatement, and one of the bigger picture items was a loan to knock down one of the boarded up hotels that had been vacant and that got turned into the Playa Art Project that we have on Virginia street. But more so, I think, the council’s activities have been more around how do we, the blight fund was one part of it for downtown, but how do we incentivize, and how do we get business investment and residents to be downtown, thereby creating more vibrancy all around for downtown. And so certainly the business improvement district that we unanimously voted to go forward with at the last council meeting is a big step in that direction. In a lot of ways we are catching up to what many other cities around the country already do, big and small, we’ll [Reno] be the first one in Nevada, which will be good, but the hope there is a new partnership for downtown residents, business owners, certainly gaming and the casinos, for everyone to kind of come together and realize that if they’re not talking to each other and not working together, people will always complain about downtown being a place that they don’t want to be. So, this is the way to get us to a downtown that more people want to be in.

Robyn Feinberg: Would you say that this is the end-goal for the council, getting people to want to be in downtown and live there and Reno in general?

David Bobzien: Absolutely. And to be proud of downtown. I think that for a long time, I’ve lived, it will be 21 years in May, but I’ve been in Reno, and when I got here the joke was 'Oh, nobody goes downtown, that’s for tourists and people who want to gamble, but the rest of us don’t go downtown.' In that period of time there’s been a slow, steady progress of moving our downtown to more of a livable environment for everybody. And we have restaurants and people that have residents, we’ve got markets now, maybe we’ll have a grocery store sometime soon. So, our downtown is a place that people will no longer turn their backs on. I think for the longest time, this community kind of turned its back on downtown.

"We’ll have to see what they do. On the one hand, I think we’re very grateful that there’s investment that’s going to be made .... (but) what the actual vision is for downtown, for their [Jacobs] downtown development, I think the jury is still out to what it is they want to do. I mean, as I understand it, entertainment amenities, not just gaming but entertainment restaurants, more of a place where people are going to want to shop and eat and be in, I think is good, but we’ll have to see what their [Jacobs] true vision is for that whole area just west of downtown," Bobzien said of the Jacobs Entertainment project and ongoing demolition of motels.

Robyn Feinberg: Moving into a very recent conversation, can you talk about the Motel Inspection Program that city council is involved in. What are your thoughts on it, and motels in Reno in general?

David Bobzien: Well it’s been a very robust and hopefully very productive conversation between our city staff and code enforcement, and the motel owners themselves. I have met with motel owners and heard their concerns about the program, and they make a very important argument that you may not like them, but the fact of the matter is, these are living options for people, and I have some sympathy for that perspective. They [the motel owners] realize that they have been under the microscope, so they understand they have to engage in this conversation and try to find some ways to make their rooms and their offerings better. They’re nervous about being mandated to make major investments in cleaning up their offerings, just because they would argue that they would then have to pass that on to their tenants who may not be able to afford them. So, it’s a tricky balance, but I think it’s a good conversation and hopefully we’ll see a good sort of middle-ground there so that we can have a better sense that the conditions by which some of these motels offer their residents. It’s seniors, it’s veterans, it’s children, I mean the number of kids enrolled at say, Mt. Rose Elementary School, that live in weekly motels would probably shock most people. These are transient living conditions for a lot of families, hopefully we can find ways to improve those situations without automatically pricing people out and getting them out on the streets. Now, aside from that, there are other development efforts underway, different people looking for different strategies, about repurposing, for instance, previously used temporary camps from say industrial projects, bringing like almost dorm quality living options and placing them someplace downtown so that there are alternatives to those weekly motels. (Note: There were developments on this front after our interview took place .... https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2018/04/25/reno-council-approves-community-land-trust-create-affordable-housing-complex-reno/548224002/)

"I think also more and more people are realizing that this is a way of life for people, they have no other options. So, there may be business opportunities for others to say 'We’re going to try to find ways to provide these other housing products as a viable business option and take care of some of these housing issues that people have,'” Bobzien said of the need to provide housing for those now relying on motels.

Robyn Feinberg: So would you say that this [the housing crisis] is a difficult question for the council to answer?

David Bobzien: Well it’s a difficult one, but it’s an important one. I think that across the council, and the mayor included, we may all have our different opinions when it comes down to what it is we are actually going to do with this program, but the fact that everybody on the council understands that this is a super important conversation to have I think is good. I mean housing affordability across the spectrum, whether we’re talking about workforce housing, whether we’re talking about truly low income affordability, it’s the number one thing that we’re focused on. We know we don’t have all the answers, we know it’s a complex set of issues to work through, but everybody knows that you can’t just throw your hands up and say 'oh it’s too complex we’re not going to touch it.' We’re all trying to find ways to address this.

Robyn Feinberg: What’s the effort like on the council’s part in re-locating motel tenants whose homes were demolished, or in general for those looking for affordable housing or shelter?

David Bobzien: The efforts are somewhat ad-hoc, which is not a bad thing. I mean people are out there looking for different solutions and investigating different ideas and possibilities, but as for the council, we just had a meeting about community development block grants. I’m on the subcommittee for how we allocate those federal funds, as a for instance, right off the top, $500,00 of our allocation every year goes right to the community assistance center, so we’re up to [about] $800,000 that is the city’s portion on the community assistance center. But then we have other money, there’s almost $400,000 out there right now for trying to find some housing assistance program solutions. So, you know, there’s assistance options for people, whether it’s rent assistance, whether it’s placement, whether it’s assistance to seniors, it’s out there, it’s just difficult to scale it really, to meet the need, and we [the council] would acknowledge that. There’s a whole variety of things we’re trying to do, but there’s never enough money to deal with all of the problems.

"I think, generally, it’s becoming more acute, there’s no doubt about that... It is a west-wide problem for sure, we are not unique in the region. And I think what is different this time, in this period of our history, is that we, homelessness has always been an issue, and the city of Reno has taken a number of great steps over the years, even before I was on the council, the city took the lead to build the Community Assistance Center, before that we didn’t have anything. But now where we’re at, clearly there’s people just kind of on the knife-edge of slipping into homelessness because of one rent increase or say an injury on the job, or some other life circumstance that happens, then boom, they plunge into homelessness. That’s probably the most heartbreaking thing about this right now, feeling like we’re [the council] trying to do as much as we can, and we are doing more, but knowing that those tragedies, those problems, are going to keep coming," Bobzien said when asked about homelessness in Reno.

Robyn Feinberg: Is there this worry on the council that homelessness in Reno is correlated to development and prices going up, with companies coming in and wanting to “revamp” downtown?

David Bobzien: Yes, absolutely. There’s no doubt about it that the numbers and the statistics, the data is pretty stark, that housing affordability, generally across the spectrum, is an issue for our region. Rents are going up, housing prices are going up, it just stands to reason that those pressures are real and will result in more and more people having to make difficult choices about their budget and what they’re going to do, and how their day-to-day lives are going to go.

"Certainly the motels are a big part of our twentieth-century history and a number of them are going to be purchased and are not going to be there anymore, but hopefully there’s a few developers out there that have the wherewithal and the capital and the interest to reuse some of those and repurpose those," Bobzien said of disappearing motels.  These motel structures and signs still standing earlier this year are now gone.

Robyn Feinberg: Are you worried that Reno will be losing some of its history with all of this development, such as the vintage motel signs and old buildings that are now gone? I know that this particular topic is important for historians in the area.

David Bobzien: No, I mean we are clearly shifting into a new chapter of Reno and I think that’s certainly a worry, that, you know, the past is, if we’re not careful, will slip away pretty quickly. But, I’m confident, based on how I’ve watched other cities over the years go through these sorts of changes. Boise, Idaho, is a good one that comes to mind, you know there are plenty of models out there of cities that have transitioned into new economic chapters that have done a good job of rehabilitating historic properties and not losing all vestiges of what came before...  I had some friends come in from out-of-town (recently), and so we went out to dinner to The Depot, and that was a perfect example of a building that sat vacant and empty with no sort of economic use for so long, and thankfully somebody had a vision, came in, made the investment, and they have a thriving business downtown with a historic building. Again, can you scale that to what degree is that going to apply to your entire cityscape, it’s as of yet unknown, but there’s certainly hope off of that happening that’s encouraging.

Robyn Feinberg: A particular focus of mine for this project is that Reno is facing a “moral dilemma.” On one hand you have the revitalization of beautiful, old buildings for casual dining such as The Depot, but does that come at the price of people who are already living here and are now being priced out through these gentrification efforts. Do you feel that dilemma, is there that moral dilemma?

David Bobzien: Absolutely, and I, again, for me it returns to ... I would rather have these problems than the problems we had during the Great Recession with high unemployment rates, across all the neighborhoods, people were in difficult times. With this economic resurgence, people are generally doing better, there’s more prosperity in our community, but that is not a reason to turn and look away, and understand that it’s putting a really acute pressure on a select segment of our community that are definitely feeling the pinch. You’re right, there’s people that have been living in some of these situations for a long, long time under the previous chapter of Reno and now that’s changing, and where does that go. I think that weighs on everybody on the council, the mayor as well.

Bobzien welcomes new development and more businesses coming in, but does not deny these changes come with pressure points which need to be worked on, such as higher rents in new places and an affordable housing crisis for residents on fixed or lower incomes.

Robyn Feinberg: To wrap things up, from your perspective, what can you say about the council’s efforts and the part you are playing in this overall conversation? I know there’s a lot of conversation going on with different points of view on where Reno is headed and the council’s part in it.

David Bobzien: I think in this political time in particular, it’s disappointing that where we are as a society is that folks are super quick to label and judge, assign roles and simple perspectives and opinions on someone they may have a disagreement with. That ultimately doesn’t help the real conversation that we need to have as a community about what the future looks like. I’ve always said this, that in Nevada, compared to many other places, California being a perfect example, our elected officials are amazingly accessible. Sometimes it takes a little bit to get on their calendars, but for the most part, you can stop your city council member, or your state legislator, in the grocery store. Last night I was out, my two nine year-old sons were at a Cub Scout event at a trampoline place, and I had a mom come sit down next to me because her kid was also jumping around, and we had this 30 minutes conversation about housing options for people on fixed income. Those opportunities abound and so I always encourage people to not go into anything with a preconceived perception of what someone else believes or feels or values. And if you just have those conversations with people, you’ll be amazed at how much ground you can cover and the impact you can have. We get tons of emails, tons of phone calls, we get tons of public comment all the time, but that’s our job and it is our job to get stopped in the community, and stopped in the grocery store, and hear people's perspectives and opinions on different issues.

Note: Parts of the interview were trimmed and some questions and comments were edited for clarity with no change to the original content or meaning.

Reporting by Robyn Feinberg for Our Town Reno

Why not Repurpose rather than Demolish? A Local Historian and a Realtor Speak Up

Too Late to Save?

Taking a walk along fourth street in downtown Reno can be a quiet journey these days. Where many motels once stood, there are now vacant lots with chain-link fences around them. Other, soon-to-be demolished motels are also fenced off, while those that are still standing are being offered money to shut down as well. The famed Chapel of the Bells, which closed its doors in February and sold to Jacobs Entertainment, is also set for demolition later this year.  The two buildings that used to surround it have already been taken down. The flow of foot traffic around these areas has steadily declined, as many people now stick to the more crowded, less vacant areas of the Biggest Little City.

Alicia Barber, a writer, historian and consultant worries about old significant structures being caught up in the sudden sell off.

“A lot of historic properties seem to be threatened in a way that they weren’t before due to all sorts of different types of development...from local developers, out-of-state developers, like Jacobs Entertainment, who’s been demolishing the motels lately, but then also the growth of the university, which was in a kind of pause mode for a while with the recession,” she said.

With so many recent demolitions in Reno, bulldozing away mid-century architecture with a distinct aesthetic form, social media activists and volunteers have begun to appeal to the city in favor of saving the structures that have yet to meet the same fate.

A recent screengrab from the Facebook group Mid-Century Modern Reno which has been looking closely at some of the historic properties caught up in the Jacobs Entertainment buy off along 4th street.

Erasing History?

“What makes cities different, what attracts people to different cities, are the unique qualities that city has. If you erase your history you just become like any [American] town, where there aren’t any really defining characteristics,” said Barrie Lynn, a realtor and chair of the advocacy council for the Historic Reno Preservation Society. “And so I think that a lot of people really don’t understand the connection between sense of place and historic preservation, the stories that make the city unique...just from my perspective as a realtor, people really do care about that.”

Both Barber and Lynn are advocating for what is called adaptive reuse of older structures in Reno when they aren't at the point of what they call necessary demolition. The two actively voice their concern about the rapid demolitions taking place, as they feel there is a worrisome lack of public discussion or input, both from historical and social perspectives.

The building of the Eldorado and parts of I80 in the early 1970s had a huge impact on Reno's core. Photo from http://www.onlinenevada.org/about-4th-street-prater-way-history-project 

Nothing New? 

Barber said that she feels Reno has been losing its historic and communal character since 1973, when the Eldorado casino was built, wiping out an entire city block. Adding to that, in 1974, the completion of Interstate 80 through Reno and Sparks significantly impacted residential portions of both cities, including nineteenth-century Victorian houses that Barber is petitioning to save from university construction and relocation.

“Reno didn’t really retain a vision of how to keep a sense of its own historic character and identity and continuity as it moved forward, and there’s always been this strong influence of business and economics in determining what the physical landscape would look like,” Barber said. “And the big transformations that happened with the hotel casinos in the 1970s just fundamentally changed downtown forever, I mean not just in its appearance, but in its whole function.”

With the long-time, continuous development of Reno, as well as massive structures of hotel casinos, such as the Eldorado and Silver Legacy taking up numerous blocks, downtown has become varied in its uses, including for lower-income housing in the numerous motels dotted around town.

The motels that make up the unique signage of Reno played an important role during the past century, and still do, housing weekly tenants during the lows of tourism, and the highs of more expensive hotels and housing in a growing economy.

“These motels have been a part of this gradual, decades long process where a lot of the different components of downtown have become places for lower-income residents to live, and there really aren’t a lot of options for them,” Barber said.

The Displacement that Ensues

“These motels have been a part of this gradual, decades long process where a lot of the different components of downtown have become places for lower-income residents to live, and there really aren’t a lot of options for them,” Barber said.

Barber said that one of the most discouraging aspects of demolitions, especially of motels, is the displacement that follows.

“It’s terrible, I think one of the most difficult aspects, and one of the most frustrating aspects of seeing this recent wave of demolitions of motels is that there’s no plan even for what will replace them, there doesn’t seem to be a plan to replace them with anything anytime soon,” Barber said.

“So, you can’t even evaluate the loss of that structure and the housing that it represents, and the loss to the people, not only current residents, but potential future residents, I mean these are very fluid populations who live in these motels and the remaining motels downtown.”

While it has been reported that Jacobs Entertainment helped some of those who were displaced by motel demolitions, Barber said she was worried about the loss of those motels  for others going forward, especially since the landscape they once sat on is not being used for anything at the moment.

“You can’t just like re-house the residents who happen to be in a motel at any given moment and then say 'Well, you solved the problem,' because those people now have a place to live, other future people who might have needed that place now don’t have that as an option,” Barber said. “So, to see these structures that at the very least are shelter for people who need a roof over their heads, to see them being demolished without anything in their place that benefits anyone, is really, I think, a huge slap in the face.”

While Reno has changed in recent decades, casinos, even if not as profitable as they once were, remain a major force downtown.

Reinventing Reno and Reuse

“It’s hard to understand, but I think what you see there, that is part of this great desire to reinvent Reno and reinvent its image, is that those motels, despite the fact that they’ve been important residences for disadvantaged populations, are seen as a problem,” Barber said. “They’ve been defined as blight, and they’ve basically been defined as something ugly and makes Reno look bad...that’s just an obsession with image instead of a recognition of what’s really needed at this time.”

Barber and Lynn both agreed on the idea of adaptive reuse of structures in Reno, meaning that the city would instead maintain the original structures of buildings set for demolition and redevelop what is already there.

“People think, 'Oh, it’s out of code let’s just tear it down, it’s unsafe,' but there’s a difference between a building that needs code upgrades and a building that is structurally unsound, and one that is in danger of falling down,” Lynn said. “Buildings that need code upgrades you can do seismic retrofitting to protect it from earthquakes, you could enlarge window openings...there’s things that you can do to make a building safer. If a building is not in imminent danger of falling down, there’s not really a good reason to demolish it unless you have plans to redevelop that exact parcel.”

Lynn is worried that not only is misinformation being spread regarding these demolitions, but that it also hinders investment and future development.

“A vacant lot really sends a message of desertion and disinvestment, and it can deter other investment. And so once you demolish a building, you take away any future potential for that building to be reused, you take all of those options off the table, so, if there’s not an immediate need to redevelop a lot, and as long as a building isn’t in danger of falling down, I think that there are a number of reasons to not demolish that building,” Lynn said. “It’s far more expensive to build from the ground up then it is to renovate an existing building, and I just think there’s a lot of misinformation about blighted buildings, the cost of bringing buildings up to code, and when is a building actually structurally unsound, I think there’s just a lot of misinformation about that.”

Lynn’s biggest concern is that Jacobs Entertainment will take years to complete their proposed Fountain District, and in that time, could decide to pull out, leaving vacant, undeveloped lots behind.

“I think that not having any assurance that this project is going to come to completion is troubling, and I think that it sets us up to be in a position where basically we’ve allowed someone to become too big to fail, where we would have to subsidize them if things went downhill," Lynn said on fears Jacobs Entertainment might leave empty lots for years.

A Closer Look at What Blight Means

Lynn and Barber also agreed that there needs to be a community-wide discussion about blight, as they see it as completely fixable.

“I think it’s [blight] being totally misused in Reno...I think it’s being used to mean unattractive, ugly, deteriorating. But, when I think of blight in terms of how its defined in urban studies in planning, a blighted area is one that’s been basically abandoned. We look at a blighted area as a place where property ownership is probably so fragmented or unknown that there really isn’t even a sense that someone has a responsibility to this area, and that person could actually improve it if they wanted to,” Barber said. “So, that word is being used today for structures and areas where we know who owns the area, we know who owns that structure, we know that they’re actually a affluent person, or they’re a group of people, or property investors, who are just allowing structures to become dilapidated or unused, or deteriorating because they’re holding onto that property because they want to sell it at a later date, and they want to make some money.”

Barber said that using the term blight so loosely lets a lot of property owners off the hook who should assume responsibility of the property.

“We’re hearing a lot of high ranking officials just kind of citing their friends who say 'Oh, it’s beyond repair, it’s beyond hope.' Well, there are experts who can say whether things are beyond repair or hope,” Barber said of how blight is discussed in Reno.

Renovating Rather than Demolishing

Lynn held similar sentiments, giving examples of adaptive reuse that have happened in Reno.

“Far too many times I’ve seen something demolished and we’re still looking at the vacant lot. I can give you dozens of examples, and sometimes what you’ve got is a structure that sits there that everyone thinks is so ugly, and it should be demolished, then all of a sudden someone comes along and they beautify it and then you’re like, wow,” Lynn said. “Thankfully, they had that to work with, to start with, the Kings Inn is a prime example, which is now the Third Street Flats. That sat vacant for 40 years, and it was considered a nuisance, it was considered blighted, but I tell you what, if that had been demolished, I don’t think we would be looking at anything on that site right now, we’d still be looking at a vacant lot. I don’t think it would have happened.”

“I think that, yes, blight is an actual thing, but a vacant lot can be blight, and I think that we need to be looking at a lot more ways to actually cure blight that involve building up a property rather than breaking it down. Renovating rather than demolishing.”

Reporting by Robyn Feinberg for Our Town Reno

Abbi Whitaker, Leading a PR Agency Amid Reno’s “Revolution”

Working for the Mayor and Jacobs Entertainment

On her bio for the abbi agency, co-founder and president, Abbi Whitaker, says she thinks “Reno is the most underestimated place in the United States” and that she’s “proud to be part of the revolution.”

The Stratford-upon-Avon native, from England’s West Midlands, who moved to Fallon when she was 12, and graduated from the Journalism Department at UNR in 2003, opened the downtown pr agency with her sister in 2008.   Right now, she is in the middle of development and politics, working both for Mayor Hillary Schieve's re-election campaign and for the Jacobs Entertainment group, which has been buying up property, and bulldozing away motels, leaving empty lots behind and plenty of concerns as to exact plans.

In the interview, Whitaker referred to Jeffrey Jacobs, the CEO of Colorado-based Jacobs Entertainment as Jeff, and admitted she was also in the dark for what the future holds.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know what all of Jeff’s plans are right now. He is a person that is not going to come out with a big splash and talk about ‘I’m going to do all of this, this, this, and this.’ He’s going to make sure that he has his plans in place and that that he knows what he’s doing, and then he’s going to talk about it," she said.

"So, I know a lot of people are like ‘We want to know what’s happening with Jeff Jacobs.’ I can tell you that Jeff Jacobs is doing all of his due diligence, and doing all of his homework so that he’s not going to over promise and under deliver. I can tell you he is a super compassionate man that came into this town and the first thing he asked is, ‘how can I help? What can I give to? How can we make sure that these people are not put on the streets?’ I wouldn’t work for someone that wasn’t like that. I’m a very progressive person in my political beliefs, and in who I am, but I’m also very pragmatic, and I believe that you need to bring all different sides together to solve a problem. And I look at the people I work with as being like that. So, I can’t tell you what Jeff is going to do because I don’t know yet,” she said when asked about why new plans for the downtown area haven’t been unveiled yet.

The Keno and El Ray motels are now long gone, replaced by an empty lot as part of Jacobs Entertainment plans. Photo by Robyn Feinberg for Our Town Reno.

A Lost Reno?

We also asked her if she was worried that the Reno we know would now be lost amid what some people might call the “glitziness” of Jacobs Entertainment, primarily a gaming casino company, which has also purchased horse tracks and aquariums in other states.

“I don’t think Reno would let that happen,” Whitaker said. “I think Reno has a really loud voice, and I think that Reno is a small community where every voice is heard. And I think that every person that comes in to invest in our neighborhoods knows that, and they pay a lot of attention and a lot of time to make sure they’re listening and hearing that. I think …. Fourth Street needs to be cleaned up. I drive down there every single day and it breaks my heart sometimes, some of the stuff I see, some of the women that I know are being trafficked, some of the people I know need transitional housing, or have mental health issues, we have to clean up those areas of our city, we can’t just pretend that it’s fine the way it is. So, we have someone that’s willing to come in and help us do that and I think that’s a great thing,” she said. 

Unlike others, she says she is not a defender of motels.

“Have you ever been inside of them? So, I have to, and the conditions were deplorable, there was no kitchen, there’s asbestos. I mean they were just falling apart. And that’s not the kind of place where we need people living. So, I know that people were like ‘Save the motels, we need to reconstruct them. If you’ve come inside and looked at them, that’s not viable, that’s not going to happen. I work for Jeff Jacobs, who is doing a lot of the development on Fourth Street, and when I look at Jeff and see someone that is giving a million dollars to the Reno Housing Authority, that is building senior housing, that is focused on coming in and putting a lot of money into redeveloping an area, but also really hyper-focused on making sure that those people that were living there are okay, every person, they did not kick any people out of motels, they gave people bridge money to go in to other living situations, they helped helped them transition, that’s how it should be. " (Note: This information was not independently verified by Our Town Reno)

"Is everybody going to be happy? Are people going to be upset about x, y, and z? Of course, but Reno’s evolving, Reno is gentrifying, Reno is cleaning up areas where there (is) a lot of crime, and a lot of poverty, and a lot of drugs, and a lot of sex trafficking. The sex trafficking that goes on in those motels is absolutely disgusting. We need to clean it all out,” she said.

"I employ thirty people, I want these thirty people to be able to buy homes, that is super important to me. I own a company where the brain trust is the value that is here, like I don’t have equipment, I have really smart people. I want those really smart people to be able to live here and be able to afford to live here. So, I think as soon as we get more inventory online, we have a real lack of inventory, it’s a supply and demand issue right now, as soon as we get more inventory online then we’re going to see the housing prices and the rents equal out," Whitaker said of concerns for her own staff amid a local affordable housing crisis. Photo by Robyn Feinberg for Our Town Reno.

Developers Have a Bad Rap

Whitaker says she feels people often give developers a bad rap. 

“They think of developers and think, 'Oh,' and I’m like, well, you should sit down and have a conversation with some of them sometime, and you should see what they give back to this community, and where their hearts are at and everything. It’s interesting how people get painted sometimes without taking the time to get to know them.” 

Our Town Reno once spent time with the so-called relocation manager for Jacobs Entertainment, but he spoke to us off the record.

Whitaker acknowledges that there is pressure in what she does, as Reno is currently a “hot ticket” of development, due to its proximity to California and its extremely different tax structure.

“I think it is a big, big job. With growth comes a lot of responsibility - infrastructure, education, and healthcare...a lot of responsibility,” she said.

Reporting by Robyn Feinberg for Our Town Reno

Emily Montan, A Retiree Doing the Good She Believes In

Coordinating the Shelter's Overflow Tent this Past Winter

Emily Montan, 60, a former school teacher, East Coast native, Oakland retired transplant and volunteer with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern Nevada, coordinated the recent parking lot overflow heated tent outside the downtown Record Street homeless shelter, a volunteer through the night service which began in January and ended at the end of March. She was happy the program was allowed to proceed, but still feels the city isn’t doing nearly enough to address homelessness, rampant mental illness in the Biggest Little City and the lack of affordable housing. 

“I mean putting up the tent was just a band aid onto a huge deep wound,” she said. “And so, the city needs to do a lot more to provide affordable housing to people, provide better services, mental health services, affordable mental health services. And there are so many people that came through (the tent) like there were pregnant women… People that didn't have teeth. You know we also help feed our neighbors and some of them have to eat soft food because they can't chew.”

The above Our Town Reno video includes footage from inside the overflow tent.

A Volunteer Operation

Montan says she had mixed feelings about the tent being volunteer driven but felt it was a necessary endeavor.

“Our taxes should be paying for that. But they aren't. So, we stand up… That's one thing about my church. We are all part of each other and we all help to help each other. And so, when I was asked to help, I said ‘absolutely’.”

Sadly, she says the extra tent was very much needed. “Some nights, they were so full they had double bunked them. So they had mats on this floor. They were horrible mats and then they got better mattresses and then they got bunk beds so they double bunked them. And then they had to open up the resource center (at the homeless shelter) which is really not a sleeping place … it's a place that people go who don't have homes can get mail, they can get resources to help them you know find jobs or get sober and give them training and stuff so they ended up even opening up the resource center and using the classrooms for the people who did not have homes to sleep in because everything was full.”

Two to three volunteers helped each night at the tent. Reno also uses a warehouse as another emergency overflow area on 265 Washington Street, but that is manned by employees from Volunteers of America, which also runs the main shelter on Record Street. 

Montana says she’s very proud of the other volunteers who also stepped up.

“We should help each other because we're all human and we all deserve respect,” she said.  

A screengrab of the church Montan belongs to, which does community work with ACTIONN, a faith-based advocacy group.

Challenges and Hopes for More Affordable Housing

There were many challenges including safety, rainy nights with leaks, inadequate mattresses, dealing with interactions inside the tent, and being required to keep a light on inside at all times. 

“We had to keep one light on which really disturbed me, because these people need to sleep just like everybody else. And I know some people don't like to sleep in the light. It also disturbed me that initially the mattresses they provided were like a quarter inch thick before they got the thicker mattresses and come on you know if we're going to provide sleeping shelter and beds to sleep then we should provide halfway decent ones. So of course, they were on the floor and the floor of the tent was the parking lot. So, it was kind of gross and of course a lot of these people don't have access to showers and things like that. “ 

They were also forced to get everyone out of the tent by 5:30 every morning. Montan is hoping the tent won’t be needed next winter, but she’s afraid the need might be even greater. 

She wants Nevada to imitate other states, such as California, by requiring municipalities to have a certain number of affordable units.  The California Supreme Court has also ruled for cities and counties to require developers to sell some housing at below-market rates.

“It needs to happen in Reno and in Las Vegas,” she said. “I think that we need to insist that housing a certain percentage should be affordable and that we need to help each other because we are on this planet together. And I don't just don't mean locally. But I come from a background where you act locally and you affect things globally.”

Montan's mother used to work on affordable housing in New Jersey, and she says she has it in her blood to fight the fight. “The cost of housing is increasing exponentially. But the wages have not and neither has Social Security or any other benefits. So, there's an alarming amount of homeless people in Reno,” she said.

More Home Ownership and Getting Developers to Help

Montan believes developers have a duty to help, including with tiny homes and other solutions.  She thinks having more help and more pipelines for more home ownership would also be crucial. 

“The developers who are making plenty of money in Reno and building housing ... They should help pay for it too by providing some affordable units whether it's a tiny house or it's a condo or a small apartment. We ought to have programs that help people who want to own a house, who want to care about their neighborhood but can't get the initial down payment and to provide them loans to do that so they can buy small houses. My mom used to do that in the poor areas of New Jersey and it works very well. People get help, can buy houses for their families and provide decent shelter and then they can pay for it  and they can be homeowners because there's a different sense of ownership, when you do own it. So, you say if you own the house or the unit you're more wanting to take care of that and your neighborhood because you want a safe neighborhood for you and your family. So, I think any kind of ownership helps people to be part of the neighborhood which I think is really important.”

Montana suffers from depression as well and feels special sympathy for others with mental illnesses living in harsh conditions.

“I come from a place where I've always had support. What if you're mentally ill and you come from a very poor family where mental illness has always been pervasive and nobody's been treated properly because of health insurance problems?  It took a long time for me to figure out what medication would work for me. A lot of people don't have that luxury of time and money to do that,” she said.

Montan says when she sees people struggling, it's her duty and her calling to help.

The Importance of Giving Back and Fighting Bad Proposals

Montan has healthy habits to help such as yoga, singing in her church’s choir, and giving back, cooking for the hungry, helping her husband, and volunteering at the Casa Latina, where she assists abused people who are undocumented who feel doubly trapped.

Montana says she feels some of the new anti vagrancy efforts in Reno will especially target those living on the margins and with mental issues, and will be costly to execute with little gain.

“It's so much cheaper in the long run to provide housing and to provide mental health services. And these laws don't do anything to fix the problem, all they do is make people feel like ‘oh I'm safer’. No, you're not safe. Because you're one paycheck away from homelessness. My husband is disabled and we were living in Oakland, we were one paycheck away from being homeless. I thank God, we had families that have money and if we ever ran into a problem we could you know ask for help but most people don't have that. So, you know this is a problem for all of us and we all need to dig deep and think about real solutions and not band aids,” she concluded. 

Reporting by Prince Nesta for Our Town Reno, April 2018