Blaize, A Student from Ghana Hands Out Healthy Burritos in Downtown Reno

From Ghana to Roberto’s with a Spirit To Help

As soon as he arrived in the Biggest Little City to start a new adventure, which now includes pursuing a master’s degree, ramping up his social media and media skills, teaching math, boxing and learning how to play tennis, Abuntori Blaize Akanaab noticed people without stable shelter, pushing grocery carts in downtown corridors.

“This is not something that is common where I grew up, because I mean, we have like a very big family system,” he said of differences with Ghana. “So you would always find somebody to stay with. I just felt like I wanted to do something about it the best way that I could at this moment with the resources and the skills that I have.  After thinking about it for so long, I decided that one day I wanted to do it. So I went to Roberto's and in my mind the first thing that came to my mind was to provide something, some food. So I went to Roberto's, I went and got five burritos or four of them. And I was like, I'm going to hand these over before I get home.“

He says before he got past Walgreen’s, all the burritos had been handed out. He then asked his roommate for a recipe she usually did for tacos, bought rice and beef, and invited friends over to help him roll burritos which he had never done in his life.

“One thing led to another,” he said. “And then the first day we were about five people and then we rolled 15 burritos and then we just drove around,” passing them out.

Blaize sets out near his home, next to Apple’s downtown warehouse, to find people to hand out healthy burritos and water bottles to on a hot July Sunday.

Finding the Drive for Persistence and Consistency

Blaize says his team of mostly international students now makes up to 40 burritos for its weekly distribution, which has been on Sundays lately. He says that’s “what their finances can handle,” for now. They used to change days, but people in need recently told them Sunday was a day they often went without a healthy lunch.

People are starting to anticipate their arrival now, as a communal burrito wagon. “They walk up to us and then we smile and we have little conversations and over time it got more comfortable. There's this guy who is in a wheelchair, he has like the biggest heart. He smiles and makes funny jokes with us and all those things. They're just people like us in some situation. I don't know exactly what the situation is, but then when you get to meet them and you see them, and you build a relationship with them, you realize that they're just like us, in some circumstance that we don't understand. And I like the feeling everyday that we can bring some kind of joy because they do like the burritos.”

A recent screengrab from one of his Instagrams showing Blaize preparing food with part of his team.

Inspiration from his Dad and a Happiness Entrepreneur

Blaize says he found the inspiration and courage to help from the examples of his altruistic father and the happiness entrepreneur David Meltzer. “He encourages you to do good for other people, not just for them, but also for yourself. And so in one of the coaching sessions that he does, he does free trainings on Fridays, he talked about it and that day I just decided, okay, this week I'm going to start it. So even though it was already something inside me, I think sometimes we just need some kind of external trigger outside of us to get us moving. And then also learning about, let's say consistency and persistence is something that is allowing me to do this over and over again.”

“Every time, there's just like a little nugget of joy that you get. It feels really good to be of service. Every week I look forward to be able to be of service to people,” he said. “The feeling of helping somebody is also very good for you, even as it helps the other person. And I think that people will really be surprised to see what it feels like, to not just help your family and people they are obliged to, but to have somebody who doesn't have anything to give you in return. And that's very liberating.”

Hard Work and an Uncertain COVID-19 Future

Blaize says he is trying to learn a lot from his U.S experience, despite living through the COVID-19 pandemic.

“One of the reasons I came to the U S was because I wanted to learn how to work hard, because over here nothing will be handed to you on a silver platter. You have to work hard, you have so much homework to do. You have to manage your time correctly. I mean, there are so many opportunities to learn from different people.”

The individualism which predominates here, he says, has its negatives but also positives. “It allows you to be more responsible because back home somebody always has your back…. Not having somebody have my back over here is allowing me to be much more responsible for myself and the decisions that I make.”

Back in his room, he’s setting up a new audio studio, thinking of developing a new podcast which will integrate his many passions and reflections, as another way to give to others, this time, perhaps, to help people become more independent financially, both here and back in Ghana. Blaize is a dreamer, but he’s also a doer, sometimes one healthy burrito at a time, always prepared and provided with love and respect.

His own future remains in doubt though as this week the U.S. government said foreign students would not have visas anymore if all their classes remain only online. UNR is still planning to have smaller classes in person, and the exact details of this new federal measure remain unclear, so time will tell if Blaize can continue his U.S. adventure, which now includes helping out countless neighbors in Reno without stable shelter and access to healthy food.

Our Town Reno Reporting in July 2020

Arthur, Advocating for Much More Training for Police Officers

Too Many Unfit for A Difficult Job

Arthur was attending a recent Black Lives Matter event in downtown Reno, and as he sometimes does, was watching from a distance at first.

Large groups of police congregated on bikes behind him, giving off a vibe of nervous laughter and waves. The Michigan native who is new to Reno says he doesn’t understand why police officers get so little training before entering police forces across the country, sometimes even less than what beauticians go through..

“You know, we sent you to school more to do hair than we do to protect and serve the lives of citizens and people. I mean, it's not an easy job. You literally have to be a superhero. Seriously. If you really want to be a cop, you literally have to act like a superhero. You got to let somebody shoot you first or shoot at you first, before you fire, you literally have to go in like a fireman,” he said of the risks involved in being a police officer.

He doesn’t believe it will be possible to get rid of police, as some activists and protesters are demanding. “People commit crimes. You know what I mean? But we do got a lot to learn about how to be police officers. We really do got a lot to learn because they're horrible at it. The way they behave towards certain cultures of people, we know the deal. We know the deal. There needs to be way more schooling before you're given the badge and the gun and given the right to be on the streets. You definitely should have a psychology degree because you deal with mentally ill patients and a lot of different people. You definitely should have a social psychology degree. And if you're willing to go through that work, you can make it there. 

“This is not really an easy job,” Arthur (in center of photo, in front of the Believe sculpture, said of police. “It requires solid people. You can't have these flimsy people who might get mad one day, because the dog pissed on their shoes, because they're angry or their kid's not acting right, or their wife is cheating on them. You know, it's horrible, but it's true. You're having a bad day. You messed up. You're not cut for this job. You can't make it here. You can't cut it. You have to get rid of the ones that can't cut it.”

Avoiding Police as Best He Can

Arthur says he tries to avoid police as best he can and tells his family to do the same. “I mean, even a traffic stop could end up in my death. You know what I mean? I'm only 40 years old. I fear for my sons as they leave the house, you know, they could be in the wrong neighborhood. Just jogging, stopping to look at a construction site, you could get gunned down.  It's a horrible reality. It's a very harsh reality. So yeah, I don't like the police at all.”

Is there any police officer he would appreciate? “ I'll tell you what, when I see a cop who will pull his gun on another cop and tell him to put his hands up because he just shot an unarmed man, he’s under arrest, I’ll love that cop to death. That's what a good cop is. He abides by the law in all situations. I'm with that,” he told us.

“The worst that's going to happen is you're going to leave there with your pride and dignity stripped of you,” he said of having a very low profile if ever you do have an interaction with police and giving advice to younger people.  “And it's going to hurt because you're going to feel like you're nothing. And that's pretty much how they are.going to treat you. They're going to come over and slam a couple of y'all down. Probably put a couple of y'all in cuffs, detain you for a few hours and treat you like trash, really, but do your best not to provoke them because they will kill you. They will kill you and then say they fear for their life. How ironic.”

It’s a Catch-22, he says, being Black whenever you deal with police.” They have to give you the small charges,” he says anytime Blacks are stopped for whatever reason, and the endemic racism which leads to mass incarceration. “They have to give you the misdemeanors. They have to because if they don't, then it doesn't make sense with the narrative. So every time you show up in court, they hit you with a certain resistance. Now you got like six, seven of those piled on. Now I can start giving you jail time for it. It doesn’t even look like a problem.”

He says these charges and jail time you’ve had to do fit the narrative, which he says leads to excuses for police killings. “You look like a threat. So now when they do have to kill you, it's justified because you're a problem. ‘He's always been a troublemaker type.’ So they do that. It's a great jacket to put on a person that way when you're trying to describe him that way. And they can't even defend themselves. I mean, let's be honest.”

The narrative is that when a police officer shows up in court and says, I feared for my life, I have to be demonized. So I'm the only one unarmed, but yet he's afraid for his life. He's afraid for his life and in court that stands. So they have to fit the narrative.

The Kaepernick vs. Trump Example

Arthur says the trajectories of former NFL star turned civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick and Donald Trump speak volumes.

“Kap lost his whole career for just taking the knee, a silent protest. But he was called a terrorist by this country. Our president said ‘get that son of a bitch off the field,’ literally his words. But he didn't say that when you saw this man kneeling on George Floyd's neck, he didn't say get that son of a bitch off the force. Put that son of a bitch in jail, he didn't do that. He didn't do that. So if I protest being killed or my son's being killed, or my family being killed, if I protest that quietly, by taking a knee, I'm a terrorist. When I break stuff because you didn't listen to me being quiet, now I'm a threat to society.”

In September 2017, Trump told a group of supporters in Alabama, "wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when someone disrespects our flag to say, 'get that son of a bitch off the field right now.’ Out. He's fired. He's fired."

Arthur says he’s proud of Kaepernick and young leaders here in Reno leading a new charge against systemic police racism and brutality. “I'm proud of them. I thought it would take at least 20 more years before this happened. I thought I would be in my old age before this happened, but I'm proud of it,” he said.

Our Town Reno Interview, June 2020

"We're Just in the Dark," the 2018 Reno PD Killing of Phillip Serrano

Not Even a Fatality Review Hearing

Mitchell Bisson, a Las Vegas-based Attorney, is working for the family of Phillip Serrano, the 44-year-old who died after being shot by Reno police on September 23, 2018. Bisson says he is still very much “in the dark,” about what happened that night, beyond initial media reports and a video subsequently released by the watchdog group Reno Cop Watch on social media. 

The video shows a white truck slowly inching toward a half dozen police already on the scene, followed by shouting, and a deluge of gunfire.  Bisson says in Clark County what’s called a fatality review hearing is usually held within a year, which includes the presentation of an internal police investigation.

“Usually we can take that to talk to the family, to figure out if there's an actual claim here. Unfortunately in this case, we've just been left in the dark. So we are going to have to file a lawsuit just based on the minimal information we know, and the video that exists. It seems like they're trying to point at obviously his truck with some headlights on it, as being a deadly weapon and that they had no choice. I mean, I don't think that that'll hold up in court. I don't think there was truly any risk at that point, especially a risk of serious harm that they thought they were going to get run over by a truck that's going maybe two miles per hour after they'd already been talking with him for a good 20 to 30 minutes. I just don't think they're going to have an explanation, but man, we've been waiting for something, any type of answer,” Bisson said expressing his own frustration with the delay. Nearly two years after the killing, there has been no report released by Sparks police and the Washoe County DA’s office.  In the Reno/Sparks area, the neighboring police force investigates killings by the other, before anything is released in coordination with the District Attorney’s office.

“It just seems something seems off in this situation that it's literally been almost two years since this occurred. We're up against a statute of limitations. Typically, we like to get the information, a little more information to really figure out what their story is, but it almost seems like they're trying to delay giving us information. Something is off about that. It's all confidential investigatory material. So the longer they delay it, the longer we are all sitting here with no answers.”

A screengrab of the initial video Reno Cop Watch released: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=236650857196335

Civil Rights Lawsuit in the Works

We tried calling Sparks PD for an update on the investigation but no one answered the phone. 

Serrano’s daughter is going to be a co-administrator of her father’s estate, and Bisson is preparing a civil rights lawsuit for wrongful death and multiple violations of civil rights.  He says he is thinking of filing it at the federal court in Carson City.  “That's where the parties are going to be more local. We're going to have to go up there to depose the police officers. So we just figured we should do it up there,” he said of his current strategy.

After the Black Lives Matter protests and updated reports here on Our Town Reno, long awaited investigations in local police killings of Miciah Lee and Rolando Brizuela were finally released.  Bisson says he appreciates the growing concerns for these cases which he says leads to pressure on police departments and the District Attorney. 

“The fact that awareness is happening is good because now you actually have some uproar, you have some community support versus you just simply have a family who lost a family member going up against the police, trying to get answers. Back in the day, you'd never get the answers, especially if you didn’t file a lawsuit, they could just, you know, string you along, not give you the info, dragging on until you can't bring the case. And then you're out of luck. Now there's enough community support that they almost have to start giving answers.”

He says he feels many more people are looking into local police killings currently. “It's always been,  a few people here and there willing to fight the police or bring a claim against the police. A lot of people get scared though. They're worried that, ‘hey, the police are going to come out and try to tarnish my family's name or they're going to come and there's no way we'll win this.’ But the more support we have, the more people see the reality of what goes on in these police departments, the more people will be confident in actually asserting their rights and making sure that the police are held accountable. So at the end of the day, I think this public uproar is needed. It's absolutely necessary.”

Above, a screengrab from the City of Reno website recently updating police use of force policies.

Seeking an End to Qualified Immunity

The Las Vegas based lawyer says it will be interesting to see how police departments react. 

“You seem to have some police departments that will come along with this and they understand what's happening. They see the issues, but then you have police departments that take the opposite road and see this as an attack. And hopefully that's not the way it goes. The police departments start going on the defensive here because at the end of the day, they’ve already got all these built-in immunities and privileges. So hopefully they will be a little more willing to come to the table to show their cards and to answer for what they've done.”

What Bisson would like to see are drastic changes to what’s know as qualified immunity. This legal precedent currently shields government officials, including police, from being held personally liable for constitutional violations, such as excessive use of force.

“That legally created doctrine alone is what gets these police officers off. They're able to basically, if, as long as I, the judge rules that these police officers, when this incident happened, if there wasn't a previous case, almost exactly like it, where an officer has already been found in trouble for it, they get off. And a lot of times these federal court judges like to kind of gloss over the cases to where they're not creating the law, that future cases could point to. It’s all a gross miscarriage of justice that these police officers are allowed to basically just kill almost whoever they want and not even give us an explanation.”

He wouldn’t be surprised if the DA rules the Serrano killing to “be justified by Nevada law,” as was the case recently in the killings of Lee and Brizuela. 

“They're just trying to pull the wool over our eyes, say, ‘hey, this was justified. Nothing to see.’ They always do that,” Bisson said, but he explained it doesn’t prevent civil action.  “Just because they may say it was legally justified on a criminal aspect, the civil rights violations are a whole different ball game. There is less, you actually have to prove in a civil action. “

In the wake of the protests, Reno PD updated its use of force policy, including “restrictions on shooting at or from vehicles.” “You've seen it in the past where, you know, an officer's firing into a vehicle and oops, they didn't know there was a kid in the car as well,” Bisson said. “Once you're shooting into a vehicle, you don't know the trajectory of that bullet. Once it goes, hits the glass, it can move around. There's just a lot of potential for problems when you're shooting into a vehicle without a clear sight. And especially in this case with Phillip, I mean, I don't know. I believe he was shirtless. He didn't have a gun. They were called there for a mental disturbance. The family called for help. But instead they sent, man, if you've seen the video, they sent a boatload of police officers to surround him. And the minute he started creeping forward, they just unloaded. And I just don't see at all how that's justified regardless of what the DA wants to say.”

Our Town Reno reporting in July 2020

Minko's Project: Direct Action to Help the Homeless in the Name of a Lost Friend

In the Name of Jordan Alexander Mackenzie –Allen Lindstrom Nicknamed “Minko”

On Mother’s Day 2019, May 12th, Jordan Alexander Mackenzie –Allen Lindstrom, 23, who came from a broken family, was fleeing police when he jumped into the Truckee River at the 2nd street bridge and drowned. He had lost his mother, who like him lived in outdoor encampments in the Reno area, a year before, of an apparent heart attack.

Media headlines called him a “thief”, but Sasha, who was homeless herself as a kid and teenager, and who had “taken him under her wing” for parts of his youth, when she befriended him when her life was going well, disputes this labelling.

“He was stealing from Walmart, but it wasn't because he was a robber or a thief. It was because he was most likely trying to get something for someone, clothes or food or tampons. I mean he was always looking out for somebody else,” she said of Minko, who helped others in the encampments which regularly get swept up in police operations. He had been living without stable shelter since he was 12.

“They were accepted by a community, you know, they don't turn people away because of their race, or their background, or what they've done in their life wrong. They found a community that accepts them for who they are. And they enjoy that, that makes them feel wanted and loved,” Sasha said of people like Minko who live in tent cities. She decided to name her new initiative in Minko’s honor and says “he would be proud.”

Advocating for a Safe Camp Ground

Like others such as the local group RISE, Sasha is advocating for a future local safe campground, where it’s legal to sleep. She says she understands the challenges of setting it up but remains optimistic.

“I've done some research and urbanized camping is something that's coming, it's slowly coming into acceptance across the country,” she said during our phone interview last week. “I think the reason that people are so standoffish with it is because society doesn’t really seem to know how to take care of people that have gotten to that point in their life. You know, they look, they have judgements, they form certain opinions that aren't necessarily correct.”

She says since it doesn’t exist yet, you can’t just go to City Hall and ask for a permit “to do a campground in the middle of the city for homeless,” even if it would make sense to many like her.

 “It's a crying shame because most of the time, these are really good people,” she said of trying to help those like Minko before it’s too late. “They usually end up on the streets from really sad circumstances, things that are either out of their control or that they don't realize are going to put them in that circumstance until they already get there. And it's not that easy getting out,” she said. “It might be the only lifestyle that they have found that they are comfortable with.”

A recent encampment under the Wells Ave. bridge as it was being disbanded.

A Lack of Understanding

To those who say the homeless should just get a job, get in line for resources, get off drugs, get medication for mental health issues, Sasha says it’s rarely that simple. She prefers a more gentle, caring approach, which empowers people, rather than making them feel as a problem to society.

“I don't think that these people are getting connected with the resources that are available to them because people expect them to come looking for them,” she explained. “You know, people are like, okay, well, there's food stamps and there's programs and there's housing and there’s rehab and all this. But once you've reached that point in your life, I mean, how many do you really expect are going to come looking for that? You know what I mean? So with Minko’s Project, we have a different approach. We want to bring what's available to these people. So instead of waiting for them to come knock on our door, we go through the encampments and we hand out water, we ask people if they need help, you know, if they might be available for certain resources. We ask if they need help, like getting online to print out applications or to try and connect them with those.”

Another often heard complaint is trash, even if trash containers are taken away when there are encampments, rather than placed conviently.

“Every time I've ever gone walking through those encampments, they've all got their trash bags, and it's sitting next to their tents or whatever the case may be, but there's nowhere to take it, you know? So we go through the trash bags and try and help alleviate that problem,” she said.

Whatever the season, there are tents in Reno, with people living in them trying to be as discrete as possible. “The homeless are not a different class of people,” Sasha said. “They're not someone that is there there to mooch off of people. They're not trying to use anyone. They're just in a circumstance that that's where they found themselves in life.”

Logistics of a Safe Campground and of the Non-Profit

Sasha says people could have belongings, “but not a ridiculous amount,” and register with the campsite, and put up their own tents themselves.

“They would get checked into their spot and we'd have showers so that they could take showers. I'd like to have like a rec hall, a kitchen so that we could do free meals. And, it would be a place where other organizations could come and offer their services as well.”

Eventually, Sasha would also like to help those on the river with yoga and meditation.  “Those are the things that I'd like to be able to start promoting to these people to promote self wellness. I think that's the only way to get these people to change their mindset is to promote something like that. You know, you tell somebody that they're crazy and they need crazy people pills. They're going to look at you like you're dumb and walk away. You tell them that, you know, maybe meditation and yoga and a couple of extra bottles of water in your day. it really does go a long way,” she said.

As for the non-profit, Sasha said she is looking for a space close to the river to base herself out of, as she says her home office is starting to crumble under supplies. She says she’s open to any suggestions or help to continue with her momentum.

“I think it takes the compassion of another individual to show love, to showcase that they care enough, to help that person,” she says of people living in tents who others will criticize, and see as a problem, she sees as a worthy, beautiful life, just like Minko before his tragic death a little over a year ago.

Reporting by Our Town Reno in June 2020

Evening South Reno Crosswalking for Black Lives Matter

The Genesis of a Crosswalk Movement

How does one become an actor in society, an organizer, a change maker? A local example is M.S., a Filipino American who had been previously involved in diversity campus protests in California and who recently came back to her Reno hometown. She says she was surprised by the number of people coming to protests in downtown Reno following George Floyd’s killing.  She was closely following discussions on the Reno Sparks Black Lives Matter Facebook pages, but wondering what else she could do herself.

While taking a break at her work she said she overheard two older white women talking about police. “It was just a snippet of their little conversation,” she remembers, “but at that point I’d been lighting candles myself, trying to talk to people but something in that conversation really just made me angry for the rest of the day. I also saw that people kept asking, ‘Is anything happening? I see there are protests downtown.’ People kept sharing Black death, more news articles. I had the idea to call on people in South Reno. I had no idea how I was going to do it. This is the rich, white part of town,” she said of her thought process.

She says she spam posted on the Black Lives Matter Reno Sparks group, and despite lots of comments, just a few other people, including a dad and kids, and her own older sister showed up initially on a recent Tuesday night at 7 p.m for the first South Reno Crosswalking for Black Lives Matter protest.

On the first night of the ongoing protest, M.S. had a sign that read “Red Light. Na’kia Crawford” to honor a Black teenager who was killed at a red light in Ohio on June 14th. “My hope was that people would Google her name if they didn’t know who she was.”

Photo provided with permission to use by South Reno Crosswalking for Black Lives Matter. Another participant, Sarah Brabo, emailed us this message as to why she was taking part: “What is important are the facts. Black and Brown people are being killed for the color of their skin. Transgender people are being killed for who they are. The poor [are] being killed because of how the system displaced them. And the natives of our country, I don't even know where to begin with all of the oppression that they've had to deal with. I get off work and I go out to that crosswalk with my sign and my daughter and we do everything we can to get the message across. Enough is enough. Black lives matter and racism is real. I hate to say it [but] the people of Reno are so blind to it, because they don't have it in their face all the time. I spent 14 years in Jacksonville, Florida. Racism is real. The cops are not protecting people, they are protecting their best interests. Wake up Reno. I know you live in a bubble but that bubble has burst and you need to see what the world is like.”

A Combination of Support and Intimidation

As the first protest began, M.S. remembers there were honks of support as her small group walked through crosswalks at the busy South Meadows and Double R intersection. She said the group was nervous, but that it felt good.  

There were also acts of intimidation.  “People did rev their engines at us. People would look at us in the eyes, or they would completely look away. I usually stayed the longest in the road. ”

One driver she says sped up when the light turned green and almost hit her.  Another time, when the group was in the middle of the crossing, a guy ran a red turn light in a black pickup truck “to try to hit us,” M.S. remembers.

“I wouldn’t underestimate the capacity for hate and violence out here either. The fact that people ignore it so much, is that if anything bad does happen in Reno, the first thing someone will say is ‘that’s my city’ instead of talking about what happened,” she said of local police killings of minorities.

“On day one, I witnessed a black pick-up truck that ran a red light while we were walking on the crosswalk in front of him,” another participant Jamie wrote to us in an email. “On day two, I interacted with the police officers who were sent to us. On day three, I was involved in two in-person confrontations (as in, the parties were on foot and not in their vehicles) with people who either rejected or questioned the movement. I look forward to seeing what the future days will bring.” Photo provided with permission to use by South Reno Crosswalking for Black Lives Matter.

Police Show Up and the Importance of Saying Names

On the second night, M.S. took a break, but said there were more people, with more kids. Protesters started yelling “Black Lives Matter”.  There was more honking, fists inside and outside of windows, friendly nods and waves.  There were also middle fingers. Someone also allegedly reported people “were throwing stuff at cars,” and police briefly showed up.

M.S. went back on the third night, with a megaphone, and safety vests for the kids, as about a dozen people protested. The group got yelled at from a parking lot by an angry man, and some kids seemed to be mocking them, but then eventually also joined the protest.  Saying names over and over became a new hallmark.

“The names I specifically wanted to include were Miciah Lee [killed by Sparks police in January 2020], of course, he’s someone that was taken from us here, and still overlooked. [We also chanted] Camron Ramsey, who is currently missing from Sun Valley, since May 29th, and I think that information should circulate way more than it has been now.”  They also chanted names of other Black men, women and trans women recently killed across the country.  “Saying these names feels empowering.  Personally, I feel it’s a way to uplift their spirits.”

Participants also chanted “South Reno, Pay attention. South Reno, End the Silence,” and got supportive honks and fists in the air.

Another black pick-up truck with an American flag on the back did circles, speeding through and did U-Turns to scare off the protesters.  “I know gas is cheap right now, but he could have used it for something else,” M.S. said.

Some of the crosswalks participants have been crossing repeatedly are often empty at other times, in a car heavy traffic area. “There’s huge risk in just standing in front of a car. People get impatient. We want everyone to go home alive,” M.S. said of continually adapting protest strategies and staying as safe as possible.

Photo provided with permission to use by South Reno Crosswalking for Black Lives Matter.

The Importance of Being Involved and ReImagining

“We’re people that are open to dialoguing, and going into community spaces and having hard conversations with people,” she says when others call her “woke”, “revolutionary” or “a radical not willing to budge from positions,” jokingly or not. “We’re going to get your initial reaction by being loud, being upset, being angry.  It’s especially important when you are a non-Black person to do it consistently,” M.S. said of her approach.

One of her favorite quotes is by activist, author and philosopher Angela Davis: “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”

As someone who cares for others, M.S. says self-care is also important, while she consistently goes to work, checks headlines, protests, thinks of future actions and organizes. Letting go, she says, is also crucial.

“Decentralizing is really important in movements.  Going forward the hope is that people translate this energy into their homes, into their workplaces. If we’ve got people talking, that was the goal. What people choose to do with that, that’s out of my hands now. It seems like this is bringing people together, with different backgrounds and motivations for doing this. We do have those connections now.”

She says there are differences on whether elections can have an impact.  “Abolish and defund, that’s meant very literally, it’s to reimagine,” she says of her own vision for a much better future.  On a personal note, she has felt threatened when she sought help from police in the past due to an abuser in Reno, and says she now avoids police whenever possible.

Our Town Reno Interview in June 2020

Seeking the Truth for Nico Sedano, Killed by Reno PD in 2018

Another Long Awaited Investigation Released, Is Sedano’s Next?

Last week, just a few days after Our Town Reno published an update on the July 2018 Sparks police killing of Rolando Brizuela, the Washoe County District Attorney’s office released its long awaited investigation along with that night’s body cam footage. The report absolved the two police officers who shot and killed Brizuela of any wrongdoing or criminal charges.  But even after reading the report, many in the community wondered why a man had to be shot to death on his own property following minor disputes with several neighbors, and why the situation couldn’t have instead de-escalated to where no one was killed.  

Another local police killing for which the investigation has yet to be released by the same Washoe County District Attorney’s office is of Nico Sedano.  Reno PD killed Sedano in March 2018 several months before the Brizuela killing.

Media reports said police shot at a vehicle rushing at them following reports of a burglary at Peckham Lane and Neil Road.  No officers or other civilians were injured.

A relative of Sedano’s says she’s been told the investigation will soon be publicly released, but that they are still waiting.  She said they don’t have a lawyer representing the family, due to a lack of funds, so they are very much in the dark as to what might be causing the delays.

The family held a fundraiser to be able to bury Sedano in Mexico, but had no other funds available for representation.  The relative said another man was with Sedano the night of his killing, who recently got out of jail, but that he who won’t tell the family anything. 

Above a video of recently released body cam footage in the Brizuela killing by Sparks PD. In Sedano’s killing by Reno PD, the family was told there was no video available.

No Answers, Names Of Officers, Videos, and Details Which Don’t Make Sense

“It just doesn't make any sense because he had, you know, he had no weapon, he had nothing and two officers loaded their guns on him,” the relative told us of what she was able to piece together from media reports and dispatch calls.   

She says it took almost two weeks before the family was allowed to verify it was Sedano’s body, and that she counted dozens of bullet holes in his body.  “He had bullet holes everywhere,” she told us. “I mean, from the palms of his hands to the bottom of his feet.”

She says the family was told cameras weren’t working in the area and that body cams weren’t being used.  “They had an excuse for everything,” she told us.  “Like supposedly there was no video at all.” 

“Supposedly he hit an officer with the car, that's why they shot him,” she told us of the version of events she’s been able to constitute herself. “But I asked for the hospital report for the officer, because that's an injury on the job. You have to go. And he said, it wasn't that bad, that they didn't have to go to the hospital. I'm like, but that's protocol. Everything doesn't add up. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Media reports said that at the time of his killing Sedano had just become a young father. The relative said Sedano had previously gotten in trouble with the law, but she never expected another encounter would turn deadly.

“I just want to know.  They won't even tell me who the officers were. I want to know why and what happened, why they felt so threatened that they had to unload that many bullets,” the relative told us. “I mean, one bullet would have been plenty. You know, I just feel like they're over excessive. They didn't have to do all that.  I just feel like there's other ways to stop people, you know?“

Since Reno Police were involved, the protocol locally has been for the Sheriff’s Office to become the lead agency, working with investigators from the Sparks Police Department and the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office, which then reviews their investigation and releases it to the public.

The relative says this process clearly lacks independent oversight and that the long delays in releasing investigations creates more distrust. She concluded the interview saying she doesn’t feel that even when the report comes out that we will know the truth of what happened that night in late March 2018.

Our Town Reno Reporting in June 2020

Social Media Accountability for Racist Business Owners in Reno

A Consolidation of Local Information on Social Media

Facebook posts singling out neo-nazi tattoo artists, outrage over racist incidents on Twitter feeds, people calling others out on Instagram for intolerance, hatred and bigotry — these have all been commonplace in the past few years on the Reno social media scene. 

As these platforms grow and people become more savvy in using them, while national and local conversations turn to racism, never though has this information been so consolidated and organized.

One example is the Accountability for Reno Businesses Facebook page. Its About section says it all: “This page is to Hold Local Business Owners and People accountable for Racist acts.”

“I feel like that accountability is at an all time low,” the creator of the page explained to us during a recent interview.  “So I don't think that people who hate other people should be benefiting from those people either. It doesn't make any sense to me and it doesn't make any sense to most of us,” he said of why he recently started the page. 

Recent posts show a screen grab with a comment by a local realtor talking about MLK Day and “cramming ‘special events’ down every American’s throat.”  

A screen grab on this page is called a #ReceiptAttached, either a screen shot of a comment/message/post or a video of an incriminating act.  “These are requirements,” the website indicates. “We must have PROOF to back claims… We must stay Factual.”

Another recent post shows a tile contractor in Carson City using the n word in a Facebook post.

“Our focus right now is where it needs to be,” the page creator who wished to remain anonymous told us. “The focus is on business owners who are outspoken about their hatred for others, and that is not professional, nor should it be accepted.”

A post on the /Reno Reddit thread concerning Tammy Borde, the owner of the Chocolate Walrus lingerie store in Midtown Reno. We sent a message for comment to the Chocolate Walrus Instagram page but didn’t hear back. Her social media conversations concerning George Floyd have been widely shared on Reno social media in recent weeks.

More Publicized Cases

Another widely circulated case in the community involved the owner of the Junkee Midtown thrift and antiques shop Jessica Schneider, who backed away from social media comments she initially made after protests erupted in Reno, apologizing and re-apologizing, and then announcing she was stepping away from her store’s social media accounts and focusing her attention on ventures she is currently pursuing outside of Reno.

Staff have said they were faced with death threats while continuing to work at Junkee despite organizing walkouts and a series of heated meetings with their employer. Since then, there has been a #boycottjunkee hashtag going around in Reno.  Several shoppers we talked to in Midtown said they hesitated in going to what used to be one of their favorite local stores, and that they were trying other options first. 

Is change possible for someone once they’ve been outed on social media we asked the creator of the  Accountability for Reno Businesses Facebook page?

“I think that any change is possible,” he said. “But the problem here is that, don't disguise it for something else, meaning, don't say, ‘hey, I'm pro Black Lives Matter’ because you want to save your profits. Be sincere about it. It's not hard to accept others for who they are. If you’re not being sincere, your apology is just going to fall flat. It really needs to be the case where they need to just really be reeducated. At the end of the day, they have to be held accountable in some way. So that accountability will be a loss of profits. At the end of the day, we're not going to sit here as a community and allow you to profit and live a great life while you're over here, hating the very people that give you those profits. ”

Multiple accounts have been discussing what has been going on at Shea’s Tavern and on the social media of their owners. We reached out to the Instagram page of Shea’s Tavern to get a response, but did not hear back.

Community Contributions

The Facebook Accountability for Reno Businesses page also encourages community contributions accompanied by these hashtags: #BLACKLIVESMATTER #STANDUPRENO #THETIMEISNOW “No one should benefit from being Racist. Being Racist is a Choice of Ignorance not a Right of Pride,” the page reads. 

The creator of the page says he takes the accuracy of what he is doing very seriously, as he knows the influence it can wield. 

“Social media has become the morning paper, everybody gets up and the first thing they do, they pick up their phones and they are right to social media. I’ve had people that have talked to me from certain other small businesses that are really behind what we're doing, because we can't let these people benefit off of the people that they hate. We're all human beings and accountability is for everyone,” he concluded.

Our Town Reno Interview in June 2020 

"In the Dark," The Killing of Rolando Brizuela by Sparks Police in 2018

No Information Whatsoever

Initial media reports said the two officers involved in the killing, Brian Sullivan and Eli Maile, were initially placed on leave. We called Sparks PD to find out more about this leave, and whether there had been any further internal discipline, but no one was immediately available to answer our questions. Recent records indicate Sullivan has had a rising compensation with Sparks PD, to over $200,000 in 2019, while Maile was last listed as a “Fire Prevention Inspector” for Sparks, according to Transparent Nevada.

Sullivan was also recently listed as part of the Sparks Police Protective Association, which describes itself as a non profit organization for active duty and retired police officers in the Truckee Meadows.

As is operating procedure for killings by Sparks police, such as the Miciah Lee tragedy this part January, the Reno Police Department and the Washoe County Sheriff's Office took over the investigation. As is also the case with Miciah Lee, there is still no public report or release of any body cam footage. There have been posts on social media indicating Sullivan might have been involved in Lee’s killing as well, based on overheard police call signals, but there has been even less transparency on that case, or open knowledge about the officers involved in the Black teenager’s death. We were unable to ask this question to Sparks PD since their Public Information Officer was not available for comment.

Peter Goldstein who is representing Brizuela’s wife says he is in the “dark as well.” He says delays in the case he finds “without explanation” are mounting.

The Lawyer Representing Brizuela Does Not Understand Delay

Peter Goldstein, who is representing the plaintiffs, says he has been told the report by the Reno police department has been completed and turned over to the Washoe County District Attorney’s office, and that the deputy district attorney on the case also completed his review. The investigation, he says, is now in the hands of Washoe County District Attorney Christopher Hicks for “his determination as to whether or not the officers are going to be charged. Now it's going to be almost two years years since this happened. And, we believe that they've had more than an adequate time to do these investigations and there certainly is no need for a continued delay,” Goldstein told us in a telephone call this week.

In April, the North Las Vegas City Council unanimously approved a $1 million settlement to the parents of Gonzalo Rico who was shot and killed by North Las Vegas police in 2018, in a case where Goldstein represented Rico’s parents in the federal lawsuit.

In the Brizuela case, however, there has been no movement. “Not one bit of information has been provided to us as to what would be the impediment to completing it,” Goldstein said. “We’re concerned about the body cam footage, and all the tests, ballistic investigations that they purportedly did.”

Delays, Goldstein explains, can cause problems to seek the truth.

“The longer it takes for them to produce it, the more difficult it is sometimes to locate witnesses and verify information. They took everything from the residence of Brizuelas that day. They took boxes of inventory, items from them, some of which they know what they took, some of which they don’t, that’s never been returned.”

The coroner’s autopsy report on Brizuela’s killing has also been blocked pending the release of the investigation.

New Hearing Next Week Related to Case

A hearing related to the case is scheduled for next week, with more delays being sought. Goldstein hopes the magistrate judge instead requests that the report, ballistics tests and body cam footage are quickly made available.

“I mean the body cam footage is going to be very, very telling,” Goldstein said. He said he understands a family’s and a community’s frustration in getting answers especially now with all the protests related to the George Floyd police killing in Minneapolis.

“It's kind of a breathtaking moment for this country, in terms of understanding the excessive force cases involving police and minorities and in fact, I mentioned that their motion, the fact that they're asking for more time even now, shows that they're completely oblivious to what's going on in this country and how we've been too deferential to police, investigations and prosecutors. So, if this was really a situation where the video cam the body cam from the officers showed that they had no reasonable belief that their lives were in danger, no bodily harm or death, they had no right to use deadly force. Now would the body cam show that of course. So why would that take two years? There’s never been an explanation for that.”

Our Town Reno Reporting June 2020

Rent Control, Stop Sprawl Candidate Turns to Believe Movement

Late Surge of Notoriety and Channeling a New Movement

After Joe Moskowitz took part in Black Lives Matter rallies in Reno in late May and early June, including speaking to large crowds, his name and progressive positions started appearing on local Facebook posts and Reddit threads. But with the mostly mail-in process due to COVID-19, it was very late in the game for both himself and another outsider candidate Michael Walker. Both were trying to get past the two favorites, incumbent Devon Reese and previous mayoral candidate Eddie Lorton, for a top two spot in the decisive November election.

“The first early mailing for both Mr. Walker and I, I think those were largely dart throwers. This guy, I don't know,” Moskowitz said of those who might have voted for him by mail early. “He's not one of those two guys.”

After the rallies, he says he started getting emails, and hundreds of hits on his campaign website. What hurt him, he says, was how media ignored his candidacy. Due to the pandemic, he relied mostly on Facebook advertisements.

“I couldn't get out of my own door,” he said in an interview with Our Town Reno last week. “It seemed I couldn't get any publicity. I don't have any money. The TV stations, that was the strangest thing, that when I had a problem with signs being stolen and I emailed KOLO a couple of times, because I thought they might be the most receptive of news stations … no response at all.”

He said the campaign team for Reese and Lorton himself tried to get him to back out of the race, to ensure they would make it to the run-off in November. “Nobody wanted this X factor, this unknown in the race,” he said.

Moskowitz says he’s been newly re-energized by the young activists of the Black Lives Matter movement in Reno.

A Belief in Controlling Rents and Ending Urban Sprawl

Moskowitz says he believes in rent control, and that’s what he’ll continue pushing for.

 “This is absolutely required,” he said in our interview. “Here's my basic argument. If you get water and you get electricity, when either provider wants to raise your bill, they have to go through a series of hearings. They have to justify it, such as with cost of living adjustments…. So why shouldn't the home be protected?”

Ending urban sprawl is another of his important priorities. “You rebuild what you have. You repurpose it,” he said of the approach Reno should take.

He said on the flip side, relying on gambling or on hi-tech companies based 30 miles away in another county might not be the best of approaches.

“I've lived all over America in some pretty desirable places. And you have so much here, it's jaw dropping the things that you have here. It's just you don't even notice it because it's so common place. This is an amazing part of the world, amazing historically, geologically. It's just so damn beautiful,” he said, of why he remains confident in Reno’s future, while at the same time seeking to channel current activism into fairer social and economic progress he says he is calling the Believe Movement.

Our Town Reno Reporting, June 2020

James Henderson, a "Black Panther Progeny" Now Houseless in Reno

New Protests Reminiscent of His Childhood Experiences

Henderson has been keeping a close eye on protests in downtown Reno from his usual daytime spot at the Believe Plaza, watching protesters come and go. Having just had knee surgery, he says he prefers to just watch for now, but that recent events do bring back childhood memories.

“My mom and dad were some of the founders of the Black Panther party in the 1960s in Oakland, California, so I am a Black Panther progeny. I remember going to marches as a kid,” he said.

He says he likes the mix of colors he’s seen in Reno, which is reminiscent to his own childhood experiences. Like now, he says, it was also about a mix of issues.

“It was black, white, Chinese, Mexican, Korean, every nationality you could think of. And it was about equal housing, equal living standards. It was about equal schooling, and equal health benefits. It was based upon equal way of living as a citizen.”

He does see some progress, such as when police officers have taken a knee with others, something he says he never saw several decades ago.

“That is like so much improvement in itself. You know, you would never hear that, hear about that, a cop ever doing that,” he said with tears in his eyes.

Henderson, who has called Reno home for the past six years, says he uses his phones to work on his future projects, including trying to set up an organization for others to avoid his fate and “wasted time”.

A Knee Replacement for New Beginnings

“It has showed me happiness. It’s allowed me to grow spiritually and to become a person that is wanting to pay it forward to everyone in my neighborhood that needs it,” he says of his new approach to better reasoning in life.

“Addiction starts with the decisions that you make before you even start using drugs,” he explained. “So, you know, I'm choosing a new direction on how to make decisions, not subjectively, but objectively, not based upon emotions, but actual facts. And, that has taken my recovery to a whole new level.”

He recently had a total knee replacement, and he says he’s staying off pain medicine not to start a new addiction.

“My addiction was so bad that I've been walking on a knee that wasn't connected for about 10 years,” he said. “And so I finally, as I came out of my addiction, I went and finally got the knee surgery done.”

As a survivor, he now has advice for others. “Everyone has a different tolerance for pain to get a better understanding of what's going on in their life,” he said. “Take the time to, before you do something and act upon an emotion, give yourself 10 seconds to think about what's making you mad or whatever it is. Try not to self medicate, process your thinking and figure it out before it's too late. There's a lot of people out here right now that aren't here because they didn't take the time to really adjust to the situation at hand. I'm very fortunate at my age. I've been through so much.”

Henderson is taking his time in rehab to think of a future non-profit he would like to set up as soon as possible. He calls his idea The Core Project. “The idea is people would go into institutions such as drug rehabs, we go into some of the darkest places in America and we find out what went wrong. We want to find out what led to the decisions that people made that led them to a certain point. And I want to call it The Cote because it starts with core values. A lot of these value systems that we pride ourselves on aren't even our own. So if we can learn to adjust to them and change them or identify them because they're character defects, and if we can identify them and correct them, then hey man, we could change the world.”

Working Toward Work and Housing while Staying Sober

Besides his idea for a non-profit, Henderson has several other plans for himself.

“I'm getting a new lease on life,” he said. “I'm getting my CDL (Commercial Driving License), I'm going to school to get my heavy equipment operators license. Oh my God, there's no stopping me,” he said.

He said he is supposed to get housing end of June after graduating from the Crossroads program with another local program called “My Journey Home” but that now he is sleeping at the Reno Events Center, despite the risk of COVID-19 at a shelter. “I am eating humble pie right now,” he said, “but the most important thing is that I stay sober.”

“I can't even afford to even think about drugs right now. I can't even let that thought even enter my process of my thinking,” he said.

Reporting by Our Town Reno in June 2020

Moriah, Displaced Yet Again in New Major Sweep in Reno

Not Feeling the Compassion from Police or City

It was the last night time before the June third sweep. There was a breeze, cool but warm weather, and a sense of community. Wade who lived with Moriah in a small plywood installation was busy at his makeshift bike shop repairing bikes in exchange for parts, cans of food or cash.

“I will definitely miss this spot,” Moriah said of being forced out. “It's one of the coolest spots down in downtown Reno. I can watch the cars go by [on the Wells Ave. bridge]. I haven't ridden in a car in over like two years for more than maybe 15 minutes. So it's definitely nice to watch, you know, the normal people as they live their lives. And it's one of the clearest spots because there's less city pollution out here. You can actually see stars so you can sit out here and watch the stars. That's what a lot of us do. It's a connection to nature in a lot of ways, as well as a way to break away from all the mental problems,” she said of why people prefer living in encampments, rather than shelters, where she says she feels unsafe and at a higher risk of being robbed. You can’t stay as a couple in a shelter either, she said, have very many belongings, and there’s the new risk of the spread of COVID-19 in a cramped indoor space.

We interviewed Moriah before, when she was displaced in March, and she was 19 at the time. In her two decades now, she’s been through a lot: an abusive foster family, being a runaway, having a child at 16, being forced to give up her daughter to adoption, the list of hardships just seems infinite.

She was going to stay until she was kicked out, she told us, even if it meant dealing with aggressive police.

“I am bipolar,” she said. “I also have PTSD, so it's definitely hard when cops are coming at us belligerently. We're not trying to make the city look bad. We're actually just trying to live our lives like anybody else,” she said.

Wade was busy at his makeshift bike shop on the last night before the sweep took place, uprooting the entire tent community.

In Favor of Safe Camps

Several groups in Washoe County have been advocating for the creation of safe camps, which Moriah says she wholeheartedly supports.

“I would love to have a safe camp for all of us, you know? The police could monitor it. We could have the resources that we would need, but ultimately when someone wants to live like this, they just want a safe place to go,” she said. “That's all we're looking for is a safe place to go. We're tired of being bumped out of place to place. We want somewhere to ultimately go. “

She says sometimes people don’t understand what it’s like to be chronically without stable shelter.

“I'm honestly working on trying to get into housing, but 90% of us out here that have been out here for so long, it's hard to be integrated back into regular civilization,” she said. “Considering the fact that when a prisoner is in prison for say 20 to 30 years of their life, it becomes a totally different world from when they first went in. That's how it is for us. You know, we've lived like this for so long that when we get integrated back into regular society, it becomes the hardest thing ever. And we end up collapsing and coming back down here.”

Moriah says she thinks the area of the encampment is in a sinkhole. There has been talk of burner artist projects involving the Generator maker space for the lots in this area, but no recent updates on those plans.

Tense Times

The recent unrest in Reno following the peaceful George Floyd protest march caused tension in the camp, which was already high due to the police reported May 22nd deadly shooting of 34-year-old Michael Roach at the encampment.

“In a lot of ways it makes the police more aggressive and scary to us,” Moriah said.

She said on the night of the unrest one of the dumpsters along E. Commercial Row, on the long cul-de-sac of this encampment, was set ablaze.

“I actually watched the riot that went across the Wells bridge with the pink smoke cannons. And I'm like, what is going on? I have a phone that can connect to internet. And so I do look up what happens in our city of Reno,” she said of trying to keep track of COVID-19, the current national unrest and what’s happening locally.

“When it comes to the homeless, we try to stay out of sight out of mind,” she said, even if it doesn’t always work. When encampments get bigger, they tend to get uprooted, and the whole process of moving, finding a new camp, a new sense of community begins again.

A man who had been closely listening to the interview, while waiting to get his bike fixed and holding a tiny Bible, thanked us and left us with these parting words.

“Even if we don’t fit in the civilization as she said, shouldn’t there be a place for us?”

Reporting by Our Town Reno in June 2020

Tex, Looking for a Way Back Up While Fighting Cancer, Accidents and Trespassing Charges

A Texas Native Finds Himself in Reno with Long Odds

Tex says he’s struggling to get a job because he keeps getting injured, which isn’t an easy situation to deal with while living on the streets. With the coronavirus breakdown of the economy, that hill just got much steeper, but tough climbs are par for the course for this Texas native.

Tex and a friend decided to move to Las Vegas over a decade ago but then ended up in Reno to be in a less crowded place. However, Tex’s friend left him in Reno and he’s been homeless off and on since. 

“[Reno’s] alright,” Tex explained, “I mean the way they treat homeless and everything. I mean it's even worse in Texas. It's against the law to be homeless in Texas. They'll put you in jail.”

Tex said he sleeps where he can in Reno, but avoids crowded shelters for health, sanity and sanitary reasons. When we met him, he was staying near the downtown courthouse, which isn’t an option anymore after it was cleared out following anti police brutality protests and unrest.

Tex said that he had more stuff but it was gone after he got out of jail recently.

A Cancer Diagnosis and Getting Hit by a Car

“We have nice people that come and help us, you know. They bring us clothes, gloves, stuff like that … I mean a lot of people help out the homeless,” Tex said of when he stayed by the courthouse. He is among those who prefer to sleep in tents outside, forming their own small communities, protecting each other and their belongings, until their preferred spot gets swept up in cleanups coordinated by the city.

Tex says over the years he’s worked different jobs in restaurants, in oil and gas fields and in a sawmill. When we met him, he was looking for work but said that he kept getting injured. He said he recently got hit by a car and a recent diagnosis could signal a sooner rather than later finish line.

“I'm fighting pancreatic cancer and I just found out while I was [visiting] in Texas. They started giving me a timeline, I walked out and said, 'I don't care,' I'm going to roll until the wheels fall off,” Tex said.

Reporting by Lucia Starbuck for Our Town Reno

Transition from Record Street and the Reno Events Center to Our Place Begins

A Staggered Opening with COVID-19 Delays

Aside from construction and renovation delays, the opening of Our Place, the new Washoe County shelter for women, families and seniors, has been complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The campus transitioned to RISE staff on May 1st, but initially they told us they were only able to accept five residents.

“[The launch date] has been somewhat of a moving target,” Castro said. “But we hope to start accepting new residents soon. We do have a quarantine room for them to where they'll have to stay for the first couple of weeks before they're kind of released into their own shared space.”

By May 15th, however, the process of transitioning women and families staying at the Reno Event Center and Community Assistance Center campus on Record street to the Our Place campus started. Only single men will remain at the CAC.

“There's a push to basically move the residents from the Reno Events Center back to the CAC relatively soon, and a lot of that does hinge on Our Place opening up,” Castro said at the time of our interview. “So once we can relocate the families and the women from the Reno Event Center, that should give the Volunteers of America (who operate the CAC) … enough room for social distancing to move back over to the CAC.”

Quarantine measures are being taken for new residents to keep everyone safe.

A Still Unfinished Unit for Women and Extra Precautions

One specific challenge brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak, however, is the fact that the building designated for women won’t be completed until August. Washoe County says it is purchasing modulars in the interim, to help facilitate the transition of women from the Reno Events Center to the Our Place campus in a way that still enables social distancing practices.

“[The outbreak] has been really challenging for us but thankfully, the buildings on the campus are laid out where each individual gets their own rooms and bathrooms that do complement the social distancing guidelines,” Amber Howell, the Washoe County Human Services Agency Director said. “But we thought this still would be a good time, even though the building won't be ready at Our Place, that we would offer to provide the women that are at the Reno Events Center shelter and housing at the Our Place campus. So everybody sort of relocates to the campus around the same time.”

Given that the COVID-19 outbreak is still ongoing, precautions will still be in place to ensure the safety of the residents being admitted to the Our Place campus.

“We have a couple of different housing options if someone is presumptive or tests positive,” Howell said. “We have a contract with Well Care where we can house individuals with their own rooms so that they can be provided a safe place to heal and get better if they are exposed to [COVID-19].”

An Ongoing Partnership with Well Care to Help the COVID affected

The partnership with Well Care, which provides local health care for those without shelter, including those affected by COVID-19, will be a continuation of what’s been instituted at the CAC.

“When the Health District becomes aware of an individual who is presumptive, positive, or is having symptoms, there's a referral that is sent to the housing branch,” Howell said. “They get all of their medical records and medical needs and then they have to consult with Well Care to just go over any unique needs or criteria for that individual. Then they are placed there for 14 days or longer until they have a solid after-care plan.”

Castro is second from left with other RISE members at a recent community meal.

New Services such as Transportation, Gardens

As the official launch of the Our Place campus approaches, Castro is excited for the new opportunities the RISE staff will be able to provide the residents.

“For RISE staff, we're there to basically support our residents and our guests to make them feel welcome,” Castro said. “There is going to be food service on the property and a transportation service that we're providing so that people can get to appointments and things of that nature. In addition to the daycare on-site, I’m really excited about that.”

Castro recently had the opportunity to tour the campus for himself. Although a majority of the campus is still a construction site, he sees great potential for the campus once they officially open.

“[The campus] is really beautiful, frankly,” Castro said. “For me, I just pictured a lot of laughter and joy in it, and it made me really happy.”

RISE, however, is still searching for community groups and organizations to partner with to create even more opportunities for residents on the campus. It’s all part of maximizing the potential the Our Place campus can have for a client-centered approach in serving the houseless community in Reno.

“There's a lot of land [on the campus],” Castro said. “So we hope to have gardens and have areas where people can do art therapy, music therapy, and garden therapy. There's also an area for service animals so people don't have to abandon their companion animals, so we're really excited about that as well. It's just going to be much more flexible than we've seen in the past.”

Our Place, A Name with History that Strives for Better

Even the name, Our Place, signifies an approach to do better by acknowledging the past. The NNAHMS campus is now named in honor of William Place, the first resident that passed away in the early 1900s when it was a state mental health campus. 

“[William Place’s] story is really interesting and sad about how we used to address individuals that were experiencing mental health,” Howell explained. “They would go to this campus where they would finish out their life and eventually pass away. There was, at the time, archaic treatment methods that were used to try and cure individuals from mental health issues. So William Place was the first individual that passed away on the campus. What's important about that is that it's named in his honor and a promise that we can do better when people are experiencing mental health issues.”

Our Place, Howell said, will strive to be much different than what Place had to experience.

“We want to have this campus be a place of support and safety,” Howell said. “We want to revitalize the campus to do better for individuals so that they can heal. So we just thought it was important to have something symbolic [about the name] as we’re reopening the campus and giving it a new path forward and a new way of helping individuals who need help.”

RISE used to hold regular community meals at the downtown shelter, such as above until they were moved to a new location, on 4th street, which is not too far from Our Place.

Ongoing Advocacy for Safe Camps

Despite its work with Our Place, RISE says it will also continue to host community dinners at the 1905 East Fourth Street rest stop and advocating for a safe camp initiative.

“We're really excited that the opening of Our Place will essentially double the capacity of services here in town as far as emergency shelter goes,” Castro said. “But given the pandemic and with unemployment on the rise, we're still going to see camps popping up all over town. There's still gonna be a lot of new people that are new to being outside. So the initiative for a safe camp is still very necessary and the community dinners will still be occurring because there are still people out there that need to eat.”

Reporting by Scott King as part of an Our Town Reno series on Our Place.

Part 1 of our series can be read here:

http://www.ourtownreno.com/our-stories-1/2020/5/18/rise-creating-a-new-place-for-women-families-and-seniors-without-shelter

Jeff Bogue, Making a Case for Safe Parking and Cheap Showers in Reno

Experiences of Living in His Vehicle

For Jeff Bogue, Reno has been home ever since he grew up in a Lemmon Valley trailer park in the 1970s. Before becoming a born-again Christian at the age of 26, Bogue used to work in downtown casinos. 

Just before the coronavirus shutdown, we met him at the Reno Downtown Public Library, where he was preparing paperwork and applications, looking for full-time work.

“I have been homeless, but only in a vehicle,” Bogue said. “I've never been out on the street [camping]. But I've stayed in a vehicle at times, sometimes just to save money so I know how to do it.”

Although most people may not see a vehicle as a feasible place to live in, Bogue asserts that it can be done in even the most inclement weather.

“I've stayed out when it was really freezing cold outside and high winds, and that’s some dangerous weather,” Bogue said. “But even when my truck window was broken, being in a vehicle underneath heavy blankets with a sleeping bag and a beanie cap, I was still warm.”

Bogue jokes that it could get so warm inside the vehicle that at times he would have to take his shirt off underneath all of the blankets. But that’s not to say he wasn’t reluctant to get out from underneath his warm, winter oasis.

“I did have times where the problem was that I didn't want to get up to start the vehicle because it was so cold outside,” Bogue said.

Bogue is confident in his ability to live out of his vehicle if he has to, knowing the right places to park so as not to be bothered by anyone. To him, having a vehicle when you don’t have a place to stay means everything.

“[A vehicle means] you got your safety and you've got your dryness,” Bogue said. “And [dryness] is key.”

When it comes to being safe, having a vehicle afforded him the luxury of not worrying about anyone coming up on him unexpectedly.

“They would have to break into your vehicle to even get to you,” Bogue explained. “The only thing I was worried about was cops knocking on my door.”

Safe Parking in Reno?

Bogue would like to see a safe parking program in Reno, such as has been implemented in cities in California, including Los Angeles.

“The cops shouldn't always go after the homeless that are not causing problems and just because they’re sleeping,” Bogue said. “[Sleeping] should not be a crime, in my opinion. For somebody who's extremely tired and doesn’t have a place to go, they should have a little compassion.”

Although now he’s no longer living out of his car, Bogue understands why some people prefer that lifestyle. 

“There are some [homeless] who want to go and stay off the grid, which I understand,” Bogue said. “They just want to get off the grid except for a check for their disability if they even get that, but otherwise they just want to do their own thing and camp out.” 

In the meantime, Bogue said he was focused on getting back his Social Security card and then a full-time job.

“I lost my social security card, so I need to get one and then I can get back to getting a regular job somewhere,” Bogue explained. “I've been offered here and there by people that I knew from the past but I haven't put my applications out yet because I got to get that social security [first]. That's one of the things I have to do.”

Until then, Bogue has been getting by on various part-time jobs and tasks.

“I look for side jobs, moving people, anything like that,” Bogue said. “I have a few regular customers I call and they hook me up with a few hours cleaning the yard, picking up dog stuff, whatever I gotta do for 15, 20, or 30 bucks.”

He uses most of the income he does acquire to help out his parents, who have been hosting him until he gets back on his feet. He no longer has the vehicle that he used to live in, but now has a van that needs work before he’s able to use it and maybe sleep in it, to regain some of his independence. 

“[Staying in a vehicle] is a rich man's way [of being homeless] because when you're camping and laying down on the ground, that's dangerous,” Bogue explained.

 “I’ve seen teenagers that pick on homeless guys,” Bogue said. “I had a buddy who was a very tough guy and he actually got attacked by five of them. He doesn't even smoke or drink, he just likes being out.”

In another instance when teenagers were messing with another of Bogue’s friends, who was living on the streets with his wife, they were able to get the cops involved and things turned out okay for them. But Bogue understands that that’s not always the case.

More Cheap Showers Needed, Especially During Pandemic

In addition to the locations that serve meals for the homeless, Bogue used to rely on cheap showers, but some of those places are now shut down.

“Evelyn Mount [Community Center] on Valley Rd. is a good place that gives showers out,” Bogue explained. “It's only a dollar for anybody age 50 and older. It'd be good for the homeless because the couple of showers they have at The Mission (on Record St.) from what I heard is for hundreds of people and that just doesn't work.”

Bogue wishes people understood the difficulty of getting a job when you don’t have regular access to a shower and clean clothes. 

“There's some homeless that really do need help and they do want a job,” Bogue said. “But if you got dirty clothes on and you've been homeless for a while and you smell, it's hard to find a job even if you want one. So there needs to be places to help them.”

Looking ahead, Bogue hopes to be able to give back to the homeless community. “Eventually I'd like to have a place where I could help them get on their feet,” he said.

Bogue believes that one day he’ll be in a position where he can do more. It’s just a matter of time and God’s answer to his prayers, he says. He understands that not all prayers will always be answered, but he says his faith is strong because he’s seen how the power of prayer has worked before.

“I was here last week at the library and I prayed to God and said, ‘God, I need a job. I need somebody to call me,’” Bogue explained. “About an hour later, I got a call from a lady who found my paper and she hired me for picking up leaves. It was a blessing.”

“Most people have faith when they get in their vehicle and start that motor up that it's going to start,” Bogue said. “But if you don't have faith, then none of this works,” he said.

Reporting by Scott King as part of Share Your Story with Our Town Reno

RISE, Creating Our Place for Women, Families and Seniors Without Shelter

Giving Rise to Our Place

Since stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines were issued across the country in mid-March to mitigate the novel coronavirus pandemic, the city of Reno had to change its ways in helping those without housing.

The Reno Events Center, closed due to the pandemic, became a temporary shelter where social distancing could be observed and alleviate the congestion of people staying at the Community Assistance Center (CAC) on Record Street. Individuals became subject to temperature checks and health screenings, and even testing, so that those exhibiting symptoms could be safely and appropriately quarantined.

Another opportunity was explored to use the Stead ex-military barracks, near the Reno-Tahoe airport, as a temporary shelter. But assessments of the barracks found that they were not structurally suitable, and so that idea was abandoned. 

Now, as much of the country begins to open back up and the Reno Events Center is seeing a decline in individuals staying there, a new shelter called Our Place is preparing to open on what is still known locally as the Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services (NNAHMS) campus.

“The need for the overflow shelter [on Washington street] and the tent [on Record street during cold months] wasn't going away and there just wasn't enough space for everybody at the Record Street campus,” Amber Howell, the Director of Human Services Agency for Washoe County, said. “You have a mix of men, women, children, and daycare on a relatively small campus. So we started exploring alternatives and found a bunch of empty buildings at the NNAMHS campus. So because those buildings were vacant, we had the idea of remodeling those buildings and trying to create additional space for all of the friends and neighbors that are located at Record Street.”

Washoe County asked the state of Nevada to lease the NNAHMS campus and the county commissioners were awarded $15 million to rehabilitate the buildings on the campus. The Washoe County Commissioners then awarded a nearly $2 million 14-month contract to RISE to operate the new 100+ bed shelter.

A New Contract for an Advocacy Group

In late March, RISE, an area nonprofit that originally began as a volunteer-based potluck dinner service for the houseless, was approved to take on the project with a unanimous decision to run the new shelter to be called Our Place.

“We have been working with RISE over the past year, much more intensely [this year] than we had in previous years,” Howell said. “They are such a great partner of ours and we've learned a tremendous amount from them as they truly are experts in this field. They're extremely invested in this community and they have great relationships with individuals that are experiencing homelessness.”

“RISE started about nine years ago,” Benjamin Castro, Executive Director of RISE, said. “Throughout the years we went from food insecurity to food as a human right, from affordable housing to housing as a human right, and to just general houseless advocacy. More recently we had the great opportunity to partner with Washoe County to operate Our Place, which is going to be a women's and family respite over at the old NNAMHS campus.”

The Our Place campus will consist of five buildings. Three of them will be family-style apartment units with their own bathrooms but a shared kitchen. The next two buildings will be designated for seniors and women, respectively. In total: 28 families, 18 seniors, and 118 women will be provided emergency shelter on the campus.

By moving women and families to Our Place, Washoe County is looking to alleviate the congestion at Record Street while providing greater support and resources throughout its shelter system. Volunteers of America’s is continuing to operate the CAC shelter on Record Street, which will now primarily house the homeless male population in the area.

Striving for a More Resident-Centered, Family and Pet Friendly Approach

“What's great about us relocating the populations that we are, is that it allows us to get rid of the overflow shelter and the tent so that all men can have stable and safe housing within the shelter,” Howell said. “It allows them to increase their caseworkers to provide more intensive case management and more programming that's unique to what that population requires, so that's really exciting as well.” 

The ability to reallocate resources to better serve the homeless population is just one element that the county’s partnership with RISE brings. Howell says it was RISE’s understanding of and relationship with the homeless community that made the 700+ volunteer network the unanimous choice to take on the Our Place project. 

“One of the things that has been so helpful about working with RISE is understanding why individuals do not welcome shelter or housing,” Howell said. “We've learned that there are three areas that become barriers for individuals: they can't have their pets, they're worried about their personal property, and being separated as families.”

At Our Place, some of these barriers will be lifted.

“We are going to allow pets [at Our Place] because we understand the companionship and the relationship between individuals and their pets,” Howell said. “So we've been working with organizations to provide kennels in the rooms and outdoor areas and we're really excited to be able to offer that. That's something we haven't been able to do historically.”

Another barrier Our Place hopes to remove is the separation of families living on the streets. With three buildings on the campus designated for families, the eligibility of who and what constitutes a family is broadened to create more opportunities for families to stay together.

“The only eligibility is that there are children,” Howell said. “So it could be a single mom and her children. It could be a pregnant individual who's about to deliver. It can be a single father and his children. It can be a married couple or two individuals that have children together. It's less about the eligibility criteria of the parent and more about if they have children, they go into one of those three buildings.”

There will also be a daycare facility and classroom space in a stand-alone building on the campus for the children staying on the Our Place campus. There children can work on developmental milestones and curriculum in an environment where they can play and just be kids. Overseeing this aspect of the project is The Boys and Girls Club, continuing the same partnership currently in place at the daycare at the Record Street shelter.

In addition to a daycare, there will be a medical clinic on-site where eight caseworkers will be assigned to support residents. A domestic violence advocate will be available, as well as a food service for all the nutritional needs of residents. An additional partnership with the Department of Employment and Training Rehabilitation will be created to generate opportunities for residents to get on the path to employment.

Part 1 of a Series on Our Place by Scott King for Our Town Reno



Chris, Comparing City Services after Relocating to Reno from Portland

Homeless in a New State

Discovering himself has been the silver lining in what has otherwise been a challenging transition between cities for Chris who was homeless in Portland, and is now in the same predicament since moving to Reno.

“It sucks [being homeless in Reno],” he said.  “I don’t know the town and it seems like they don’t have a whole lot of help for the homeless people down here like they do back home.”

Chris was homeless back in Oregon, as well, which is the state he calls home, despite now trying to survive in Nevada.

“[How homeless were treated in Oregon] depended on what part of the city you are in,” he said. “If you go to Eugene, they’re the number one small-city in the US for homeless people with over 5,000 people that are homeless [there]. I think you’re treated up there with more respect, courtesy, and are more likely to get help and not shut down like you are down here.”

The city of Reno, according to Chris, just doesn’t seem to know what they’re doing when it comes to helping the homeless population. He explained a recent experience he had when trying to get a phone. “They say ‘I don’t know, go try this place,’” Chris said. “Then you go there and they just give you the run-around.”

More Support Wanted and Dreams Deferred

Chris thinks the city of Reno could do more to support the homeless. Particularly, he would like to see the city support the shelter so it can serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner for everybody on the streets. With more support for the homeless population, Chris thinks the situation would be better for everybody.

Volunteer-run community meals were recently relocated away from the downtown shelter, and during the coronavirus outbreak, St. Vincent’s Catholic Charities instituted a lunch pickup system.

“[The city] should just have more resources,” Chris said. “People should be able to take showers. They should have more bus passes to get [the homeless] around and then you’ll have less problems and less people on the streets.”

Ultimately, however, Chris isn’t optimistic that the city will reach out to help them more. “You know how governments are,” Chris said. “They don’t care.”

Yet, when we met him, Chris was still hopeful, lured by what he saw as a growing economy, which is now experiencing one of its busts, due to coronavirus.

“I’m just trying to find a job, get a place, and get off the streets,” Chris said. “I’ll do any job, [but my background] is mostly cooking and baking. One of these days, I’ll even have my own restaurant.” With restaurants slowly reopening, and only now starting to rehire staff, sadly, it might be a long road now for Chris and others who are currently living on the streets in the Biggest Little City.

Photography and Reporting by Scott King and Lucia Starbuck for Our Town Reno

Ian, Seeking More Help for Those with Mental Health Challenges

Insufficient Medicare

Ian has lived in Reno for the past 14 years. He’s proud to have grown up and lived in Reno, but there are a few concerns he’d like to see fixed, including having his Medicare cover all, and not just some of his healthcare costs . 

“I qualify for Medicare and I'm on disability,” Ian explained. “I'm fortunate to receive enough disability to live on. However, the health insurance doesn't cover psychiatry because it's Part B Medicare. But that's all I need.”

He says he’s also experienced a deterioration of services at Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services and in general health care in the area, despite there being excellent doctors in Reno. He says unfortunately they seem to be out of reach financially for him and for others barely getting by.

 “[Access to mental health resources] has been in constant decline,” Ian said. “Some of the best surgeons are in Vegas, but some of the best psychiatric, neurological, and pediatric doctors live in Reno and they're amazing people, but it costs so much money.” 

Despite politicians talking about challenges of mental health in our community, Ian says he would like to see much for funding to support programs, as well as effectiveness.

“Mental health is not a serious thing in our country,” Ian said. “I actually called the suicide hotline in January to see how it would turn out. They wanted me to hang up the phone. I'm not even kidding, I have witnesses.” 

He says he believes an overall lack of empathy is something that is reflected in how those without stable shelter are treated in the city. 

“It sucks not having anything or being homeless, wandering just like everybody else,” Ian said. “But at the same time looking at yourself the way other people look at you, it can't be pretty. And unless you actually put yourself in someone else's shoes, you'd never understand what they've actually been through. Empathy is kind of pathetic to some people.”

Who is Helping Who?

Instead of actually supporting the homeless community and providing affordable housing, Ian says it seems people are more interested only in charitable acts they can profit off of. 

“The rest of these people with all their money, if they cared they would do something about it,” Ian said. “Instead [they’d rather] buy a new car that's like $30,000. I could've thrown up a building with plywood and four by four on property that I purchased [with that money] and turn that into affordable housing and it wouldn't be hemorrhaging money. But there's no point in them doing that because they don't make money off of it.”

He would also like to see more help to fight drug addictions for those without shelter.

“The biggest resource I would like to see available for the homeless is information and drug help,” Ian said. “The battle of drugs is a hard and tough one that I, myself personally had to go through multiple times. It's tough, I've had family members that have had addiction problems and I think that within itself can be a mental health problem.”

He understands how difficult it is for the portion of the homeless community that’s fighting their addiction battles on their own. Ian recently encountered a man in Reno who was looking for a few bucks to find heroin.

“He just looked so defeated, like he was being controlled by another force,” Ian said. “And I honestly thought to myself, ‘If I had $5, I would've given him $5 because maybe that admission of truth would be something to set them free.”

For Ian, it comes down to trying to understand the reality of the position many of these people are in.

“‘Well, am I gonna die on the streets tonight? I don't know how cold it's going to be.’ Those are things that actually go through people's heads [on the streets],” Ian said. “It's the reality of the situation that they're in and if the only way to feel better about that [is to do drugs], then why not do it?”

But with better mental health resources and more affordable housing, through better-allocated funds by the city council, Ian believes that decision may never have to be made. But unless something is done now, the people that need help the most will be stuck in a never-ending cycle.

“Mental health is one of the most important issues because how are you ever going to get out of your funk if you don't know why you're there in the first place?” Ian asked. “And if you don't have a place to stay, you're not going to be able to get out of your funk because it's a reinforced cycle.”

Share Your Story Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Hannah, Losing a Paycheck, but Surviving with Unemployment Benefits for Now

ULTA Beauty is doing all it can right now to drum up sales for Mother’s Day 2020, from gift sets, to eyeshadow and moisturizer. It’s using a hashtag called #SeeBeautifulToday and updating its FAQ pages on why shipping might be much slower than usual right now. The company’s CEO Mary Dillon posts new messages to keep customers informed.

While its web designers and social media team may be busy, former store employees from its flagship Reno store at the Summit, such as UNR student Hannah Abbott, wait to get rehired.

Initially, when Nevada’s shutdown first began in mid-March, employees at ULTA’s Reno stores were told by management that they would be paid part of their wages, but then when the CARES Act came through, they were told to file for unemployment and other available emergency benefits instead.

Abbott was confused at first on how to apply, but she says even though she wasn’t getting paid anymore, management helped her figure out how to apply for government money.

“My managers send me lots of updates and well wishes. I’m lucky to have a work family that cares about each other on more than just a professional level,” she said. “They have been nothing but supportive and have offered us help with applying for unemployment and figuring out where to go from there.”

Hannah Abbott lives with three other roommates in Reno, at the YOUnion student living, while still going to school. Each individual pays a certain amount based on their room and other amenities. She says she pays on average $770 every month.

 “Paying for rent has been tough, but as of right now I am able to keep paying for my bills from the income I’m getting through unemployment by saving as much as I can and making sure I meet my due dates,” she said.  

Abbott is trying to finish her semester with new challenges of online teaching and testing, and is just taking it day by day, uncertain of what the future holds, but trying to survive, and hoping that her job with ULTA will be there for her when Nevada reopens for business, whenever that might be.

Reporting by Natalie Adame for Our Town Reno

Inside Amazon, Getting Paid during a Pandemic Despite the Risks

Over $18 an Hour With Lots of Risks

For one Reno local, getting a job at the Amazon Fulfillment Center as it’s called north of Reno was exactly what he needed to get through these difficult times as many other companies were instead letting go of their workers.

The employee wishes to remain anonymous in order to keep his job, but expressed how, “there weren’t that many job options due to coronavirus... Amazon was one of the few companies hiring,” he said. He said Amazon is paying $18.75 an hour to its workers during COVID-19 due to the high-risk factor of working alongside hundreds of others.

In mid-April, fears were confirmed as the center announced it was dealing with its first known case of COVID-19 and implementing strict guidelines to be able to stay open.

“I feel safe there,” our anonymous source said. “They always make us wear gloves and masks and provide us with materials to clean our stations at the start and end of every shift.”

Fewer Cars in Parking Lot

“I noticed a lot less cars in the parking lot. It just made me question if I should continue working there,” said our source, when the case was initially announced.

He said he would continue to work there to pay more bills and other expenses, but will not stick around too long. The company is notoriously tight-lipped with media and giving access to journalists, but in books and articles workers have complained of having to stay on their feet for long stretches and simultaneously very physical and tedious requirements for warehouse work.

Inside the break room, signs give thanks to staff who are putting their lives at risk as more and more local residents turn to the giant retailer.

New Measures and Huge Profits

New measures include more signage, preventing stand-up meetings, spreading out tables in break rooms, staggered shifts, extra precautions for any employee feeling unwell, including paying them for up to five hours even if they go home early, video-based interviews for most new applicants, and more availability of wipes and masks.

Analysts are saying Amazon, which already has 800-thousand workers worldwide, has a strong business model for pandemic times, including its cloud computing services, and that it is poised to continue on its hiring spree.

In France, a country known for worker rights, complaints and strikes, Amazon has had to shut down all six of its distribution centers following an April court ruling the online retailer hasn’t done enough to protect its warehouse workers. This type of result is unlikely to be seen anywhere in the United States though, including here in Reno.

Reporting by Karina Dominguez shared with Our Town Reno

Owen Schenk, A Rocket Launch to His Career Put on Hold

A Sucker Punch for Plans

For many young adults based out of Reno, with plans to move around and find themselves, their career tracks and new horizons, such as Owen Schenk, COVID-19 has been a sucker punch.

For a third year in a row, Schenk, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Nevada, Reno, had been an intern for The National Aeronautics and Space Administration at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, but this Spring that experience came to a sudden halt.

“My housemates went back to their hometowns after the NASA center moved to a mandatory telework status,” he explained. “I was there alone for a couple of weeks and made the difficult decisions to fly to Reno to be with family, though it was not a decision I took lightly.”

He’s now working from home with his parents, with just a few weeks to go. “I am grateful I can still work full time. It has been tough adjusting to COVID, the biggest struggle has been with isolation,” he said.

Although he feels lucky to currently have his job, COVID-19 has him worried about his future and restarting again in Reno.

Out of Luck, Out of Work, Out of His Belongings

Many of the other prestigious internships Schenk was gunning for over the summer have been canceled. 

“I believe I will be unable to find a new job over the summer. I expect to be unemployed until fall,” he said.

A veteran of the Reno service industry, Schenk has also spent past summers as a valet for local casinos and businesses. Even with his past experience, he says, it is unlikely though he’ll be able to find a new position.

He’s also dealing with logistical challenges. At the time of our interview, most everything he owned was still stuck in Alabama. He initially came back to Reno for what he thought would just be a couple of weeks. Flights back to Alabama to bring his things back to Reno, including his car, keep getting canceled. 

With his internship officially over on May 8th, he’s unsure when he’ll be able to go retrieve his belongings. After two canceled flights, Shenk wouldn’t be surprised if it turns into three.

“The next soonest flight isn’t until May 2nd. Hopefully, that one doesn’t get canceled, all if my stuff is out there and I’ll have to bring it back here eventually,” he said.

No Flights, and Still Paying Rent

Schenk also still needs to pay rent.

“One of the more difficult payments to make is for the rent on the house I was living at in Alabama. I still pay the full rent since my belongings are still there and the owner of the house is unemployed due to COVID. I would like to help him out a bit.”

Schenk has always planned for the future. Interning as often as possible to gain relevant experience to help him later in his career. But internships aren’t the only thing that Schenk has lost out on.

“The stocks I had before the pandemic hit have tanked. If COVID-19 lasts for too long I could be in an even tougher spot, and I can only imagine what many others are going through.”

Reporting by Jordan Buxton shared with Our Town Reno