Charles, Thankful for the Kindness of People and Higher Powers

On a windy day during Thanksgiving week, Charles, in his sixties, is living down by the river under the Wells Avenue overpass. Many tents are lined up along the river and railroad tracks. There’s a communal feel in the air. As the wind whips around us, Charles shares his story.

“I had a partner and stuff like that and then the rents went up,” he said. He says he has bounced back and forth between California and Reno. He has a good friend, a retired Los Angeles police officer, who helps him get his Social Security benefits. Charles says he is also able to get medical care despite his lack of housing. 

The wind continues to spin. Charles says he’s had thoughts of going to Alameda County in the near future but expressed worry about the violence down there. He is starting to think that he may be better off staying here in Reno.

Charles is focused on staying safe from day to day. He is tech savvy and carries a cell phone to help him connect with resources he needs. He says he isn’t too concerned about the growing COVID-19 cases here in Washoe County. He says he is more concerned about the annual flu.

He sees the pandemic as a form of punishment for humans and said “it's not a lack of resources, it’s the misuse of the resources.”

He is a religious man with a background in Buddhism. “You're not going to find material solutions,” he explained. 

When asked about shelters in Reno, he was unaware of the planned ‘super shelter’ for the Governor’s Bowl park.

“The Volunteers of America, they tried to connect me to the place [the homeless shelter],” he said. “They just try to usurp your basic rights because they think you're nobody.”

Charles was adamant that the shelters are not the place for him. He feels shelters tend to create more problems than what you get out of them. He says a police officer recently saved him. “Like she saved my life. I was really sick. They helped me out,” he remembers.

He says is grateful for people who take the time to stop and have a conversation and treat him like a human.

Charles is most thankful he says for “the mercy of the most high goddess and particularly, you know, the kindness of people that come through here.” 

Reporting by Richard Bednarski for Our Town Reno

Ashley, Thankful to Still Be Alive after an Injury, Losing Work, Housing and a Mugging

“I broke my foot at work and I was evicted and fired a week later. So I was forced to be homeless on the streets with a broken foot, nothing to do, like how can I work?

I panhandled, and begged other people to help me because I had no way to work, had a broken foot.

I can come across food, but housing is almost impossible.

I had help through [Northern Nevada] Hopes with housing at one point, but then they were only able to help me that once.

[In Reno], they say they help, but they choose who they want to help. They don't want to help everybody.

To be honest, [I’d like to see] just better resources and less judgment. A lot less judgment. We're not all bad people. There's different circumstances [out here]. We're just trying to survive like everybody else.

[My holiday plans] are to sleep and try to survive every day. Because yeah, I don't know what I'm doing. I have kids and stuff. I don't get to see them. Holidays are tough. Holidays are real tough.

I live oddly enough to be alive, the opportunity that I could still see my kids [again] one day.

You guys [Our Town Reno reporters] have your mask on and I don't have one on and I apologize for that, but, it's just been, to be honest with you, it has been hard.

It's been harder to survive and try to come up on money. There have been a lot of people that come out and help, help give us food all day long.

Yesterday I ate. So you know, I'm grateful for that but it's just hard because how are we supposed to stay safe from this pandemic when we're homeless. I have nowhere to go. So what am I supposed to do? You know? And I'm starting to feel sick now with all the weather changes. So hopefully it's not the COVID.

[My message to others is] just be kind, just be kind and less judgment, you know? Cause you guys, no offense, but anybody could be one step away from where I'm at.

And then how would you feel begging at the mercy of other people? You know, I'm not proud of what I'm doing. I'm not proud of where I'm at, but circumstances happened so you know, just be kind.

I'm waiting for my ID so I can hopefully get a job. My foot's better now and so I can go back to work, but I was mugged, my purse, go figure. And so I'm just waiting for my ID so I can hopefully get back to work. “

In their Own Words Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Interviewing and Photographing our Neighbors Living on the Streets

On a stormy and rainy Wednesday afternoon, we got the chance to meet Sam and Bobby who are currently living on the streets, and walking along 4th street in Reno. We have never reported for Our Town Reno and were interested in trying it out. We also wanted to talk about the United States getting a new president.

Sam poses in front of the Morris Burner Hostel.

Sam, 30, is a friendly man who gladly wanted to have a conversation about politics with us. He told us he once went to the prestigious performing arts Juilliard School in New York City. He likes to bring his cart of blankets and clothes with him wherever he goes, and put on one of his nice jackets for the photo and interview. 

Photo by Linnea Sorensen of Sam showing us the arrangement of blankets that he brings with him everywhere.

Sam said he voted for Joe Biden in the election, after difficulties in figuring out how to vote himself.

“I think it’s important to make everyone be able to vote in this country,” he said.

Photo by Linnea Sorensen of Bobby McCourt who asked to be interviewed because he was interested in talking about politics.

Bobby said he didn’t vote, but that if he would have, he would have picked Biden as well.

“I think the most important topic of politics is to keep peace within the countries,” he said. “I think Biden would do a better job at keeping peace”, he added.

This was the first time we have interviewed those who live on the streets for Our Town Reno and it was a comfortable and safe experience. We had our reservations being two girls walking up to strangers, just like any other interview, but it was clear the people we talked to just enjoyed a good conversation.

It was also humbling to get to know these people we would have otherwise ignored walking down the street.

Our Town Reno is an important way to learn more about people who are struggling without stable housing and it creates a platform for their voices to be heard. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with Our Town Reno and to make more voices heard in Reno.

Reporting by Linnea Sorensen and Seanna Simpson shared with Our Town Reno

Adrienne Feemster, Fighting for her Grandmother's Legacy and Positive Change in Our Schools

#IStandWithFeemster Gaining Traction

When the Washoe County School District Board of Trustees voted in May to name a new academy on the site of Hug High School after the late state politician Debbie Smith, Adrianne Feemster decided to motivate the community and galvanize support for her grandmother, Dolores Feemster, instead.

"This has been an inequitable process,” and “this location is not a right fit," Adrienne Feemster keeps saying of the Smith choice.

There are ongoing plans for the high school to be converted to a Career and Technology Education Academy by 2023.  Adrienne thinks it should be named after her grandmother and not Smith as is the current plan.

“My grandmother has inspired me to just be an all around good person,” Adrienne said in a recent Our Town Reno interview, “and to work from your heart outward,” a lesson she shared with many others who saw discrimination all around them, during her 30 plus years as a counselor at Hug High.

Feemster gave birth to 12 children, and there were many other kids who considered her family. She celebrated so-called May Birthdays for the many birthdays that month in her family, an annual event that some community members that were like extended family would participate in. Her grandmother, she remembers, had the capability of bringing together friends and even past foes, who came to at least greatly respect her and appreciate her value to the community.

At Hug High, “she had the opportunity to individually affect life after life after life, as the kids and students came through the school,” Adrienne said of her late grandmother. She was remembered by over 2,000 people at her funeral in June 2018 .

Creating a Refuge for Many in Difficult Times and Becoming a Leader in the Community

Adrienne has heard many stories of former students explaining how they felt like they were Dolores’s own children; that she had a way of connecting with the students and encouraging them to become the best they could.

Adrienne explained that some had no place else to go when they experienced racially motivated attacks in the community, but that Dolores always opened up her home as a place of refuge. Her support did not stop with students.

Adrienne also talked about how her grandmother offered a safe haven for women who experienced domestic violence. “There were quite a few women that would seek her for refuge, which is why there is a shelter shared in her name with a Senator in the Northeast community,” Adrienne said. 

Dolores lived in Reno her entire life and grew up in a time when people of color had to contend with daily racism, segregation and redlining. She called the northeast part of town home for over 50 years and lived alongside the students and youth she mentored. When her own kids could not join organizations like the Campfire Girls, a youth development group, she started Cub Scouts and Bluebirds for her area and children.

“Because she didn't want her children to feel rejected in that way,” Adrienne said, "and that's how her children first had the opportunity to be a part of those programs.”

Known for her patient demeanor, Dolores was also a leader in the local civil rights movement. Serving many roles in the Reno-Sparks Branch of the NAACP, she eventually rose to its presidency in 1981. Dolores was also a founding member of the Northern Nevada Black Cultural Awareness Society. Dolores received many awards recognizing her tireless efforts to make Reno a stronger community, including Mother of The Year from the Reno Business and Professional Women’s Club and the University of Nevada, Reno, President's medal. Many of her children continued her legacy and served the community though careers in a variety of public service positions. 

A Drawn out Renaming Process

In November of 2019, the Washoe County School District Board of Trustees Board President Katy Simon Holland asked each member which name they preferred. Four of them said they wanted to name the former high school in honor of Dolores Feemster. The audience was also filled with some who wanted the Smith name. Those wanting to honor Smith said it would acknowledge her role as a state senator and pay homage to the bill she drafted and helped pass which increased funding for schools in Washoe County. Many of Dolores’s children were also at this meeting and spoke in favor of honoring their mother. After hearing dozens of these public comments, the trustees agreed to refer the naming process back to the School Naming Committee, suggesting they could consider a joint name that honors both women and appeals to the entire community. 

At the next meeting in December, the community again showed up in support of the Feemster name, along with dozens of online comments supporting the Feemster name. Six people spoke in favor of naming the new academy after Dolores. This time, Adrienne passionately  expressed frustration with the Board of Trustees for their lack of transparency regarding the naming process. She referenced the board’s prior discussion held in November and highlighted their support for the new academy to have her grandmother’s name.

However, at the February 2020 meeting of the School Naming Committee it was voted to recommend just the Smith name to the Board of Trustees. This was done despite another outpouring of community support to honor the late Dolores Feemster. After the meeting, Adrienne filed a formal grievance citing violation of various statutes and policies. The district immediately began an investigation and within a month completed the internal review and found no policy violations. At the May 12th, 2020 Washoe County School District Board of Trustees meeting, which due to the pandemic was broadcast live via YouTube, the trustees voted to rename Hug High after the late politician Debbie Smith. This platform limited community participation which Adrienne believes further marginalized the community due to limited abilities to participate. 

Adrienne started a petition to document the overwhelming support for the new academy to be named after her grandmother. Currently, it has over 1200 signatures and there is an “outpouring of support through the social media platforms,” she said.

A Petition and Events to Raise Awareness

The community has held many events to raise more awareness about the actions the school district has taken. She plans to continue fighting to get the name changed back to Feemster. 

“It’s so important because of the legacy, the story that it tells, which is a part of my grandmother's legacy and it belongs to not just my family, but the community, it belongs to the city,” she said. Dolores was an African-Italian American and Adrienne feels the school district has the opportunity to move the community forward, particularly in a tumultuous year of social injustice and the growing Black Lives Matter movement, by naming the former high school after her grandmother. 

Adrienne feels the school district is disconnected from the community by eliminating the Feemster name altogether. “There’s so many stories that come out of that community,” she said. “I feel like disregarding an opportunity to honor an African-American” shows the “board is out of touch not to understand the purpose.” As a community motivator, Adrienne is urging the board to do more research and consider the decisions they are making. She continues to encourage the community to contact the Board of Trustees with questions and public comments. “They have not answered the call to the community,” she said.

Adrienne will not be deterred. She is encouraging the community to show up at the next Board meeting held this Tuesday to offer public comment and give a face to the petition. She believes the answer no “is not absolute and that oftentimes people feel like their voice, their actions don’t really matter.” Adrienne wants the community to know their individual voices and actions, when organized together, do matter, and that change, even if there are many setbacks, barriers and obstacles, can still happen.

Reporting by Richard Bednarski for Our Town Reno

Stephen Zipkin with Washoe Food Not Bombs: “People should eat”

Volunteering Saturday Mornings to Fill a Void

“Sometimes you can just do things,” Stephen Zipkin said at a recent outdoor community meal on one of a few recent balmy Fall days, “because you think someone ought to be doing them.”

Zipkin is a volunteer who has been serving food with Washoe Food Not Bombs for two years. A student at the University of Reno, Nevada, Zipkin is studying environmental science and stands by the mission of Washoe Food Not Bombs. The group of volunteers meets at Barbara Bennett Park every Saturday at 10 am to serve food to anyone who is hungry. The group has no formal structure, yet they are still able to come out and reliably deliver a hot, healthy meal to those in need.

“I believe that if I’m paying taxes, the government should feed homeless people, or else what am I paying taxes for?” Zipkin asked. He feels that organizations like Washoe Food Not Bombs are essential in urban areas where food insecurity is a major issue and can help fill the cracks tax dollars do not fill. 

About ten volunteers mingled about the two tables set up under a tree when we caught up with Zipkin. The tables were filled with freshly prepared food and a sense of community was in the air. As we spoke, volunteers poured coffee, sliced bread, and scooped freshly made soup into bowls. People came and left with a plate full of food.

Feeling Gratified to Help and Expanding Offerings during the Winter

“I think the act of scooping rice and beans onto a plate is gratifying,” Zipkin said as more people came. Washoe Food Not Bombs has become a staple within the community of Reno. Those without stable shelter or reliable access to healthy food know they will be here and this consistency increases the impact.

“We get food any way we can,” Zipkin said. In weeks past, they have received donations from local bakeries as well as churches. Beyond that, volunteers will cook meals at home. They try to consider food allergies, however, when preparing the food, so more people can have a meal. Zipkin explained they regularly serve about 50 to 60 people.

“We don’t really have something for everyone to do, but it’s great,” he said. “It’s a special environment.” He said he enjoys the social aspect just as much as passing out food. Not only can he connect with like-minded people, but he gets the opportunity to talk with those in need and hear more about how they are doing. 

Not wanting to get shut down by the city, Washoe Food Not Bombs volunteers preemptively began wearing masks and gloves when the pandemic began. They know the homeless are more at risk and do not want to spread Covid-19.

“I had it a couple weeks ago,” Zipkin said. “It was three days of symptoms, and not fun.” He avoided volunteering with Food Not Bombs until he was clear of symptoms but was not daunted and came back out to volunteer.

With occasional snow and colder temperatures now upon us, Zipkin explained that volunteers have started collecting jackets and other warm clothing to pass out in addition to a hot meal. They also try to collect and pass out tarps which can provide valuable shelter during the colder, stormy months.

“We generally get fewer people in the winter,” he said, explaining that it is tough for the homeless to choose between a shelter, which many try to avoid in most situations, or outside where they have to contend with the harsher elements.

Reporting by Richie Bednarski for Our Town Reno

James, a Bike Builder "Fixing to Move" due to a new Police Sweep

“It's bad,” James said of having to repeatedly move due to police sweeps. “Like moving, everybody hates to move. We are still in America, I think,” he said of having the freedom to just be. Sweeps he says usually take place “every couple months or so.”

He calls Reno with all its casinos and its run down centerpiece downtown Virginia Street strange. “It's designed to take from everybody that comes here anyway. That's the way the city was put together,” he said pensively.

Like many who prefer encampments along railroad tracks and the Truckee River, he avoids local shelters, whatever the weather. “Yeah, it don't work for me,” he said. “I don't get along with other people too well.”

How did he end up homeless in Reno, coming from Birmingham, Alabama? “I came out here visiting my daughter that was in Vegas and wound up here,” he said. He moved with her to the Biggest Little City, but he says they had a falling out.

He doesn’t understand why there can’t be legal camping near city areas. “I'm out here because I want to be, “ he said, adding he’s a Baptist who does everything he can to help others in need, including fixing their bike or making one for them.

Reporting by Gracie Gordon for Our Town Reno

Mark Thierman, an Attorney Fighting for Strippers and Out of Work Gig Workers

Morality at Play

As Reno perpetually rebrands, parts of the Biggest Little City which persist don’t always fit wished for narratives.

“We used to be known as a city full of vice if you want to call watching strippers a vice, but I don't know, Reno is trying to get away from that,” said Mark Thierman, from his Lakeside Dr. office at the Thierman Buck Law Firm.

As part of his recent workload, he filed a lawsuit late last year on behalf of eight strippers seeking $15 million in a class-action case, arguing that new constraints placed on clubs were prejudiced and unjust. 2019 Reno licensing requirements now ban women younger than 21 from working in strip clubs, but has no restrictions on male dancers.

“They seem to wanna, you know, treat these women differently for no good reason, no scientifically valid reason. So I sued on behalf of those under 21, because there is both sex and age discrimination,” Thierman explained.

Thierman believes the city is using what he calls the “Stripper Archetype” as alleged victim to crack down on the strip club business model.

“The whole myth or mythology about strippers being poor or underprivileged people I mean some of these women are making fifty to a hundred thousand dollars a year. And this is a living it's just as much of one as anything else,” he said in our interview.

“These women are marginalized for no reason.  They’re just being told -because most of them are women-they have to be protected against themselves or against the world or something like that. And every time we've gone through this with city or whoever else you, they realize that these women make very good money.  Some have professional degrees.  They are not the victims that people wanna make them out to be.  If they want to be helped they will either help themselves or reach out for help which they're not doing, and so it's not a question of morality and victimization.  It’s just a question of one group asserting their political or moral views on another.”

Thierman above was interviewed on a local lawyer show in 2014 about a case involving Amazon workers.

Supreme Court Precedent

In the Supreme Court decision of Schad v. Borough of Mount Ephraim, the Supreme Court ruled that nude dancing has First Amendment protection from official regulation. The ruling means municipalities such as Reno cannot impose a complete ban on live entertainment, including nonobscene nude dancing.

“When you legislate morality, you wind up with nothing but problems,” Thierman told Our Town Reno.  

“They (Reno City Council members) really didn’t consider the strippers financial situation or, you know, their livelihood...My fear is that they will lose hope and either move out of the area, which is a shame to lose their family connections, or they will drift over on to other things which may not be as healthy.”

He says there has been a long tug of war history between strip clubs and the city of Reno, with Thierman helping play defense in recent years. He believes local government should let residents and market realities be the deciders.

“If people don't want to live next to a strip club, they won't. If the strip club wasn't making money, it would go out of business, you know. The market will take care of everything if you just give it a chance.”

Unemployment Benefits Now at Stake

A Reno exotic dancer also joined a 2020 class action lawsuit filed by Thierman against Nevada over her inability with others to get pandemic unemployment benefits as self-employed workers, with stage dancing still not allowed to this day and other occupations such as massage therapy shut down for months as well.

The case has been before the Nevada 2nd Judicial District Court and the Nevada Supreme Court, but remains mired in delays in terms of getting a satisfactory conclusion for his clients.

“We believe that the eight declarations from class members that we filed, plus the two declarations from our staff showing official DETR documents and a summary of the content of class member communication, describes the typical experiences and frustrations most self-employed gig workers are having with DETR,” Thierman wrote in a letter posted in June.

In October, a judge in the Second Judicial District Court in Nevada set a hearing for early December to determine if the state is in contempt and disobeying an earlier court order to pay unemployment benefits for Thierman’s clients in a timely manner. Thierman is not about to let that lawsuit or any fight he is involved in go by quietly.

Reporting by Gracie Gordon for Our Town Reno

Paul White Pivots while Still Taking to Task "Compassionate" Help for the Houseless

New Branding after a Financial Supporter Dies

Paul White, who previously ran Quality of Life-Reno and the Stronghold Institute, getting attention when he called for citizen’s arrests of people camping in parks and along the Truckee River, is now back on the scene, after a failed bid to win a seat on the Washoe County School District, with a new group called Reno on Record. 

“It is just kind of picking up where QOL-Reno and Stronghold Institute left off,” White told Our Town Reno in a recent interview. “Our goal is to inform the community of Reno about the really big issues going on, that frankly are not getting honestly and fully reported on and to motivate the people to get involved in being a part of the solution and to help organize activities that would enable them to do that.”

He said the Irvine, CA-based organization called Scientific Being Research Foundation previously sponsored both QOL-Reno and the Stronghold Institute and when the head of it died a few months ago, White wrote to us in an email, the board decided to step back from its financial support. According to 2018 tax returns published via the Grantmakers website, White received a $90,000 salary from the Foundation and Valerie White, his wife, a regular commenter of Our Town Reno reporting, got an $80,000 yearly salary.

One of the primary issues Reno on Record aims to address, White says, is the growing homeless population on the city’s streets and along the river. 

Reaching out after an Our Town Reno Story

White’s approach to addressing homelessness lies in motivating the homeless population to find work and get back on their feet by taking advantage of the resources available to them in the community. White said this derives from his own brief experience with homelessness.

“I just hit a rough, unexpected patch regarding marriage and some work. I was living in a garden shed in an alley in Vallejo (California),” he said. After being offered and accepting a job, he says he was able to get back on his feet.

Many of those living on the streets that Our Town Reno has interviewed over the past several years, include people who have fled extremely abusive relationships, endured trauma, got severely injured at work and prefer to live quietly and as unobtrusively as possible in their tents.  They also can’t afford rising rents in the area. They also include teenagers fleeing violence at home and seniors in their 70s with severe disabilities and health problems.

“The problem is not with a community that don't care about [the homeless population],” White said of his own approach, which he opposes to those being “too compassionate”. “The problem is that they've let this vagrant-by-choice population hide behind a homeless label. The ones out there are simply scamming the community and the system. It’s bankrupting the city,” he said.

A New Yorker article in 2006 which coined the term “Million Dollar Murray” was about Murray Barr, who was homeless in Reno, and over the course of 10 years of being arrested and cycling through jails and hospitals cost Nevada taxpayers an estimated one million dollars.  

White approached Our Town Reno for an interview after we wrote about a man in a wheelchair called Matt who became homeless after a divorce and a job accident.  Below is part of his query:

To prove to the community how misdiagnosed the homeless problem is - that it's only a "vagrant-by-choice" problem, why doesn't Our T'own Reno get in touch with me and arrange a meeting with OTR, me, and Matt. Our organization can get Matt's life together almost immediately IF.........Matt is willing to be clean and sober, work, and obey the law. OTR can chronicle the entire experience which would be a great benefit to the entire community.

Based on our interview there was no indication Matt, whose hands are pictured above, had any addiction issues. Our article here: http://www.ourtownreno.com/our-stories-1/2020/9/29/matt-comparing-different-shelters-and-fearing-being-homeless-over-winter

The Cover of Court Rulings

Last year, the Supreme Court let stand the recent 9th Circuit Court Boise vs. Martin ruling that the homeless cannot be punished for sleeping outside on public property in the absence of adequate alternatives, which Bruce Parks, who attended our recent interview next to the Truckee River, views as a cover for a misguided Reno City Council.

“I can look right over here and I see a homeless guy curled up in a sleeping bag laying on the rocks there and believe me, I served in the military. I saw humanity at its worst,” Parks said. “That we would allow an individual to exist [in a state like that] is absolutely reprehensible to me. Our city council is hiding behind the Boise v. Martin's decision and not taking positive, impactful steps to fix that problem and just disgusts me in the extreme.”

Parks wants members of the city council to walk along the river and see these living conditions themselves, to accept the gravity of the situation and do something about it.

“It might wake them up and help them realize that this is inhumane,” Parks said. “We can't allow this in our community. The fact that we even have a homeless shelter to me is ludicrous. We don't need a facility like that because there's not a single one of these individuals that's not redeemable and could not become a vital member of our community. If they don't want to take responsibility for themselves, we need to incentivize them to take responsibility,” he said.

If individuals don’t want to get a job and want to live outside, White says, they have that right. But only if they can do so without infringing on the rights of the rest of the community’s population. 

“Oliver Wendell Holmes, a Supreme Court Justice said, ‘My right to make a fist and throw a punch stops where your nose begins.’” White said. “The homeless have a right to be a vagrant-by-choice out on the street as long as there’s a property that's legal for them to camp on and if they're not dumping excrement and toxic waste everywhere.”

Many Reno residents complain of waste along camps of the Truckee River, while others say there should be more garbage facilities and portable toilets.

Cyclical Sweeps, New Shelter Space and Oncoming Evictions

For White, the fact that very rarely ticketing, citations or court appearances follow sweeps of homeless camps along the river and railroad tracks, is part of the reason camps continue moving to new places until they get swept out again, making it a cyclical problem.

When asked about the city council’s ongoing discussion to construct a new super shelter at Governor’s Bowl Park, White says he believes it would just be another waste of government funds. 

“[The city] is acting like we've got all kinds of money to just throw around … We don't need to have anything, anywhere. You've got tons of property owners with apartments for rent. There's tons of homeless guys out there clearing over $1000 a month on their checks, but let's say rent is $1100 [a month]. With the cheapest job we can find, which would be about $12 an hour, we're going to engross around $500 a week each and we're going to take home about $400.”

Our reporting indicates many living along the river receive just over $700, or are out of the system entirely, and face health challenges which make it difficult for them to seek immediate employment, as well as housing. COVID-19 has also put a huge damper on the local job market. With the eviction moratorium expected to expire at the end of the year with seemingly no extension to come in the near future, many are also concerned that the houseless population will increase substantially when more tenants can’t afford to make rent.

A counter-protest to White’s call for citizen’s arrest of the homeless took part at Pickett Park last year.

Informational Walks Along Encampments and Opposition to his Ideas

Part of Reno on Record’s approach will be to have informational walks along encampments, a tactic also used by QOL-Reno which attracted media attention, most notably from Monica Jaye now with 99.1 FM, and counter-protesters.

“We wouldn't even say the obscenities [yelled at us],” White said. “We couldn't believe that there were guys down there hiding behind masks. Not because of COVID, but because they were trying to pretend to be Antifa.”

White doesn’t agree with anti-police rhetoric and laissez-faire attitude held by many who try to be “too compassionate” for those without stable shelter. “Somehow people equate enforcing the law with being harsh and hateful,” White said. “Enforcing law on the freeways keeps people alive and enforcing the law in the stores keeps everything from being stolen. [So we should be] enforcing the law with that man [sleeping on the river] and saying, ‘Come on, we can't let you just sit out here and live in your own filth. You're either going to jail or let's go get you in a program. But there is no option in staying there.’”

Ultimately, however, White says he believes the problem in addressing homelessness doesn’t lie fully with the city of Reno’s leadership. 

“The problem lies with a miseducated and uninformed populace that won't speak up,” White said. “How is it compassionate to move [this sleeping man on the river] to the Governor’s Bowl and give him a bologna sandwich and some old socks? The minute you stop propping him up, he's going to fall over. Why don't you care enough? Why don't you love the man enough to not let him harm himself?”

Some so-called “compassionate” advocates call for a different kind of no questions asked, trust building, reconstructive, supportive, we are here for you love, such as the “Bring Some Love” 2019 counter-protest to one of White’s most publicized actions, threatening to conduct citizen’s arrests of the homeless at Pickett Park last year.

In our interview with one of those taking part in that counter protest, Olivia Piccirilli, who has helped with Washoe Food not Bombs weekly community meals, an opposite approach to what White is pushing for, also had questions as her closing statements. “But what are you going to do tomorrow? And what are you going to do the day after that? I think that it's important for organizations like us to come here and be like, here's an outlet for this feeling that you're having. You're feeling things are wrong and you're feeling you want to do something to help. Like here's an outlet for that so that tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, you're still continuing to do this work.”

Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Rico, Searching for Inner Peace After the Loss of His Brothers

‘Boring’ Being Outside All Day

“I’ve been in Reno for approximately six years and I would sum up my experience in Reno with patience, pain, and love,” Rico said, when we interviewed him on a recent fall day in the Biggest Little City. 

He was next to a shopping cart full of branches.

“I lost three brothers in six months and I've been f*** up my life,” Rico said, explaining his heartbroken journey. “I moved to Vegas and then moved back here and I'm just starting to get my life back on track.”

When asked how he’s been coping with the death of his brothers in such a short span of time, Rico said he’s been taking it one day at a time. Their deaths, however, have given Rico a fresh outlook on life.

“I remember, before my brothers had died, I was good,” Rico said. “But then after my brothers had died, I just took a different outlook on life. That's when I said, ‘Forget it, I'm just gonna be me all the way.’”

Currently Rico has been staying with some friends, but he understands what it’s like to have no place to sleep at night.

“[Being homeless] sucked because nobody wants to be outside all day,” Rico said. “It gets boring being outside all day, especially when you don't like to bother people.”

Roughly three years ago, Rico says he was sleeping every night in the stairwell at the Wonder Lodge.

Sleeping in a Motel Stairway

“[Being homeless] was rough because I was sleeping in the Wonder Lodge stairway every single night and I would give out my food stamps to everybody inside the Wonder Lodge,” Rico said. “I would give them my food because I like to see people eat and see people happy.”

Despite often giving away his food stamps to others in need, Rico says he always had trust that God was going to see him through.

“I knew that God was going to take care of me, no matter how foolish that may sound to some people,” Rico said. “I know that there's a Higher Power, or whichever name you prefer to put on it. I knew He was going to look out, so I didn't really trip. It worked, too, because I'm still alive and that was like three years ago.”

During his time without housing, Rico attests that there’s enough resources for the homeless. It’s the lack of jobs, or getting to available jobs when you are homeless, he says, that makes it difficult for people like him to get back on their feet. 

“Hell yeah, [there’s enough resources for the homeless],” Rico said. “There's a river where you can catch fish and crawdads. But you have to learn how to catch some of it, but yeah, there's definitely enough resources by far. Definitely no jobs, though.”

Hoping to Get Back to School

In the meantime, Rico says he hopes to soon enroll at TMCC and take classes like psychology, philosophy and languages like Hindu or American Sign Language. Those classes will prepare him, he says, to take on a position as a life coach, aside from his pursuits as an artist. 

“[With that education] I would like to become a life coach, aside from an artist,” Rico said. “I like to rap and I like to draw, because I aspire to be a musician. But then I want to be a life coach, for sure, because I got the answer for life.”

That answer to life, Rico says, is finding inner peace within ourselves.

“[The answer to life] is peace,” Rico said. “[People will find peace] once they realize that peace just comes from within and everything that we have ever been told is pretty much a lie. I just feel like us being animals, which we are and animals being animals, nothing in life is good or bad. Nothing in life is wrong or right.”

For Rico, people should do what makes them happy and brings them peace.

“Life is meant to just be lived in experience and whatever you decide to do and go through in your life, as long as you feel inside yourself that it's right within, it's not wrong,” Rico said. “Whether you're doing drugs or smoking tobacco or having sex right here in the middle of the street, it's only wrong if you inside yourself feel like it's wrong. But for us to be any type of creation and to think that we can societal-ize and put rules and regulations on things is f****d up.”

Rico is still working on getting to where he wants to be, but in the meantime he says the desire for inner peace is what keeps him positive that he’s headed in the right direction.

“I can't always take that advice because I'm stuck on trying to see people progress and do better and fulfill their life in a way that's going to be better for themselves,” Rico said. “But self-peace draws me back into a lot of those areas because I'm just like, ‘You’re gonna get it one day,’ you know?” 

Reporting and Photography by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Controversy Grows over New Proposed Plans for the Lear Theater

A Developer’s Plan Worries Preservationists and Theater Advocates

The fate of the dilapidated Artown Reno-owned Lear Theater, an iconic landmark nestled between West 1st Street and Riverside Drive, overlooking the Truckee River, remains uncertain, with preservationists and small theater advocates now fearful that current plans by a local developer to build apartment buildings around it will take away its character, historical value and community use.

The developer, Ken Krater, has a history of supporting the demolition of downtown vintage Reno motels, adding to the concerns of those in favor of reviving the classical Lear Theater as a place for local classes, performances and events. 

In order to facilitate construction for a luxury complex adjacent to the theater as is Krater’s plan, he is asking for parts of Riverside Drive and Ralston Street to be abandoned by the city of Reno.  In media appearances, Krater has defended his plan as one that will save the theater and provide new housing.  Another group with the Sierra School for Performing Arts which was previously negotiating with Artown Reno doesn’t understand why its own bid was marred down in complexities and eventually dropped in favor of Krater’s.

Artown and Krater Consulting Group were contacted for comment, but referred Our Town Reno to already published press releases and statements. A Facebook page for The Lear Theater run by Artown has little in the way of updates, and still has as its About section this disclaimer:  “As current custodians of The Lear, it is Artown’s goal to steer the future of the building in the most appropriate direction available.”

The area around the Lear Theater has a long public history as well, with some goals never realized.

Plans to Abandon Parts of the Street to a Private Endeavor

During his recent appearance on the local Face the State KTVN Channel 2 television program, Krater, a former traffic design engineer for the city of Reno, mentioned he’s been in contact with the current Public Works director and that street abandonment is in the discussions. 

“We all know that the Truckee River floods on occasion...and there is a desire on the part of the city to put an additional earthen berm along the river to stop the floods,” Krater said. “And so I have been working with the city to see about abandoning Riverside Drive and Ralston Street around the theater. We would still retain bicycle traffic, pedestrian traffic, but all of a sudden the land to the east of the theater out into Ralston Street would be enough land to build an apartment building.”

Krater said he believes abandoning parts of Riverside Drive would also open up the opportunity for an outdoor theater area between the Truckee River and the Lear. 

“By abandoning that street, you would also be able to have this awesome outdoor theater area where you could have theater events on the stage, up on the main entryway, and people sitting on the earthen berm protecting the Truckee River in an amphitheater setting,” Krater said. “So now you get this beautiful indoor community theater, but also an outdoor theater space where several hundred people can come and enjoy outdoor events.”

Alicia Barber, the editor of the Reno Historical website, is not only concerned that abandoning parts of Riverside Drive would be a poor decision, but also believes Bicentennial Park across the street would have to be compromised as well.

“As much as we all want the Lear renovated, everyone should be alarmed at what this proposal would do to the public streets around it,” she wrote to us in an email. “Back in 1973, the Fleischmann Foundation gave the City of Reno an emergency grant to purchase the triangle bounded by Ralston and First Streets and the Truckee River, specifically to prevent that area from ever being privately developed. And now this plan requires the City to permanently close the adjacent block of Ralston Street along with a major chunk of Riverside Drive, the most beautiful drive in downtown Reno, to build luxury apartments there? That’s outrageous.”

The area around the Lear Theater is also now being discussed.

A Theater with a Grandiose History and Recent Quagmire 

The Lear Theater was completed in 1938 by the architect Paul R. Williams, the first Black member of the American Institute of Architects, for the First Church of Christ, Scientist. According to Reno historians, Luella Garvey, wealthy widow of a Cincinnati steel magnate, provided most of the money to build the church. Anna Loomis, another prominent local citizen, served as chairperson of the congregation’s building committee, selecting the architect.

The structure was recognized on the Nevada State Historic Register in 1982. Seventeen years later, in 1999, the Lear Theater was added to the City of Reno’s Historic Register and the National Register of Historic Places. Loomis family members have been occasionally mentioned as possibly interested in saving the building in their own way as well. 

The building served as the primary worship center for the First Church of Christ, Scientist until 1998.  When the congregation moved to a new church location south of the city in 1998, one of its members, Moya Lear, saw potential in the storied building to serve as a prominent community theater. Consequently, Lear pledged over $1 million that was matched by the community to support the purchase of the building. 

It was then transferred to the Reno-Sparks Theater Community Coalition, a group that was founded in 1993 by fellow congregation member Edda Morrison. The Coalition then took on the name of Lear Theater Inc. and very briefly operated as a functioning community theater.

Theater operations were short-lived, however, as renovation and construction efforts were never completed.  Then in December 2011, the late former mayor Bob Cashell helped facilitate the transfer of the Lear Theater to Artown, the Reno arts and culture nonprofit, which essentially puts on July festivities  in non COVID-19 years. 

Unable to come up with a viable means of renovating the theater over the next six years, though, Artown turned to the community with a request for proposals in January of 2018 to sell the Lear for $1. 

The Failed Bid by the Lear Development Group

In 2018, Randi Thompson, who at the time was on the board of the Sierra School for Performing Arts, helped put together a development team called the Lear Development Group which submitted a proposal to purchase the Lear from Artown.  This bid however, as she remembers, kept running into moving hurdles and new complications, month after month. 

“By April [2019], we finally got to a final meeting where we felt we got everything understood,” she said. “[However] the covenants [Artown] had were very restrictive things like if the project failed, they got it back for a dollar, even if we put $14 million into it.”

Thompson acknowledges that her team had no problem with a Right to First Refusal agreement with Artown. But the fact that Artown would get it back for a dollar, regardless of how much money was put into the project, to Thompson was simply unfair. So the Lear Development Group made revisions based on that meeting and sent the new draft of a purchase and sale agreement to Artown.

“Then we got a letter back rejecting our offer and saying, ‘We will never come to an agreement,’ and [Artown] stopped negotiating with us,” Thompson recalls. “We requested follow-up meetings and it took about a month before their board members met with our board members and they really gave us no significant explanation.” Thompson says Artown didn’t understand how her team was going to utilize new market tax credits to facilitate the Lear Theater’s renovation. 

“They just didn't understand how we were going to build it,” Thompson said. “They didn't understand new market tax credits, so we walked away from the table very frustrated. We had invested over $12,000 in consultants to get us to that point. So now our development team has continued to meet as a group and we're all still very interested in it, frankly.” 

The Sierra School for Performing Arts (SSPA) offers theater classes, primarily for Reno’s youth. They put on youth theater productions and a musical every year. They were hoping for the Lear Theater to become a sort of home-base for SSPA, by having an office downstairs and a props and costume repository that would also be available for other theater groups in Reno.

“We wanted [the Lear] to become the community repository for props, costumes, set-making and to make it available to all of the theater groups in the community,” Thompson said. “There's enough room downstairs with about 9,000 square feet that we would have adequate storage for set-making and to open it up to all the theater groups. So it would truly be a place that's available, just like the Pioneer Theater, in that anybody can rent it.”

Although the Pioneer Theater is available for groups to rent, the smaller community theater groups simply can’t afford it. Therefore, Thompson says, the Lear Theater would fill a much-needed niche in Reno’s performing arts community.  According to Thompson, much like Krater’s current plan, abandoning part of Riverside Drive was a part of their proposal for the property as well.

“Part of our plans were to essentially abandon Riverside Drive and create an entire outside plaza from Bell Street to First Street where that Riverside just makes that turn and you could literally go down and get married by the river on a beautiful plaza,” Thompson said. “That could be an outdoor concert area. You have [Bicentennial Park] right there that could be tied right with it. So you'd have this beautiful walkway with a park, with a place to go pick up a coffee and go sit by the river. It would just make a really cool centerpiece of downtown.”

The Need for Community Theater Remains 

Nettie Olliverio, a founder and board member of the Reno-Sparks Community Theater Coalition and Lear Theater Inc. for 11 years, was heavily involved with previous fundraising and renovation efforts for the Lear. She also still wants the Lear Theater to become a fully-functioning community theater and performing arts center.  

“For such a long time, we needed a rental facility for performances that is not in the casinos and that is smaller than the 1,500 seats that are at the Pioneer Center,” Olliverio said. “Our other options are either University resources, which are University-centric and hard for outside performances not related to the University to get.”

Olliverio states that the size, structure and historical significance of the Lear suit it perfectly for community arts in Reno. “The size of the venue is so necessary for the continuing arts and culture in our area,” Olliverio said in an interview with Our Town Reno. “So with the historic aspect of the Lear, with the fact that it was created by a Black architect and is structurally sound, when our organization had it, we had an engineer do some core-testing of it. It was built to the old LA-earthquake standards, which were higher than ours at the point in time that it was built. So it's structurally very sound and it's just, it cries to be finished and have people in it.”

The Lear Development Group intended to have collapsible, fold-down seats in the theater, much like how things are done at the Little Reno Theater.  “[Collapsible seats] is a very state-of-the-art way of doing theater seating to pull the seats out and then you could put down dinner tables for [patrons] while watching a theater production,” Thompson said. “So we were looking at a 300-350 seat venue to really host a broad range of events from plays to ballets, to film festivals, concerts, weddings, nonprofit fundraisers and corporate events. It would really be the heart of performing arts and the downtown area and truly follow through with what Moya Lear's vision, which was to have this great theater right downtown, while honoring Paul Revere Williams and his beautiful work.”

Thompson and her development team were also exploring the idea of a food and beverage operation within the theater, as well as an outdoor cafe along the Truckee River.

“But we knew that you couldn't just operate it like the Pioneer Theater and that you needed to have full amenities,” Thompson said. “Apparently, that's what Artown thought we were creating was a restaurant but no, we were creating a food operation to support special events and support the theater. We'd love to do a mystery dinner or actually be able to have dinner and watch the theater. So we wanted to truly make it a great dining and entertainment experience.”

More Details of the Krater Proposal

When Thompson heard of the possibility that Artown was in discussions with Ken Krater of the Krater Consulting Group, a developer who had visions for luxury apartments as a means of financially renovating the Lear, she penned an op-ed for This Is Reno in May of 2020 and brought to light the details of the sudden fall-out in discussions between SSPA and Artown.

A few weeks later in early June, Krater and Artown conducted a press conference announcing their new plans for renovating the Lear.  It appears the apartments were originally proposed to be underneath the Lear Theater, with the theater itself above it. Those plans, however, seem to have shifted according to the more recent appearance by Krater on KTVN’s Face the State in September.

“A theater [alone] doesn’t generate enough revenue to be able to finance renovation of the theater and so I always thought in the back of my head that we need to figure out some sort of revenue-generating source that can complement the theater,” Krater said during his appearance. “So essentially what I came up with is the idea of building a beautiful apartment complex next to, but not attached to the theater, because obviously apartments are in high demand.”

Thompson, however, has multiple concerns regarding the idea of apartments at or next to the Lear Theater. One of which is that she’s concerned that by the time the proposed apartments generate enough revenue to finance the Lear’s renovation, it could be too late to save the Reno landmark. 

“If we had been offered the ability to build this, we'd be mostly through construction by now and probably be opening by next spring, as our proposed deadline was by 2021,” Thompson said. “I don't know if the Lear can even survive this, ‘Let's wait until Ken Krater builds apartments.’ I'm just shocked at how there was such a role reversal and Artown put our feet to the fire to make sure that we built a community art center available to everybody, period.”

Dreams of a Revived Lear Theater Community Art Space Persist

What will eventually become of the Lear Theater remains to be seen, and dreams that would satisfy both preservationists and local culture proponents persist, but these seem to be fading away as the years tick on and restoration still isn’t happening. 

“I know that there are a lot of people in our community who have invested both emotionally and financially in the building over the years in the chase to turn it into an entertainment resource,” Olliverio said. “I would love to see it become a performing arts center that has the commodities that one needs to be able to perform well for theater, for dance, for music: the appropriate lights, sound, stage and dressing rooms; but also flexible enough that it is a good resource for the community for weddings, lectures, a screening of an indie film or an orchid show or just those things that bring a community together.”

“The quality of your art only reflects the quality of your community and right now we're still struggling,” Thompson said. “This has proven that it is more important now than ever to provide a space that is affordable, but not just a place to go and do one thing. You could come in and have a cup of coffee and then go see a theater. You could go have dinner and watch live theater. We don't have anything like that in Reno.”

Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Khalid Ali, Alleging Discrimination Over the Loss of His Old Motels

From Owning a Motel to Driving a Cab

Nowadays, Khalid Ali can be found driving a cab around the streets of Reno. It’s an occupation he’s had to rely on to pay the bills, ever since, he says, he was essentially forced to give up his motel business.

“I want to shed some light on these three motels, two of which mysteriously caught on fire,” Ali said. “The end result is that the city decided to go after me and shut down my motels.”

The former owner of Everybody’s Inn, Ho Hum Motel and the Desert Sunset Motel alleges he was discriminated against due to his Pakistani origins and forced by the city to give up each of his motels. This version is disputed by Alex Woodley, the Assistant Director of Neighborhood Services for the City of Reno, who also has code enforcement manager duties.

“I know he's made claims of his ethnic background and it had nothing to do with that whatsoever. It had to do with the quality of life that he was providing and services that he was providing for the tenants,” Woodley said. The city official also said the fires were minor chapters in a long-running downward spiral of the three properties.

After arriving in Reno in 1978, Ali spent years working in the casinos before buying his first motel, Everybody’s Inn, in 1994. He later acquired Ho Hum in 1999 and Desert Sunset in 2000, respectively.

Disagreements over Blame

Ali says he paid off both Everybody’s Inn and Ho Hum ten years after their original purchase in the 1990s and in 2000, and was on his way to paying off the Desert Sunset before a series of fires and interactions with Reno code enforcement changed the course of his business, and life, forever.

The first fire, he remembers, occurred at Everybody’s Inn back in 2014. According to his recollection, the Reno Fire Department later determined that a baseboard heater malfunction was the cause of the fire. After the fire, however, Ali says the city would not allow him to re-open half of his motel. 

Then when a second fire occurred at the Desert Sunset in 2016, the Reno Fire Department ruled that “arson could have been suspected,” but then he alleges they did not go further into any type of confirmation. Ali believes he may have been the target of hate crime. We contacted Tray Palmer, a city of Reno official in charge of fire prevention, to get the files on these two fires, but did not get the information in time for this article.

Ali says in the last years of his ownership the city repeatedly used tactics like coding violations to make running his motel business financially impossible. Although Ali says he worked to meet every alleged violation, but he ultimately could not keep up.

“The city used these government agencies like [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] OSHA, the court enforcement, the health department, the police department, all these agencies as an excuse to harass me and my business,” Ali alleges. “They're fining you for things like some water that is leaking and all kinds of jokes like that. They hurt us financially so we cannot stay in the business and that's what they did to us.” 

As detailed in captions below throughout this story, the city official Our Town Reno spoke to, Woodley, pointed to more serious allegations, from violence to prostitution to a total lack of following safety codes at the motels to becoming a “slumlord.”

At Everybody’s Inn, Woodley says he noticed there were “two 55 gallon drums with flammable material to heat up the water. It was a hazard, something that could have blown up. So at that point we had to require the closing of the motel. My understanding is that he had a partner and between him and the partner, I guess they got into a dispute and the partner wasn't willing to invest any more money and the property was condemned. “ Ali said this was a temporary solution that was being fixed after another tank was allegedly stolen.

Everybody’s Inn Motel still stands in Reno but it’s fenced off and out of use, as more and more motels are being bought out or auctioned off and bulldozed away. “We had a lot of problems,” Woodley a city official told Our Town Reno in an interview. “The city of Reno was receiving many complaints from tenants. We had criminal activity occurring there. We had to do an entire inspection of the property and there were so many problems. We had a storage room, which was converted into a living space with no bathroom. We had an individual living in there. I think she was paying a much lower rate on rent, but it was not approved living quarters. As a matter of fact, it didn't even have a window … so if there was a fire or anything that would have been a disaster.” Ali told Our Town Reno it was the maintenance worker who was using the room, and only staying there when he had been needed for work late at night.

Mounting Coding Violations and Suspicious Fires

Ali says he recalls a time he was once fined $7,000 by OSHA for one coding violation and then another $1,000 for another coding violation right after that. On top of that, Ali alleges the court enforcement agency fined him thousands of dollars through court hearings.  

Eventually, two of Ali’s properties, Everybody’s Inn and Ho Hum Motel, were declared under court receivership, meaning that the court now owned the properties and they were put on the auction block.

“The thing is, when these motels catch on fire, needless to say some of these motels went to the auctions,” Ali said. “But I don't see why these properties go to auction when you don't owe any money.”

Ali says his late wife, a Jewish-American woman from Philadelphia, warned him that he likely would be treated differently as a Muslim-American in a post-9/11 world. Consequently, after his last purchase in 2000, Ali decided not to pursue any other motel properties, instead focusing on the three he already had.

Ali notes that although fires do happen in buildings and structures, a lot of these motel fires in Reno have happened at locations run by people of Indian and South Asian origin.

“Fires do happen, but the thing is I've been noticing is that a lot of fires in downtown Reno are mostly fires happening with Indian-region people who are the owner of these motels,” Ali said. “So the problem is that right after September 11th, we feel that basically it's a systemic racism against us as Indian or Asian people, especially. They're trying to go after us and eliminate us and the end result is that once they caught on fire, then some of these motels were simply completely shut down and never opened again.”

Woodley says he has personally assured Ali the situation of his motels had nothing to do with his origins. “We have a stance that no matter what your socioeconomic status, everyone in the city of Reno has a right to live in a clean and safe rental property,” he said in his interview with Our Town Reno. “We require, and we will cite, property owners that are not maintaining their property, but are benefiting from the rent that they're charging their tenants. So that's how we got involved with this. Normally our code enforcement cases, they typically last 30 to 60 days, the cases we had with him, they lasted for years. “

Motels which are often the first or last resort of housing for some have steadily closed down, as city council members have talked of the need to fight blight as well as saying motels are not good for long term living solutions. “We had multiple units that had to be condemned and he was required to bring them up to code,” Woodley said of the Desert Sunset Motel. “We later on had individuals that were squatting in there and we were arresting individuals and pulling them out of the property. At some point he [Ali] was living on the property, keeping it secured. And we came to find out through investigations and interviews with the occupants that they were paying him cash. One individual claims that she had an arrangement with him with favors and we had to go out there with the police department because she was trying to attack him with a knife. She was trying to stab him … turns out that she had been arrested for prostitution.”

Steadily Declining Availability of Motel Rooms and Accusations of Slumlords

Motels, like those once owned by Ali, are put on auction then typically go to developers who go on to utilize the property for their own projects. Consequently, the number of motels and rooms available to the Reno population has dropped dramatically. 

“At one time there were 24,000 people living in 93 motels across Reno,” Ali said. “Now, because they keep on shutting down these motels I don't think there’s even 13,000 rooms left outside that people can rent and live in like a decent human being.”

Ali admits that motel rooms may not always be in the best shape. But he’d rather see the city offer the landlords and motel-owners a low-interest loan to improve the property, rather than hand their properties over to developers via auctions. 

Ultimately, however, Ali believes that the city just wanted him out of the motel business altogether.

“My wife told me after September 11th that the city position is that they don’t want me in the business,” Ali said. “So what can I do? [The city] is the judge, jury and executioner. So where do you think we stand as a people?”

Above, an official notice of violation sent by the City of Reno concerning the Desert Sunset Motel. After being informed we were in contact with Woodley, Ali forwarded us this email (cut and paste below) which he said was sent by his wife to the Reno-Sparks Convention Authority several years ago, trying to find another party to help them in their interactions with Reno. “This is Khalid Ali, wife, Earlene. I have had numerous conversations with Joe Henry. He stated to me that he will not give Khalid a license or a permit for the motel. He will offer to me or Khalid, sister. please understand I am disabled and in a wheelchair. Joe Henry also stated that Khalid would not be allowed on the property. I think he has gone way beyond his authority. At this point in time, RSCVA has lost 9 months of revenue needlessly. This seems to be a personal agenda of Joe Henry to get Khalid out of business any way he can. no one was in danger when the fire started. It was not next to the rooms. If he had to close down a portion of the motel, I understand that. But not the entire motel. We have continually been required to have the electrical system checked. Each time”

The Last Days of the Desert Sunset Motel

Woodley has an entirely different take on the last motel Ali owned, the Desert Sunset Motel.

“There were unstable platforms for the second floor where people were walking on,” he said. “There were unstable stairwells that, I mean, if you walked on it, it was wobbly. We had situations of doors not being sealed. Like you could see daylight through the room. We had toilets and sinks, they weren't secured to the floor. We had infestations of bugs. We had let's see, what else, lack of appropriate caulking around the window seals. We had doors that were being closed with a padlock, like not even a regular door with a door handle deadbolt. We had an actual padlock, so the person would leave their room and they would put a padlock on the door. And then when they would go inside, they would padlock the door. So you can imagine if you had a fire or something, someone needs to get out of that room, they would have to go find the key, unlock the door, their padlock. It was a very unsafe situation.”

Woodley says the whole situation ended with Ali facing a criminal case against him. “The property had no electricity,” he said of the final months of the Desert Sunset Motel. “The property had no gas, so no one was supposed to be in there period. So we had to go out there on multiple occasions to secure the property. We actually ended up, because of the fact that all of our administrative process didn't bring to fruit, any kind of compliance, we actually ended up pursuing a criminal case, for lack of a better term, some we'll call it, for being a slumlord.”  Woodley says the charges were in abeyance and then dropped as Ali eventually sold the property.

Ali instead blames losing his business on systemic discriminatory practices that permeate through American society.

“We all know what happened recently to George Floyd because the whole country rose up, but that's just one example,” Ali said. “[My experience] is a very small example because race is a big issue and unfortunately, we seem to be very helpless and we need to do better than that with where we are.”

Ali says he had done everything the city had asked him to do after the fires, even paying over $150,000, he alleges, in fines so that he could reopen his Desert Sunset motel.

“The [Desert Sunset] fire happened mysteriously and the city, although I spent $150,000 by way of city code enforcement, I was told it, ‘Just put up lipstick on the pig,’” Ali said. “Which is another way of saying that I lost the $150,000 over there and I had no way of [getting my money back] because they refused to let me open the motel and stay in the business.”

With motels like his being put out of business, Ali points to the rising homeless population on the streets of Reno as a result. “We always claimed that we represent the poor lifestyle of the homeless people. We tried to accommodate you for $20-$25 a night, $425-$500 a week. Now the bottom line is these big developers are coming in from out of town, declaring us as the slumlords and that they're the new Messiah.”

Accessible Housing Being Taken Off the Block

Motels have been used for decades as housing for those without good credit or with criminal records or elders not wanting to deal with complications of utilities or having more than a simple room.

“These [motels] were havens for the homeless people,” Ali said. “We never claimed that we were representing the rich and famous lifestyle [as motel owners].”

Ali thinks it’s the wrong approach, to bulldoze so many motels, even though city council members will complain of bed bugs, and the presence of prostitutes and drug dealers.

“We need to make sure these motels can stay in business because rent is no longer affordable,” Ali said. “Rent is rising to about $1,000-$1,200. The Reno Gazette Journal reported that renters are giving an ‘F’ as far as the rent costs in Reno goes. Housing prices are going up, everything is going up, but the wages are not there to back it up. So as the saying goes, ‘We cannot squeeze the blood out of turnips,’ and these people are suffering a lot because of it.”

The way that Ali sees it, he was treated differently also because the city favors large corporations and developers over small businesses like his.

“As a business owner, I feel like I was given no say in whatever the city does,” Ali said. “Unfortunately, the city became judge, jury and executioner and the end result is that I lost everything. If Tesla walked in, they would have been given big tax cuts and gone to the bed for them, saying they can build this and build that.”

Ali has been holding on to documents hoping justice for him will prevail.

Millions Estimated in Losses, Calling for a Commission

In the end, Ali says he lost all of his properties for a fraction of their value, which he claims to be at around $1 million each.

“Unfortunately, we knew from the beginning that we were going to lose it and that's what eventually happened anyway,” Ali said. “So basically our losses are $3 million from these motels and we think that the city has to do better than that. We should be able to recover the money somehow, but the bottom line is we have no money in the system.”

Ali is now calling for a human rights commission to come together to get to the bottom of what happened.

“We went through four or five lawyers that we hired and we got nowhere,” Ali said. “But if you have a suit under some kind of commission of human rights, I think we can go somewhere to put our grievances because financially, it is not possible for us to keep on going back to the court system and spend literally thousands of dollars. The end result is you going through bankruptcy.”

Ali believes a human rights commission is necessary, particularly because motel owners won’t speak out on the discrimination and problems like the ones he faced. 

“When [motel owners] try to say something to [the city] about it, they retaliate against us,” Ali said. “We have to make a living too, and we cannot go on like this.”

As a Pakistani-American having lived in America for over 40 years now, Ali’s experience with the American public has been largely positive. He just wishes the bureaucratic system would treat him equally as well.

“My experience with the American public has been a very positive experience,” Ali said. “The American public are really good people. So my final message to the community is that they should be rising. They should be going to city councils meetings. If the big developers are coming in, then needless to say, where's the fair share for the minorities out here?”

Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Tony, "I'm Fine" along the Truckee River

After losing his job working for temp agencies, Tony has been living along the river for two years now.

“It's been pretty good,” he said of living outside. “I just don’t like people,” he said of avoiding shelters.

He does have friends in the tent community, and was about to go shopping at Walmart for someone who had given him money for some survival supplies, as nights get colder and colder.

He says he tries to find harder to access spots not to bother anyone or to get booted in police sweeps.

”They go on the other side of the river, where all the parks are, so the police kind of leave us alone here,” he said. Unlike many others living in their tents, Tony says he keeps very little so he’s able to quickly adapt to any situation that may come his way.

He says some of his neighbors sometimes try to go into local shelters on cold nights, but have to wait hours and sometimes get turned away, so many give up even trying.

“I’m fine,” he said when we asked for final words.

Reporting by Gracie Gordon for Our Town Reno

The River Stewards, a new Washoe County Day Labor Initiative to Help the Homeless

“Working on the Inside … for Reno’s Image”

It’s the day after the Election, with results still uncertain in Nevada, but a clear blue sky overhead. Byron is part of a small crew with trash bags going around tent encampments picking up litter and making the surrounding areas cleaner. Newcomers who join the cleanup crew are encouraged to do so with gift cards, and a weekly lunch with plenty of tips and motivation from local homeless advocate and coordinator of the River Stewards program Grant Denton.

Byron has been inspired now to do his part on a regular basis as well. “I have pride in where I live,” he said. “My area is clean. I talk with my neighbors and we kind of got all on the same page and kept all our areas very clean now.”

He understands people who aren’t homeless and aren’t living along the river complain about the trash, but he hopes this program will help.

“I know that you know, all this garbage out here, it looks really, really bad for our community, but I'm working on the inside to try to change that for you guys, just for our image and for Reno's image, Nevada's image,” he said.

Grant Denton, formerly homeless himself, coordinates the program and also helps with the cleanup.

Grant Denton, the Coordinator

Grant Denton, well known locally already for his Karma Box project of neighborhood donations, and morning workouts for women in recovery, draws from his past Las Vegas experiences with homelessness and drug addiction.

As yellow and orange leaves floated down the river, this week, we wound our way through the willows and rocks. As we pass tents, Denton stops to talk with the person inside and offers them a trash bag and the opportunity to join his crew. The River Stewards program, which is only in its fourth week, empowers the homeless population with the opportunity to give back to the greater community. They have already collected and disposed of over 350 bags of trash. Denton has a group of four regular homeless workers who come out five days a week to clean up trash left behind by the homeless community. 

As we step over crumbling concrete and loose rocks, Denton explains the difference between what he calls a camp and a site. Camps are single tents with one or two people whereas a site in his lexicon is several camps in one area, a hyper-local community. When the culture and social dynamics shift, sometimes people will suddenly abandon the site, leaving everything behind. We are heading to one of these locations Denton had identified previously.

“We'll get four volunteers,” Denton explains as a volunteer picks up trash nearby, “and have them come out and help us clean up the river for four hours a day.” He then gives them a $50 gift card for them to use for food, clothing, or other essentials. At the end of each week, Denton takes the group out to eat at a local restaurant giving them a sense of what life is like outside of the homelessness bubble.

The River Stewards program is funded through a grant from the Truckee River Fund, which is financed through water service fees.

A Grant Funded Program to Lead by Example

Denton says he wants to also help shift the culture around trash the homeless have, by regularly handing out trash bags and encouraging people to place them near a road when full. He has a donated golf cart he uses to collect bags of trash. “It is no different than bringing the trash bin to the curb on trash day,” he said.

Leading by example, his morning workers “are mirroring the behavior that we want, that any community would want.”

We reach the site to be cleaned and the volunteers immediately spread out and start picking up trash. There are two tents that are still occupied, one by a lady in her fifties who offers to help and takes a bag from Denton.

“Meet them where they’re at,” he says, “and then challenge them.”

Denton understands an obstacle he faces is understanding current dynamics which for people without stable shelter can change from day to day, even hour to hour. He understands homeless people can be service resistant, meaning that they may not want any outside help or have no trust remaining for any outsider.

“This group shows up, they understand the impact they have,” Denton says as he picks up a plastic bottle and places it into a large trash bag.

“This program carries so much value. They’re living on the river in a tent, but they have purpose. That’s what is important,” Denton said.

Consistency is the Key

Pulling from his own experiences in rehab, he knows that in order to really change an individual you have to be consistent. “That's paramount in anybody changing their habits,” he says, “when I was a drug addict the reason I kept relapsing was because heroin always showed up for me, heroin is very, very consistent. Alcohol does exactly what it's supposed to do.” Utilizing this idea of consistency, Denton has his regular workers show up every day and has already seen improvements.

Denton also views the River Stewards as a stigma reduction program. When the public sees the homeless cleaning up the river, the dialogue changes, he says, and Denton wants them to be seen not as a liability, but rather as potential assets for the community. When this dialogue changes, and the stigma is reduced, Denton believes we will be moving in the right direction.

He’s also trying to find housing for some of his regulars in a low-income housing complex in Sparks. That would be a dream for Byron.

“You want to be established again, just like, you know, in days past where you had a nice car,” he said. “What I think that really caused a lot of his homelessness is high rent. The rates are so high, it's doubled, you know, people with fixed incomes only get 700 bucks, you know, and how can I survive? And we just have to learn as a group of people, you know, just to live a little bit more respectfully clean, fully, you know, to get everything accomplished,” he said of his goals, keeping his faith in God and in his country.

Reporting by Richie Bednarski and Scott King for Our Town Reno

Matt, Comparing Different Shelters and Fearing Being Homeless Over Winter

A Divorce and an Accident

Matt has been living in Reno for several years now, having come over from California after going through a divorce. His father lived in Reno and encouraged him to get a fresh start in the Biggest Little City.

“I came from California because I had a divorce and it didn't do me well,” Matt said. “My dad lives out here and he told me to come up to Reno. I was working in retail for awhile and had an accident, so right now I'm not able to work. I'm looking forward to going back to work and I'm feeling better every day. Once I get back to work and back on my feet, I want to give back to them.”

Those that he wants to help, he says, are those who have found themselves in the situation he is currently in. Currently confined to a wheelchair due to his recent accident, Matt has recently been out of work. Throughout the summer, he was part of the homeless population that stayed in the Reno Events Center as the COVID-19 pandemic overtook the nation.

“The Reno Event Center was an interesting experience,” Matt said. One of the biggest concerns he had with his time at the Reno Events Center, he says, was the lack of concern or consideration workers there had for people like him just trying to get some sleep.

From the Reno Events Center Back to the Record Street Shelter

Matt had many complaints about staying at the Reno Events Center when the Record Street shelter was limited due to COVID-19. He alleges some of his stuff got stolen and that staff would watch movies on their phones.

“The people that are watching us sit there and just talk like, ‘Oh, it's daytime, no problem. No one's sleeping around,’ instead of trying to keep it quiet,” Matt said. “But we're there to sleep and get some rest so that we're not out here on the streets sleeping. So there's a lot of problems [like that] with the system that they could be fixing.”

Matt is grateful that after the Events Center closed as a shelter, he wasn’t placed at the temporary big tents shelter farther down East Fourth Street. Instead, he’s been staying at the VOA shelter on Record Street.

“I'm disabled right now,” Matt said. “They let the disabled people stay [at the Record Street shelter] instead of walking two miles to the big tent down Fourth Street. [The Big Tents shelter] is about two miles away and it'd be too much of a journey [for me].”

Having been homeless for almost a year now, Matt has already noticed a difference in how certain agencies treat the population they’re serving.

“The VOA could be more polite and more helpful,” Matt said of staying at the Record Street shelter. “Catholic Charities is the only one that helps out. They helped sign me up for food stamps, which was very helpful. It gives me a little bit of money to get something from the store, but I can't really go shopping because I can't cook anywhere, so that's been difficult.”

Grateful for Catholic Charities but Not for Early Mornings in the Cold

Matt genuinely appreciates the support he’s received from St. Vincent’s and Catholic Charities, saying they are doing the best they can to support people without housing.

“St. Vincent's gives us lunch and Catholic Charities gives us clothes,” Matt said. “They also have food boxes, which a lot of us can't take because you have to cook the food, so it's kind of hard. We don't have any place to cook food, so there's some things we can’t take from there. But other than that, they try to help us as much as they can.”

He also recognizes other area groups that have come out to support him in his time of need.

“There's a couple churches and good people come around to hand out sandwiches and feed us, which helps out because meals are few and far between,” Matt said. “Breakfast is like a stale donut and yogurt in the morning, so that's not much nutrients to get you through [the day].”

One particular challenge of the Record Street shelter, particularly as it gets colder in the mornings, is the fact that they force people out of the shelter at 6:00 a.m. and won’t allow them to come back until 9:00 at night.

“I was here last winter and at 6:00 a.m., they're kicking us out when it’s like 17 degrees outside. So we have to sit out until 9:00 p.m. at night. So it's very difficult and rough,” he said.

Oftentimes, Matt has to spend his day at what the homeless community commonly refers to as “The Pit,” a sitting area just outside the shelter.

“[During the day I go to what] we call ‘The Pit,’ but they call it ‘The Veranda,’” Matt said. “It's just a place to sit and we go out there and sit and freeze. St. Vincent’s had a warming center last winter where we were able to go in and get coffee for a couple of hours.”

When told of the ongoing discussions at Reno City Council about a proposal for a new shelter at the Governor’s Bowl Park, Matt believes that would be a good idea to see implemented.

“All right, I think it's a good idea because we could use a new shelter that's more updated than the shelter we have,” Matt said. “[The current shelter] is sort of run-down and they don't really keep it up. So a new shelter would be a blessing,” he said of possible plans to convert the baseball field.

Fearful of Winter but Not of COVID-19

In the present moment, Matt is primarily more concerned about the approaching winter than he is about anything else, including his potential exposure to COVID-19 on the streets.

“I'm not worried about COVID, if I get sick, I get sick,” Matt said. “I mean, I live on the streets. I have a pretty good immune system so I don't let it scare me. I just got to live life day-by-day and see what happens. If I happen to get sick, it’s just my time. But with COVID going on, it has made everything a lot more difficult.”

Having survived one winter without shelter already, he’s not looking forward to having to go through it again. So Matt is taking steps now to prepare for the winter, particularly if they’re forced outside for most of the day like they were last year.

“I'm worried about the cold,” Matt said. “I'll be seeing Catholic Charities to see if I can get some more clothes and just bundle up. But my main concern is when they throw us out in the morning when it's that cold outside, I'm worried then.”

Until then, Matt is biding his time until he’s healthy enough again to work. Once he’s back to work and can find stable housing, he hopes to give back and help those experiencing homelessness like he is now.

“[I plan to give back] by coming down here and donating time and food,” Matt said. “I know people need it. I hope to take collections up and get some clothes down here for people and just give back that way with whatever I can. Any little bit can help.”

His desire to give back and support the homeless community, once he finds stable shelter for himself, stems from his experience with others afflicted by the affordable housing crisis. In his experience, most people experiencing homelessness are working hard to get their life back on track. But because of the few homeless people that act out and act poorly, he believes that label is being placed on everyone living on the streets and in the shelters.

“[I want people to know] that not all homeless people are bad,” Matt said. “There are some bad people out there, just don't take it out on the rest of us because it's the same people that act up and make us look bad. Yet, they treat us all like we're that person and I want people to see us as people, not just homeless people that are out here to leach.”

But in order for the issue of rampant homelessness and lack of affordable housing to really improve, Matt acknowledges that something needs to be done about the growing disparity between housing and incomes.

“ A lot of us are trying to get on our feet and I know people that get Social Security but they still can't even afford a place around here,” Matt said. “So that's what I really hope for is that they can make affordable housing because although the pay-rate wage around here is way different in California, it's just as expensive to live in Reno as California. So I really wish something [would be done] about that problem.”

Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Diana, Homeless since Childhood, Leading a Simple Life

A Routine Keeps Her Busy and Sane

As the morning rush hour rumbles overhead, Diana listens to the radio as she prepares a cup of hot chocolate over a small campfire. She says she has been homeless for over 30 years. “You know, at this point in time in my life, especially with the way everything is in the world, it's just, I have a routine, it's easier,” she said.

Diana has been in Reno for a little over ten years. She enjoys the city but says the people make it hard to live here, saying that “being homeless, people are very judgmental.” A routine keeps her busy and her mind occupied.

Being hypoglycemic, Diana must eat every few hours and spends this money on food, batteries for her radio, trash bags, and other odds and ends. “I just wish sometimes there is a way I could show them what I get,” Diana said of people who give when she pandhandles. She pointed out that when she is panhandling, or “flying a sign” she tries to keep what she has purchased nearby so people can see she isn’t buying alcohol or drugs. 

Diana enjoys being outside and finds comfort in knowing our ancestors existed for millennia living outdoors. “I just want to look at people and go, whoa, where do you think your ancestors used to live? You know, I mean, we didn't have houses and condominiums and all that forever, you know?”

She finds comfort in the rhythm of gathering supplies and keeping an organized camp. Her possessions were all bundled nicely in a few plastic totes that tuck away inside a large blue plastic rolling shipping container, the kind you might see holding luggage in the belly of an airplane.

Not Disneyland Though 

“Go home and [be] with your parents and go to school,” Diana wants to tell the younger homeless people she meets. Having been homeless since she was “eleven and a half,” she says, she does not want the younger folks to live the way she does.

Living in Washington, north of Seattle, Diana briefly worked at a Gospel Mission helping the homeless. She finds it strange and somewhat offensive that “richer people in the world are taking camping to a different level where they buy camping stuff and then camp in their backyard. And it kind of feels like they're mocking our situation,” while their camping is glorified, and her survival camping is criminalized.

When asked about the upcoming general election, Diana says she is not a regular voter. Having voted in the past and seeing the results play out, like many Americans, she says she has become disillusioned with the political process.

She does not plan to vote this year, “and I know a lot of people get mad at that.” She believes that politicians do not care about people. “There's no for the people it's money [and] power,” she explained and believes the current president Donald Trump is “a businessman and we're not a business.” She does pay attention to politics by listening to the radio but believes government does nothing to help those most in need, “I don't have a desire to be part of that craziness.”

“I'm sorry for the other flyers that are irresponsible and drunken rude and pee on the highway and do all that other stupid stuff. I'm so sorry I cannot apologize for them enough. But not all of us are like that some of us are honestly just waking up everyday trying to survive trying to do what we've got to do and just come home,” Diana told Our Town Reno reporter Richie Bednarski. Photo by Scott King.

“We’re Not All Living Garbage”

Diana wants the community to know that not all panhandlers and those without stable shelter are parasites, as some people say to her face or on social media.

“That we're not all what you see by your eyes, we're not all living garbage we're not all you know uneducated, irresponsible lazy people. We’re good for a lot of us have good hearts.”

She is hopeful people can “look past the other people [who] are doing wrongs just like people look past wrongs in a regular community and see the people for who they are and maybe take the time to come talk to us. ”I'm not out there to try and make anybody's life difficult but I do want the community to know that there are those of us out there that are so very appreciative of their help and if it wasn't for them we wouldn't we wouldn't be able to live, so thank you."

Reporting and Photography by Richie Bednarski for Our Town Reno

HopeSprings, a New Bridge Housing Project Still Faces Financial Hurdles to Open

Wraparound Services On Site

“We've got 30 tiny homes that are 92 square feet each,” Chris Fegert, Philanthropy Partnerships Manager at Northern Nevada Hopes, said during a recent tour. “Then the big community center is over 3,000 square feet and has all the other services: bathrooms, laundry, showers, kitchen and lockers. There's also offices where individuals can have private meetings with primary health care providers, a behavioral health care specialist, a therapist or access group therapy. These [facilities] were very intentional in how they were designed.”

The tiny homes themselves will have a twin bed, a nightstand and a dresser inside. Each of the units will be equipped with air conditioning and heating, while also featuring donated art work from Nevada Fine Arts. The tiny homes will be complete with a small porch, deck chair and storm door to provide a personal, home-like feel for residents but accessing the community center and other services will be key. 

“Our CEO, Sharon Chamberlain, lived on the streets as well,” Fegert said. “She said that when she was experiencing homelessness, she felt invisible and isolated. So when I say these houses were intentionally created, it’s because we don't want [the residents] to stay in their [tiny] home. We want them to be in the community center and interacting with each other. We'll have all different types of services available while they're here learning new skills,” Fegert added. “Like resume building, for instance. Many residents will be working and saving their money so when they move out, they will potentially have their first month’s rent and a deposit.”

The HopeSprings campus will be a dry and drug-free campus. However unlike most shelters, residents will be able to keep their pets, with a small dog park set to be built on the West side of the property.

Nevada Hopes has been hosting tours for media and local officials as the opening of the tiny homes village draws nearer but has been delayed due to fundraising shortfalls.

Easy Access to Quality Health Care

Aside from job search and resume-building services, cooking classes will also be offered for residents at HopeSprings. The property will have a community garden and fruit trees, and residents will be able to utilize the community center’s kitchen to prepare their own meals. A barbecue and fire pit will also be featured on the property behind the community center’s two roll-up garage doors.

Inside the community center, on-site laundry services will be available as well as lockers for individual residents. Although the property itself will be fenced in and have 24/7 security on-site, the community center and all its amenities will be accessible via a fob key that residents will be given. 

For Northern Nevada Hopes, they believe they are in a unique position to take this more holistic approach in supporting the homeless community in Reno.

“Northern Nevada Hopes is a primary care medical clinic and a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC),” Fegert said. “So on-site at Northern Nevada Hopes on East Fourth Street, we have primary health care, behavioral health, case management, a pharmacy and a lab. So we have all these different resources for an individual who is disenfranchised.”

According to Fegert, 25% of the patients seen at Northern Nevada Hopes are experiencing homelessness. With a bridge housing project like HopeSprings, some of these patients will be able to receive that primary care and other services, all in one location. 

“[Hopesprings] allows them to get all of their needs met on one campus,” Fegert said. “That's important because folks that maybe don't have a vehicle, have a large family, or are working per hour and need to see a primary care doctor, go to the pharmacy or get lab work done might otherwise miss a full day of work to do that. So this allows that person to access both healthcare and also housing.”

In order to stay at HopeSprings, Fegert said prospective residents will have to undergo an intense vetting process to ensure they will be a good fit for the community and its programs. “[Prospective residents] will go through some deep questionnaires of what their housing has been in the past,” she said. “What are their addiction issues? What do their family life and relationships look like? We will look at the person as a whole and then we can establish if [HopeSprings] is going to be a good fit for that person.”

Extensive Screening for “Good Fits”

Part of the screening process will include so-called “motivational Interviewing” to determine what a prospective resident’s goals will be for the end of their temporary, transitional four-to-six month stay.

“Not everyone that's living on the streets is indeed motivated and willing to do the work,” Fegert said. “This program here is a 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM program. So they really have to be motivated and have to be emotionally and mentally ready for this.”

With a bridge housing project like this, there will be significant financial benefits for the community and its taxpayers, as well. 

“Homelessness not only affects the homeless individual themselves, but it also is affecting our taxpayers who help fund jails, hospitals, social services and shelters,” Fegert said. “According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, chronically homeless individuals often cycle in and out of our emergency departments, inpatient hospitals, psychiatric centers and detox programs and that results in a high public cost averaging about $35,578 taxpayer dollars each year.”

Consequently, Northern Nevada Hopes estimates that for each person staying at HopeSprings for each four-to-six month period, the taxpayer cost will go down from $35,578 to about $14,226 per person. With the difference being about $21,000 saved in taxpayer costs and if HopeSprings moves 60 people through the property each year, an approximate amount of $1,281,000 in public costs will be saved in the community, according to her calculations. 

A bridge housing project like this will not only save taxpayers’ money, but also lengthen the life expectancy of those experiencing homelessness.

“Research shows that homelessness directly affects health,” Fegert said. “The average life expectancy for someone that's experiencing homelessness is 50 years for a man and 43 years for a woman. That's an average of 27 years lost per person. So not only is this important for saving our taxpayers and saving our community money, but we're giving people their lives and their dignity back.”

Our mission aligns with that of HopeSprings and I see it as a duty, a responsibility and an obligation that we have to help these individuals to get back on their feet,” Eric Schmacker, CEO of Silver Summit Health Plan who recently traveled from Las Vegas to see HopeSprings in person. “This community provides them with an opportunity where they can recover, have some privacy, recuperate and learn new skills.”

Still in Need of Funding

Although the tiny homes are now complete, the community center and the rest of the property are still undergoing construction, with the goal of HopeSprings being completed and taking in residents by early 2021.

To support that fundraising effort, Silver Summit Health Plan in Las Vegas recently made a $100,000 donation to HopeSprings. With an anonymous donor who pledged to match every donation up to $400,000; Silver Summit’s donation meant getting closer to the final fundraising goal, with $1.6 million out of a needed $2.5 million already reported to have been raised as of last week.

Schmacker attests that at Silver Summit, an FQHC like Northern Nevada Hopes, they understand the influence stable shelter can play in determining an individual’s health.

“FQHCs see a lot of Medicaid members and take care of them from a clinical standpoint,” Schmaker said. “So we know that it's not just about providing immunizations or caring for a wound that an individual has, but that there's also social determinants of health. One of the determinants being housing, so this project hits right at one of those social determinants of health and helps these individuals get back on their feet by providing them that housing.”

When asked about his biggest takeaways after a tour of the property, Schmacker was impressed by the dichotomy of both community and privacy that HopeSprings will offer residents. 

“It has a community area where food will be served, where individuals can congregate and they can create relationships,” Schmacker said. “But it also has space where they can get away and have some privacy as well. It really has a home feeling to it and a community type of feeling to it, and that's what struck me.”

Fegert and Northern Nevada Hopes are excited that HopeSprings can be one piece of the puzzle to address the affordable housing crisis, but acknowledge that much more needs to be done.

“Homelessness is a big problem across the nation,” Fegert said. “We have had two times the increase in homelessness since 2009. We know that one in seven Nevadans live below the federal poverty line and COVID will exacerbate this as well. This is just a start and we need more of these bridge housing projects to help individuals succeed in getting off the streets.”

Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Rose, Unable to Hear or to Access Housing after Being Evicted

Evicted and Now Out on the Streets

Rose’s troubles with stable shelter began after she and her roommate were evicted from the place they were renting several years ago.

“[My roommate] didn't pay his half for the rent, so we both ended up getting evicted,” Rose said. “Now that there’s an eviction on my record, a lot of people don't want to rent to me.”

Since then Rose, who is hard of hearing, has barely been getting by on the social security and food stamps she receives. “But Social Security can’t afford me to get a place to live in by myself,” Rose said. “I do get food stamps, $17 a month.”

She’s been looking for affordable housing that fits her budget, but even when she might find something, her search recently got more difficult, she says, after her cell phone was stolen.

“People just steal telephones around here and it’s terrible,” Rose said. “You go buy one for $128 bucks and a week later you don't have your phone anymore,” Rose told Our Town Reno. Photo by Richie Bednarski.

Looking for a New Cell Phone

Rose says she’s tried to apply for a so-called government Obama Phone, but has been told she makes too much to qualify for one. Having a phone is crucial for her to search for affordable housing and other resources, particularly because she is hard of hearing and relies on the messaging that cell phones provide.

“When I keep getting my telephone stolen from me, they can't get a hold of me or text me and stuff,” Rose said. “So it’s like I’m stuck here.”

Rose doesn’t mind being hard of hearing, though. In fact, she enjoys it as a means of keeping to herself.

“I don't have to hear the bullshit, but if I want to know what's going on I'll find out,” Rose said. “I wore hearing-aids back when I was three years old but by the time I was 19, I gave up because the hearing aids would make a bunch of noise and I wasn’t even hearing what people were saying.”

So she says she mostly enjoys spending her day with her dog, a chihuahua-mix who she takes to a nearby park from time to time. 

“I’ve had him for two and a half years, since he was a puppy,” Rose said. “My brother bought him for $150 and he became my dog. I want to have him certified as a therapy-hearing dog. He'll bark at you, but he hasn’t bitten anybody.”

When it gets cold at night, Rose has her dog stay with her brother to stay warm at night. So when she doesn’t have her dog with her, Rose enjoys watching her hometown Chicago Bears play at the Diamonds Casino. 

“I’m originally from Chicago, Illinois, so I’m a White Sox and a Bears fan,” Rose said. “Oh, that Bears game last week, I couldn't believe they lost. I sit and watch the games over there at Diamonds and they bring me hot chocolate or coffee.”

A Survivor Finding Simple Pleasures

For Rose, it’s times watching sports at a casino with a warm drink in hand that she’s just grateful to be alive. Back in 1993, she says she was involved in a car accident that nearly took her life, leaving her with head trauma and a collapsed lung. 

“In 1993, I was run over and dragged by a pick-up truck,” Rose said. “I didn't get anything [financially] out of it, but the hospital bill was paid. I just thank God every day to still be here.”

When asked about the upcoming election, Rose confirmed she was a registered voter but wasn’t interested in discussing the topic.

“I’m a registered voter and a Democrat, I’m not Republican,” Rose said. “But that's not a good thing to talk to people about: religion or politics.”

She just wants to be left alone, she says, to enjoy her own company, which is why she avoids staying at the local shelter.

“I'd rather be right here, just me and my dog,” Rose said. “The shelter's just not a nice place to stay, I’m sorry. I’ve been there before and things get stolen and some people aren’t fit to be with other people, so I’ll be alright right here.” 

For Rose it’s nothing personal, it’s just who she is. 

“I really don't want anybody to know about [my experience], but that's me personally,” Rose said. “It's better to be left alone. You don't speak to them, they don’t speak back.”

Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Lily Baran, Helping Organize a People's Summit for more People Power

Building Some Community Power Before the Unpredictable Election

Lily Baran, a performing arts professional turned activist, describes her and Minaberry’s idea behind creating the recent leftist fair in a Reno park as a way to “get all these organizations to try to help social justice things and community things. And we just thought that this would be a good way for all of us to actually talk to each other and build some community power before the election to not feel hopeless and helpless after the election.”

Baran says she wanted to help non-profits and other groups coordinate with each other and form a collaborative environment where a free market of ideas would flow.

“It was like ‘hello.’ We’re creating this space. If you would like to join: here’s a form to fill out and B.Y.O. (bring your own) table, and we will be there. It’s important because that’s the future we want to move to.”

Working in an open environment, the organizations and participants developed ideas of “how to help each other, how to form mutual aid and coalitions to make sure that we can continue to function because we are the only ones who care about us.” 

For Baran, the key to Reno forming a more robust community is to embrace our differences and understand that the community can have a more significant impact than those in public office. “I’m really proud of Reno. I’m really proud of like, seeing all these different people, like Reno Burrito Project … all these people are really coming out and showing up and supporting each other. And it feels as if, even though our city officials and other governing bodies aren’t really doing everything they could, the community is finding its power, and that is much better.”

Neighborhood Power

The creation of A People’s Summit was an idea that had inhabited the minds of Baran and Minaberry’s for a while. “It got to a point where there were so many non-profits that I was like, ‘We have to figure this out. Like we have to get to know everybody and everybody has to know who’s here,’” Baran said.

Barab believes Reno has potential and that a “better Reno is possible.” Building a healthy support system of like-minded groups, she says, is a significant step. Assembling neighborhood power by maximizing efforts in delivering education, mutual aid, and a welcoming environment is crucial, she adds.

As Reno continues to change and rebrand, Baran stresses that the community needs to stick together more than ever.

“I am hoping that right now, more of us are actually like putting truth to power and putting action into motion for office because Reno is unlike other cities I’ve lived here long enough to know that it is very possible to change. It is very, very possible that we can take our government and our city and make it work for people.”

As more and more tables popped up and curious Reno residents who had heard of the event through social media showed up, distributing materials and discussing ways to curb the steep ascent of housing costs, how to help the unsheltered, how to push for police change, and how to make Reno greener, the initial goal of the informal outdoor summit had been met.

Reporting by Gracie Gordon for Our Town Reno

Nightingale, Flocking to Support Others for Radical Change

A Selfless Group

The idea of “people enacting radical change” has been around years. Now in Reno, it’s actually a formal group of community members whose primary goal is to organize protests and be “here for support,” says Nightingale, a core member of the group known as PERCh, an acronym for People Enacting Radical Change. 

On a recent Friday evening, members of PERCh were at the intersection of Plumb Lane and Harvard Way. They consider themselves a democratically run group that organizes protesters. They lead their own protests, but unlike most other groups who just do their own thing, PERCh will go out of their way to help other groups in northern Nevada.

“We hear about other protests, we'll give them our numbers, you know, as long as it falls under our umbrella of things that we support as a group,” Nightingale says as a few more protesters arrived on the scene.

Also unique to their methodology, PERCh utilizes social media to spread information about protests but doesn't promote themselves through social media.

Nightingale took out a gun at the protest, but of the plastic kind to disperse bubbles of joy. “Sometimes we’ve gotten a lot of honks and support and in other places [it] generally tends to be kind of like a 50-50 kind of thing,” she said of public reception of the protests.

Solidarity Crosswalking

Since April, PERCh has also been doing “solidarity crosswalks,” explains Nightingale. “Right now we’re doing it in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.” These mini-protests now happen once a week at different intersections throughout Reno and Sparks, and used to happen more often.

“It’s only for two hours and we try to have it finished before the sun goes down,” Nightingale said of the current iteration. Cars go by and mostly honk in protest, but there have been many cases of intimidation, animosity and counter-protests as well.

Nightingale talked about members being stalked, having a gun pointed at them, and counter-protesters showing up in their faces, yelling at them drunk, in one of their early protests in South Reno. These incidents were all defused but it did cause PERCh to slow down and alter their tactics for the safety of their members. They have now decided to be at a new location for every protest. 

But change doesn’t happen when people give in to pressure. “It’s trying to make that push to inspire compassion for our community,” explains Nightingale. She hopes to keep the pressure and protests up in light of the animosity in order to enact radical change. 

Photo provided by PerCh of other members at a downtown Reno protest.

Helping Neighbors in Need

PERCh members say they are in the process of also establishing a community outreach program. While the idea is still in early phase, Nightingale says they want to try to “feed our street family” and have “a vision of possibly doing their laundry for them.”

These little steps go a long way at helping our neighbors in need. They are hoping to establish a budget and “be as transparent as possible so that people do donate to us. They can feel comfortable with that.” But Nightingale explains they are not quite ready for donations yet.

Nightingale believes in the benefits of the solidarity sidewalk protests and the high visibility is important for spreading their message. The idea of PERCh is based around “the image of birds [that] are flocking to support.”

This is evidenced through their organization of community clean-ups, supporting other protests, such as the Power and Liberation Movement, who have been holding regular protests in Carson City. Nightingale is fired up about building the PERCh organization and looks forward to the coming months.

“It’s all around very positive,” Nightingale concluded before rejoining others in their celebration of creating rush hour traffic public awareness for change.

Reporting and Photography by Richie Bednarski for Our Town Reno

Indigenous People's Day in Reno: ‘The truth is that, for a long time, we’ve been dying.’

First, A Day of Rage Against Colonialism

The soft but persistent sound of sidewalk chalk scratching against concrete filled Downtown Reno’s plaza yesterday. It intertwined itself with the hum of outdoor voices, chants and rap music played over a loudspeaker, a child’s scooter clattering as it struck cracks along the sidewalk, revving motorcycle engines, and the Truckee River roaring like white noise in the background.

Native Americans and allies gathered Sunday afternoon to color the concrete in support of Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage Against Colonialism. The agenda for the full-day event preceding Indigenous People’s Day included a morning river cleanup, the artistic reclamation of the plaza, and a march on UNR’s Mackay statue later in the afternoon.

“[Rage] may sound like a heavy word, or an intense word,” Avory Wyatt, one of the event planners said. “But this is how we do it, with cleanups, art murals.”

This community-building approach garnered support from a wide array of people. Alongside Native American participants, the event was well-attended by the LGBTQ+ community, AntiFa, local artists, and white allies.

“It’s a way for me to connect my ancestry to today, and show my resistance to colonization,” said Ruby Barrientos, a Salvadoran artist who helped fill the Downtown Reno plaza with sidewalk chalk drawings. “The people that inhabited the Great Basin prior to the European invasion were the Numa or Numu (Northern Paiute), the Washeshu (Washoe), the Newe (Shoshone), and the Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute),” the Reno Sparks Indian Colony says. Indigenous People’s Day on October 12th to honor Native American peoples was officially acknowledged as a holiday by Reno last year. Photo by Sydney Oliver.

Deep Sobriety

While the day was filled with welcoming eye-crinkles that hinted at smiles shared from underneath masks, it was also touched by deep sobriety, especially during the march on the statue of John Mackay, at the north end of the University of Nevada Quad in front of the Mackay School of Mines.

“The truth is that, for a long time, we’ve been dying. We’ve been dying, and we’re just trying to live, and just trying to thrive now,” Dwight George, one of the event planners, said during a public speech. 

Someone had just turned off the music coming from a portable sound system—audience members listened solemnly, some snapping their fingers or Mhm-ing as Dwight spoke. The relative silence broke for applause as he said, “If anything, we’ve always been here, and we will always be here.”

His twin brother, Everett George, who works at a youth shelter that takes in native children, also spoke publicly. He mentioned how isolated life can be on a reservation. “When I talk to [the kids] about going to a different city, they treat it like I went to Paris,” he said.

“In order to ‘prosper’ in America—you can’t really do that on a reservation,” Everett said. “We have each other, and that is it. We don’t have any other land to return to, we don’t have any other place to go back. This is it. This is it right here.”

Many event attendees donned unique t-shirts. Beside the slogan featured above (“The wrong Amazon is burning. The wrong ICE is melting.”), another event attendee’s shirt read “Merciless Indian Savages,” a direct quote from the Declaration of Independence. Photo by Sydney Oliver.

The Significance of Marching on Mackay Statue

One line Everett repeated several times: “It’s very weird being Native American.”

Avory also spoke, touching on the upward battle against history that Native Americans face. He gestured to his pocket, and said that, in his wallet, he has a card documenting his native blood. 

“If we’re not more than one fourth native, we’re not native in United State’s terms,” he said. “They track the blood of horses, they track the blood of dogs, but what they don’t tell you, is that they track the blood of natives.”

He also mentioned the significance of marching on the Mackay statue. In the 1800s, miners arrived in Nevada. They profited off of the land, and killed local natives to do so.

Throughout the day, attendees passed around a flyer carrying a QR code for a petition to take down the Mackay.

“The reality is, we drink that water. We literally drink that water,” Orlando OH (above) said while tracing out the raised arm in his sidewalk chalk mural. He was glad to help with the river cleanup earlier in the day, but dismayed at the amount of trash event attendees fished from the Truckee. Photo by Sydney Oliver

Reporting by Faith Evans with Photography by Sydney Oliver for Our Town Reno