Dustin, Trying to Save his New Wife and Her Kids after They Barely Survived Her Ex

“My name is Dustin. I’m from Reno, Nevada. 

Me and my wife have been going through some things. 

So a few years back, my wife, three years ago, my wife was actually held hostage in her own house by her old man with her three babies, well, with several babies. She had five at the time in the home. 

He beat her with a 12-gauge shotgun in front of the kids. And then he tried to shoot her in the head and he put the shotgun through her hair and it hit the wall. And he thought it was her head because he was drunk. And so he pulled the trigger and so it went ahead and it burnt the back of my wife's head and it blew a two foot hole in the wall. 

This is how some of us are raised, you know what I'm saying? 

When my wife's mom died when she was younger, she had no family and she comes from Michigan, from Flint, Michigan. 

So she was on the streets at 14, homeless with nothing, bro. And the state left her with nothing, for dead. So she got whatever she could to go with survivor's benefits and she made her way over here to Reno and obviously we all grew up in a certain way of life on whatever side of the tracks we grew up on. She wound up in this relationship that she was in, so on and so forth. And so when the cops came to the house, she went ahead and she come outside and everybody in the house is calling her snitch. 

She walked outside the front door and she told the cops: ‘Listen, I don't know what you guys are doing here, but I'm sorry, I don't mean to bother you or nothing like that. I'm trying to lay down and put my kids to bed, and you got my dogs out here barking, so if there's nothing I can help you with, right, I'm gonna go back to bed. You guys have a good day.’

After this man beat her … and they left. They came back with negotiators, with a task force, with snipers and everything. The kids managed to get out, she managed to get out and everything else, and they handled everything. My wife did not go to court for this man. Did not press charges on him, did not do anything. 

And then, to top it all off, when the cops finally got their hands on my wife and tried to, you know, wrap her with a blanket and put her in a car real quick, to help her get her out the way, they go, so when are women gonna finally learn to stop dating [these type of guys]? So that's the start of all this. He gets two three to sevens.

So  she's struggling, trying to do it. I met my wife shortly after that.

When I met her, she was getting ready to lose her apartment. It was during Covid and she had her kids, she asked her sister-in-law, which is her ex's sister, to go ahead and please watch the kids for, you know, maybe a week or two, right? And she would go ahead and she would take care of whatever, just to make sure that the kids were taken care of because she didn't want to put the kids through any more trauma and put them on the streets. Her sister-in-law takes the kids, right? And she gives her sister-in-law $2,800, all of her food stamps, for three kids and herself, tells her sister-in-law, come over to the house, get whatever you need to make sure the kids are comfortable. 

And her sister-in-law's boyfriend says, ‘Listen, whatever we take, we're not bringing back.’ They took her standup freezer in the house, all the food out of the house, every bed in that house, every toy in that house, everything, anything that meant anything to those kids that was from their mom, that lady took away from those children. That lady alienated my wife from her kids for two years. My wife didn't get no part of that at all. She tried to call CPS. They wouldn't do anything … So she goes to the judge and files for emergency custody because it was child neglect because the kids were not getting treated and taken care of probably. 

So one thing leads to another and all of a sudden we get a phone call from my wife's brother stating that he's trying to figure out who this lady is that's trying to sell these kids. So we get a phone call from her brother on messenger and he says, ‘Look, I don't know who this lady is. I don't know what she's talking about, but she's trying to sell your kids or get 'em away.’ And he lives all the way over in Michigan. And my wife goes, ‘Maybe you can try to get the kids so I can get 'em from you, or whatever we can do. Try to work it out, try to figure it out to where, I mean, whatever I gotta do…’

Cause the kids is basically where my wife is at. So one thing leads to another, one thing leads to another. 

The lady finally goes ahead and contacts my wife on the phone and she says, ‘so, yeah, I mean, I don't have a problem with giving you back your kids or whatever, but here's the whole deal. I was told that you were on drugs and, and you were homeless and you had nothing going for you or whatever.’ My wife goes, ‘Look, you alienated me from my kids for two years. I ended up getting high. I didn't have anything to live for. So I went downhill.’ 

The only thing me and my wife had at the time was each other. That was it. We lived in the back of my Navigator for 11 months because we threw everything that we had away. We both went downhill together. It was a downhill spiral. 

This lady goes ahead and she's like, ‘Look, let's go ahead and try to figure this out to try to start you some reunification or get the kids to, you know, kind of gradually go into the situation.’ 

Well then all of a sudden she, my wife says, ‘Well, maybe they could stay the night cause everything's going good, right?’ So the kids go ahead and stay the night. And now we're staying at a hotel downtown right here. So the kids stay the night. The next morning the lady goes ahead and says, ‘Well look, how about I just bring over some things? So she goes ahead and brings over a box, maybe four foot tall. And I mean, maybe it's the size of a small refrigerator. And it has everything that the kids own in it. Everything. When the kids showed up their hair was past their neck, their toes were growing out of their shoes. 

So me and my wife, we're going through it right now. Things are getting rough, the kids and everything else, because of everything they went through, right? 

The kids are just a wreck. Her daughter has scoliosis, they're getting ready to go ahead and move her brain because it's sitting on her brain stem too heavy. And so it's causing her problems where she can't hear and she can't see. And she's eight years old. She gets made fun of in school, everything. 

My wife, right now she has seizures, now she has PTSD. She is afraid to go outside. She doesn't like the way she looks. She has no self-esteem whatsoever. And every time she manages to get it all together, something else shoots it down. 

And then, at the motel her son would light the bathroom on fire. We'd go to sleep and we'd wake up in the room, and it would be full of smoke. The smoke alarm would just start going off and we'd wake up. What the hell's going on? 

Well, we're going through this whole thing and I'm like, ‘Dude, I can't, I can't live like this. We gotta do something.’ But these are my wife's kids, so I'm not gonna go ahead and tell her, ‘Listen, you gotta get rid of 'em.’ So I go ahead and I tell her, ‘Look, I'm gonna go and do the right thing. I'm gonna go ahead and go, but I'm gonna pay for everything. I'll pay your way. I'll take care of you. I'll do whatever I can can to help knowing that I don't even have a job right now either.’”

Part 2 of this interview coming up will be about seeking help from Child Protective Services and what Dustin thinks about that ordeal.

As told to Brad Vincent for Our Town Reno

Advocate Seeks To Identify Police Shooters in Local Officer-Involved Killings with their Body Cam Trails

“Wouldn't you want to know who killed your loved one, whether they wear a badge or not? That's just common information that anybody deserves when their loved one is killed, whether it's by a community member or a police officer,” Annemarie Grant told Our Town Reno recently over the phone, from the Boston area where she lives. 

Grant’s brother Thomas Purdy died after being hog tied in custody of the Washoe County Jail in October 2015. In that case, the County eventually paid out $100,000 for his wrongful death.

Since then Grant has been coming to Reno yearly to lead annual protests for families of those killed by local law enforcement, demanding more accountability and transparency.

She’s now also looking into these killings over the internet through public records request and police distributed videos.

One of the killings she’s been looking into is that of Jason Thorpe outside the Sparks Police Department on Oct. 18. Police say Thorpe was initially hiding outside their offices and fired a round in the air. He ignored commands to drop his weapon, identified as a 9 millimeter semi-automatic handgun.

Officers say negotiations lasted over two hours, when Thorpe then shot a round at the station, and ran towards officers, before being shot dead. 

After videos made public by police were released (including the one above) Grant decided to use the body worn camera serial numbers appearing on the edited footage as a way to identify the police shooters, who have not been made public.

On October 29, a post by Reno Cop Watch indicated frustration with not having the names of involved officers released. “If they’d release the full videos without edits and the names of the officers who fired their guns….THAT WOULD BE REAL TRANSPARENCY!” the website wrote.

“Every officer is assigned a body worn camera that has a specific serial number that they use every single day,” Grant explained of her methodology. “So I knew that an officer that was wearing it on 10/18, he wears it every day. So if I can get some documentation of who utilizes those body cams, then we can have the names of the shooters.” 

Grant submitted her request via the Sparks PD public records portal box.  At first, she got two names back for the October period she asked for and the corresponding body cam numbers of two of them: Sgt Ed Wilson ( number X60331948, in below document she was sent), and Robert Canterbury (number X60337123, in above document she received).  

“You can see the paper trail, the body camera activation, what time they docked it and all that,” Grant said of being certain of getting the correct identities. “And it has of course the serial number. And then I also confirmed through Sparks Police, just through some research, that each officer is assigned a body-worn camera. So I knew that it's not like they just go and randomly pick a body camera for the day. It’s assigned to them every day.”

Grant says she came up with this idea by networking with other families who have lost relatives to police shootings. 

Canterbury is listed as a police officer on Transparent Nevada, having made over $171,000 in total pay and benefits in 2021.  Wilson is listed on that same website as a sergeant having made nearly $223,000 in 2021.

However, when Grant asked about two other body cam numbers from the videos, she said they then sent back the documents with the names of the additional officers now redacted (see below an example of what she received.) 

“I think they now know what I'm doing,” Grant told Our Town Reno.  “There were multiple officers involved,” she said of Thorpe’s killing. “It was like, they responded like an army there. He had gone to Sparks PD headquarters. It went on for like two hours. They came with the SWAT truck and they had the little robot. They have a robot now. They had that. There were at least four to five officers who shot,” she said.

A KOLO 8 report from Oct. 27 after the first videos were released indicated: “Police negotiated with him for about 2 hours and 15 minutes before he fired another shot and charged police, who fired several shots at Thorpe. Body camera video seems to indicate he yelled ‘Help me’ before he rushed at police.”

Reno Cop Watch also had its own analysis. “Some of the officers did not have their body cams rolling (per SPD “critical incident brief”). Pretty sure the NRS (Nevada Revised Statutes) says they’re to have them rolling while interacting with the public. They had over two hours!!!! Sparks Police left the body cam footage of them deploying the K-9 on Jason and launching a 40mm less than lethal at his what could only be his dead body after the barrage of bullets fired at him,” it wrote. 

After Grant received the documents which were this time redacted (second one above), she also got an email from Jen Borne the Records Supervisor at the Sparks Police Department. 

“Good afternoon Ms. Grant,” it reads,  “You should receive a link to access the Body Worn Camera User Audit trail & device audit trail for X83128468 and X83035688 from 10/01/22-10/20/22.  The employee names have been redacted based on the following:

 Individuals have a right to privacy, which must be balanced with the public’s right to know. See Donrey of Nevada, Inc. v. Bradshaw, 106 Nev. 630, 635, 798 P.2d 144, 147 (1990). “Law enforcement officers in particular have a privacy interest in maintaining their anonymity and the confidentiality of their work assignments where disclosure poses a risk of harassment, endangerment, or similar harm.” Las Vegas Metro. Police Dep't v. Las Vegas Rev.-J., 136 Nev. 733, 739, 478 P.3d 383, 389 (2020). The Nevada Supreme Court has recognized that “any privacy interests can be satisfied by redaction.” Clark Cnty. Sch. Dist. v. Las Vegas Rev.-J., 134 Nev. 700, 706, 429 P.3d 313, 319 (2018). Therefore, the name of the employee that accessed these documents and the names of the officers in your request have been redacted to protect the employee and officers’ privacy interests.”

“I can't understand how now they're going to try to use that case that they always use to hide records,” Grant said in reaction to the email. “It’s clear they're not about transparency, because if they were, I wouldn't even have to be doing any of this type of research. They would just release the names.”

File photo from a protest Grant took part in in Reno.

The 1990 decision has become a common method of blocking access to government records, even though it’s been disputed by advocates and journalists for over three decades.  

“For them if there's an open case or if they claim that it can endanger the officer's safety, they just use it as a blanket denial,” Grant said. “And unfortunately, I don't have the financial means to pursue it. There's no public media around it when the names do come up, and there are cases going back to 2020 that we still don't know who the shooters are,” she said of local police killings.

Dissecting the videos released in Thorpe’s killing, she says she also heard an officer identifying himself as Vernon Taylor. He’s in Transparent Nevada as well, listed as a Sparks police officer, making nearly $200,000 in 2021.

“He identifies himself. You can tell that he shoots,” she said of the video she analyzed.  “I was surprised because sometimes they do catch that and they [bleep] it out when they say other officers’ names or theirs along with their faces.”

Grant recently reached out to the wife of Scott Kennedy who was killed Jan. 8 by Reno PD.

“We have to stick together,” she said of families of those killed.  “Unfortunately, you become a subject matter expert. I just feel like I have to pay it forward and whatever information I have, passing on to other families because there's no handbook for when the police kills your loved one. I will never have my brother back, but trying to prevent another tragedy through activism, I know the tragedies haven't stopped, but I try.”

Grant says she is undeterred and will keep looking into other local police killings.

Our Town Reno reporting, January 2023

Reno’s Coders: The Challenges and Opportunities of Being in Silicon Valley's Backyard

Coders who work as computer programmers, developers, and software engineers, are known as the construction workers of the digital world.

Coders write and test computer code that allows software programs and applications to function. They take the ideas and specifications for a piece of software, and use programming languages to turn those ideas into a working product. They are crucial to our prevalent digital world, so they often make decent salaries.

“It’s different in Reno,” says coder Nathan Mausert who worked in web development previously in California and moved here in May 2022. “It’s a lot of mid and senior positions, not a lot of junior positions. Looking at Seattle and San Francisco, those are emerging, need small talent and can’t afford experience. That’s why there’s a lot of junior positions there. As for here, the large name companies need the old talent.”

Pay tends to shift quickly, says another coder, who wanted to remain anonymous.

“Average pay can vary from company to company. $70,000 is a lower starting level, but the moment you work for at least a year, you become more valuable,” he said. “Mid-level developers can make as much as $120,000 to $140,000. When you’re taken on while your pay is lower, you’re viewed as an investment.”

This upward trend in salaries has helped local coders deal with inflation and rising rents.

Mausert breaks it down even more: “The reason they’re paid so much [here] is because they know most of these systems that almost no one knows how to maintain, and do a lot of work to mentor and train others. Your job boils down to this one thing. Here’s a problem we don’t have an answer for, you have to find a way to solve it.”

It’s a rocky industry though with fast swings. Tech stocks sank in 2022, after rising in 2021, which eventually has repercussions in Reno.

“A great example is the stock price of Shopify,” a female coder who also wanted to remain anonymous said. “Within the course of one week, it dropped by 80% in stock value. This has been happening to a lot of companies. Snapchat fired 10,000 employees.” She pauses, and gives air quotes: “I mean, ‘LAID OFF’. Google has plans to do the same. Meta (that Facebook thing) downsized, as well. Apple is in a hiring freeze.”

This trickles down to local affiliates and other lesser know companies, and signifies potential troubles up ahead in the coding space.

Mausert isn’t too worried though. For those interested in a coding career he suggests not being afraid to move with the ever changing state of technology. He says your own knowledge, hustle and staying up to date with coding abilities is more important than any degree.

“There is definitely a coding culture, and it is a hit or miss. On one hand, the ‘old guard’ of sorts – “You need a college degree” sort of deal – is dying out. Google and Apple don’t require that anymore because they know it’s one of those fields where you can be self-taught and amazing at it.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Mariya Dawson

Former Reno Inkers Relieved to Leave Custom Ink In Their Past

In the Press section of the Custom Ink website there is a “We Top the Charts” list of articles, with certifications of the company being listed in best workplaces by different rankings, with #74 for women in the large workplace category at the very top.

Whether #74 is good or not, it links to a glowing review which includes this highlighted quote:  “The attitudes of the people here really mesh well with my own values. Everyone starts the day on a positive note, and tries to find the positive in even the stickiest of situations. It's such a unique group of people. We are all different, with different backgrounds and interests, but everyone is respected from day 1--which is such an amazing feeling.”

In contrast, for former Reno Custom Ink employees who reached out to us, including some recently let go after the online provider of custom apparel and mementoes decided to close its production facilities here, it’s a unanimous relief they no longer work there. 

Former “inkers” all chose to share their views anonymously, some of them after signing NDAs.  One wrote about “brutal” hours and expectations, with many late nights. Working overtime, they said, was often requested of employees on very late notice.  “Three a.m. overtime was projected every day after Thanksgiving until Christmas,” they indicated.

Another wrote they didn’t believe Custom Ink could keep the production facility staffed because of refusing “to provide cost of living increases” for production staff which didn’t get commissions like employees in other departments. 

Overall conditions, several wrote, were also deteriorating, leading to staff departures in recent months.

“There was a total lack of cleaning in the building, dust and grease coated everything and the ceiling air vents were surrounded with dust, the only thing they hired anyone to clean professionally was the bathrooms, break room, and the machines to make the shirts,” one former employee wrote.

They went on to say there was recently an outbreak of flies at the Reno facility, which was initially blamed on employees having snacks, but then traced back to dirty materials forgotten in a biohazard bin. It go so bad, one coworker brought their own fly zapper to survive their shift.  

Employees who reached out said they were expected to be on their feet for hours and hours on end, and that low pay, insufficient promotion opportunities, poor communication from management, and unsanitary conditions just didn’t make it worthwhile.  

Another former employee called Custom Ink, “capital T Toxic.”

Job insecurity was on everyone’s mind with employees regularly fired at the end of busy periods for “questionable reasons,” they alleged. 

Another former employee said raises had been promised in October 2022 but never materialized, and that hours had already been reduced to half days the last two weeks of operation. 

They said they then got an abrupt “separation package email.”

Over 130 employees were working at the Reno facility when its shutdown was announced three days into 2023.

“Due to rising costs and increasingly tight markets for production talent, Custom Ink has decided to close our production sites in Reno, Nevada and Charlottesville, Virginia and consolidate in-house production in our Dallas, Texas facility,” was the official Custom Ink statement.

The Virginia-headquartered company said it would retain 245 employees in non-production roles in Reno, with most of them working remotely. The company’s annual revenue is estimated at $400 million. The average salary for employees in Nevada is estimated at about $36,000.

One employee said they had to sign an NDA to “receive additional severance monies” according to an internal Custom Ink document they shared, which asked them not to disparage the company. “(Not speaking or writing negatively about Custom Ink, including online,)” the inkersupport DocuSign indicated in parentheses to explain the word disparaging.

Our Town Reno reporting, January 2023

Wrightway Market in Downtown Reno Fights to Get its Alcohol License Back

Morning hours of the January 11th Reno City Council meeting were dominated by concerns over the city’s decision last month to deny a renewal of a privileged license for alcohol sales for Wrightway Market on Evans Ave. right across from the main bus station.

The 5-2 vote had come following police and city code enforcement officials saying the corner store’s alcohol was causing an increase in criminal activity.

During Wednesday’s public comment section, the owners of the building and the business, as well as employees, community activists, friends and family members followed each other insiting the decision had been misguided. Some showed videos of calls being made to police for incidents just outside the market which had nothing to do with any alcohol sales.

The first to speak was John Iliescu, 96, a retired physician and the owner of the building. “Us little people count,” he said. “It can’t just be the big casinos.” His wife Sonia read a statement saying the business is an anchor for a large family, providing a store that is convenient for people who ride buses. The nearby area also has bars, restaurants and services for the unhoused.

She said crime in that part of downtown was “a community problem, a government problem.” The alcohol license has been key to the store’s profit margins, while vegetables, fruits and other food items are bought there by many low-income residents in what is otherwise a food desert for the underprivileged.

After the Iliescus spoke, Mayor Hillary Schieve said downtown Reno needs to be “safe and clean,” and a “good place for our community and visitors.” She asked the city manager to look into possibly setting up a special meeting with evening hours to publicly discuss our downtown’s future.

Chase McMullen, a grandson of the Iliescus, said the city was blaming a corner store for the criminal activity of an entire block.

Wrightway Market owner Opinder Dhillon pleaded for a reconsideration. He was the first of many speakers to show videos of police coming outside the store for incidents which had nothing to do with any sales which had been made. The council was told Wrightway Market was being used as a landmark for police calls, even if what prompted the alert was happening in nearby areas.

Those who spoke, numbering several dozen, many from the South Asian community, also said emergency calls were continuing even after sales of alcohol had stopped and that the data on earlier calls wasn’t clear at all. A businessman said the decision was making their “minority community feel unwelcome” and “insecure in seeking help.”

Owners of the Ace Mart corner store on 2nd street also spoke on their behalf. Last month, the renewal of a privileged license was also denied for Lakemill Maxi Mart which sits at the base of the Lakemill Lodge on Mill street. Its operators had made similar complaints in vain that they were being punished for what was happening in their entire neighborhood.

A Facebook page called Reno Mini-Marts Matter has recently been making similar arguments.

Hawah Ahmad, whose name was mangled before she stepped up to speak, a recent candidate for the Washoe County Commission, and active community member on many boards, said this “looks really discriminatory,” but called the idea of a proposed special meeting “a start.”

A representative for the Downtown Reno ambassadors Chris Reardon concluded the morning session of public comments by saying the “calls were precise.”

Our Town Reno reporting, January 11, 2013

Jeff, From Successful Chiropractor in Ohio to Becoming a "Street Person" in Reno

Jeff, now unhoused in Reno, after a tumultuous life in Hawaii, Australia and here, riddled recently with marital, financial, gambling and health issues, fondly remembers growing up in a middle class family in a suburb of Toledo, Ohio. 

“I had a great life,” he told Our Town Reno on a recent icy cold morning before the recent storms, taking a walk outside the unregistered car he now lives in. “We went camping every year, you know, took vacations and my dad was a chiropractor. He used to take us all around the country [for] seminars and stay in hotels. It was real nice. I had two brothers and two sisters.”

As a young adult he became a chiropractor in Toledo just like his father. “I had a very successful practice there, waiting room was standing room only, and sometimes they'd be waiting outside,” he said. 

With his first wife, he took a vacation to Hawaii and then decided to move there in the mid 1990s. 

“I started to practice there, build it from ground up. It was in a brand new shopping center there on the coast, Kona. It was very nice. It overlooked the ocean,” he said. 

There was a lot of overhead though and new caps on income he could make, he says, and his financial troubles began.  Marital problems ensued. He divorced and remarried, before moving to Reno, where his new wife’s parents were living.  A daughter was born here in 2003 followed by a son in 2007. 

Jeff started practicing here, and “everything was fine for a while,” but then he says he started visiting casinos and got “a bit of a gambling problem. So I started losing money because of that.”

He says he decided to move to Australia, where he had found a job online, but after his family reunited with him there, he says his health declined.

“I started feeling chronically ill,” he said. “I do have a few hereditary issues or something with my blood, with my bone marrow. I have like benign cancer. It causes too many platelets and I'm a high risk for strokes and stuff like that. I ended up having to come back. I was in chronic pain and I ended up getting on disability here because nothing was helping,” he said.

He says he couldn’t feel his fingertips anymore so he had to stop practicing. A second divorce then derailed him further. Jeff started using his newly obtained disability payments to pay child support.

“And I was without a car at the time. We had one car.  I just left it with her too. And everything I left with her. I just took a few personal items to a small apartment and tried to make it,” he said. 

He started gambling “heavily” he said, and right before the pandemic hit, in December 2019, after being unable to pay his rent at the Truckee River Terrace Apartments on First street, he says he was evicted.

“I was 60 years old and for the first time in my life I was homeless. And I walked over to the park there and slept under the bridge in the middle of winter with barely a blanket. It was pretty miserable. I was wondering what the hell happened to me.”

He says he left his belongings behind and thought he’d have 30 days to get them back, and that the apartment would hold it in storage until then.

“I had a lot of stuff, a lot of nostalgic stuff, lot of nice expensive stuff and didn’t know how to get it back. Mostly what I cared about was nostalgic stuff the kids made and stuff through the years,” he said.

He tells the rest of his story, and his new hopes below completely in his own words:

“I tried contacting the manager there for like a week. Nobody would answer. They'd always answer when I lived there. So she knew it was me calling. She didn't want to communicate. And then, so I went there in person, I said, ‘Where's my stuff? I'm ready to get it. You know, you're supposed to hold it for me so I can come and rent a truck and yeah. Figure it out.’ Well, she said, ‘What's going on? We tossed it,’ no explanation. Just like it was okay.

I walked out of there like a zombie. I had nothing, not even a backpack at the time. And then Covid came right after that. I stayed at the shelter for a couple weeks. Didn't like that. Just bugs all over. You start feeling like one of the inmates.

Anyway, I took a train back to Ohio. I had a friend there that found out what happened to me. And she wanted to get me back on my feet.  So I went and lived with her for about three or four months and she helped me heal up some mentally and physically, because I was wearing down physically from staying outside. And then I came back because I couldn't stay away from [my] kids. 

But we did a lot of video stuff while I was in Ohio. After I got divorced, my son and I never missed a day of at least texting or talking or saying goodnight, you know, to each other. My daughter, the older one, she was always independent. And so she never really had the need for that as my younger son really. 

I ended up getting a car eventually even though it's not registered. It didn't have the title. I'm still trying to get that taken care of. And my driver's license had expired. So I didn't drive for a while. I did a lot of walking. I've been doing a lot of walking. 

I want to try to get relicensed again … and getting a place. I'm going to check out some apartments. I’ve got a lot to do. Once I get a place and get settled, I want my son to live with me. My son has been wanting to live with me from the beginning. I never could take him. 

Right now, I’m living in that car I bought. It’s not as bad as you would think. Humans are pretty resilient. I adapted after a while. The first couple weeks being homeless, sleeping under the bridge… I was like an empty shell. I cried every night. But you start to strengthen and find out ways to get out of it.  You become more of a street person. I know a lot of the street people really, a lot of good people, a lot of very smart people, from fairly decent backgrounds. 

For me, it’s been just a lot of things, a lot of bad things happening all at once. Like Big Murphy's Law.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Jalen Robinson

Is It Time for Reno and Nevada to Have Legal Psychedelics?

Starting in 2023, Oregon will be the first state to have legalized psychedelics. The state didn’t approve psychedelic therapy or personal use, though, as Ballot Measure 109, which passed in November 2020, gives the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) the responsibility of overseeing magic mushroom consumption only at “service centers,” and in the presence of “licensed facilitators.”

In November, voters in Colorado followed suit, passing a ballot initiative to decriminalize possession of and legalize limited use of psychedelics by those 21 years of age or older, but not yet their legal sale.

That will happen in 2024 when Colorado will allow the supervised use of two of the drugs found in mushrooms, psilocybin and psilocyn, the two psychoactive components of "magic mushrooms,” at state-regulated “healing centers.”

In California, a new bill is making its way to legalize the possession, preparation, noncommercial transfer, and transportation of psilocybin, psilocyn, DMT, the active ingredient in ayahuasca, ibogaine, a psychedelic derived from the root bark of the iboga tree, and mescaline, the active ingredient in peyote.

Elsewhere in the country, there are a few other cities that have partially decriminalized the use of psychedelics, including Oakland, Santa Cruz, Washington, D.C., Somerville, Cambridge and Northampton in Massachusetts, as well as Seattle.

These are notable steps for proponents of psychedelics who say these can help treat serious mental health issues if administered properly.

In the Silver State, there is movement in this direction as well, mostly from the Democratic Party. With a new Republican governor though, any progress could hit a Joe Lombardo veto wall.

Still, Democratic Assemblywoman Rochelle Nguyen has filed a draft request for Nevada’s 2023 Legislative Session for a bill that would revise “provisions governing controlled substances” including looking into the decriminalization and regulation of psychedelics.

Gordon Brown, a spokesman for the Nevada State Democratic Party, has called for “the legalization, regulation and taxation of therapeutic and recreational psychedelics, as well as the broad decriminalization of drugs, the end of policies relating to the so-called ‘war on drugs.’”

In November of 2020, researchers from Johns Hopkins University indicated a combination of doses of psilocybin along with psychotherapy can help reduce depressive symptoms in adults. According to Alan Davis, an adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, “the magnitude of the effect that we saw was about four times larger than what clinical trials have shown for traditional antidepressants on the market.”

The corporate world is also in lockstep, with numerous companies looking to make marketable forms of psilocybin and other substances that are related to psychedelics. 

Psychedelics also include LSD, ketamine and MDMA. A danger that could come from taking any drug is the risk that it is laced. Especially in chemically produced psychedelics, there is always a chance that you do not know everything that is in the LSD tab, the MDMA pill, or the line of ketamine. Even with magic mushrooms, you always have to be careful that you know which mushroom you are ingesting, as some mushrooms can be poisonous. 

Along with this, if a psychedelic drug is taken in too high of a dose, or too often, it can have severe side effects on the brain, leaving the user with a “fried” feeling. It is important to remember that psychedelic drugs are in fact drugs and should be taken seriously. 

Walker Sauls (above), 29, is a board member and the mycology consultant for the Sierra Psychedelic Society, a group in northern Nevada that is pushing for the decriminalization of psychedelics in Nevada. According to their website, “Sierra Psychedelic Society is a Reno-based organization focused on building community, providing education, promoting harm reduction, and advocating for policy reform.” 

“The Sierra Psychedelic Society can be seen as both a resource and a driving force for change in our community,” Sauls said, “It offers education and community support surrounding psychedelics and using them intentionally for various benefits.” 

With groups like the Sierra Psychedelic Society, it is very possible that more and more stakeholders in Nevada may try to push for decriminalization. “Nevada is building a movement and surrounding political support for legalization/decriminalization that will hopefully manifest in law change in the next several years,” Sauls told us. “A bill needs to be created and introduced, then in order for the laws to change, the citizens of Nevada need to vote in favor of the bill.” 

Trinity King, a pseudonym for a UNR psychology major, has been occasionally using psychedelics for the last couple of years. Despite having experience taking psychedelics, King does not want psychedelics to be legalized. “I feel like it's definitely something where if you legalize it, a lot more people will be doing it,” King said, “If younger people are doing it, like 18, I think it's definitely something that you should wait until you’re older. It’s hypocritical because I’ve done it but I feel like it’s definitely something that I should have waited until I was, like, 25 to do.” 

Brandon Delcore and Araceli Blount, both 21, have never used psychedelics before. They have differing opinions on the legalization of psychedelics. “I think that it should be legalized in Nevada,” said Delcore. “Psychedelics are already legalized in other states across the country, so if people wanted to take them, they would just need to travel to those states. I feel like it’s only a matter of time until they get legalized here.” 

Delcore believes that the decriminalization of psychedelics may be similar to that of marijuana. “I feel like it’s gonna be like weed was,” Delcore said. “There was science that came out that really changed the public’s view of it. I think that’s happening with psychedelics as well.”

“I don’t know, half of me says yes as long as there is clinically recognized science for it, but a lot of me still says no due to the fact that they can get in the wrong hands,” Blount said. “You don’t want children to have access to these drugs because that can completely change the way that they’re developing. My main thing is that there needs to be strong restrictions to be able to get these drugs.”

Sauls also warned that with decriminalization, there would be risks. “Increased access could lead to misuse if not carefully and intentionally executed. This misuse could lead to bad experiences,” Sauls said. “Along with this, big companies could come in, take control, and dilute the ethos and purity of the psychedelic movement in favor of profits.”

So, why were psychedelics criminalized in the first place?

Take the legendary Timothy Leary, the former Harvard psychology professor who specialized in research about psychedelics. In 1960, Leary and a coworker, Richard Alpert, began to explore the effects that psychedelic drugs had on the human mind. Shortly after their arrival at Harvard, they began to experiment with psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound that occurs naturally in select varieties of mushrooms. 

At the start of the Harvard Psilocybin Experiment, neither LSD or psilocybin were illegal in the United States. In 1962, there were various staff members who were concerned about the safety of the researchers and participants. Due to the fact that Leary and Alpert were both under the influence of psychedelics while conducting their research, many soon began to become skeptical of the validity of their research. Editorials soon began being published against Leary and Alpert saying that they were simply advocating for the recreational use of psychedelics. 

In 1963, Harvard was forced to fire both Leary and Alpert after Alpert was caught administering psilocybin to an undergraduate off-campus, causing their experiment to come to a swift halt. But, their journey with psychedelics did not end there. They both became very prominent social figures in the 60s, continuing to strive for the normalization of psychedelic drugs. 

Psychedelics remained legal in the United States until 1973, when the federal government classified them as a schedule 1 drug. According to the DEA, this means that it was found to have no medical uses, cannot be safe under medical supervision, and with a high potential for abuse. Being a schedule 1 drug, this means psychedelics are in the same category as drugs such as heroin or methamphetamine. 

However, many are now beginning to challenge this classification. Looking towards the future, there may be a possibility that on certain corners in Reno, you will be able walk into a store and buy LSD or shrooms, a lot like the marijuana dispensaries today. “[Psychedelics and marijuana] have inherent differences, yet it seems like psychedelics are on a similar path cannabis was ten or so years ago when it comes to public acceptance and legalization,” Sauls said. 

Until that day comes, remember that psychedelics are still illegal in Nevada. If you are caught with 14 grams or less of magic mushrooms, you could spend up to a year in jail for a first or second offense, and the sentencing could increase to four years for a third offense or larger amounts. If you are caught with LSD, you can land in prison for one to five years with a $10,000 fine.

Reporting for Our Town Reno by Patrick McNabb, Jalen Robinson and Brad Vincent

Cortney, Pleading for Housing Help, for herself, her wife and her dogs

Cortney wrote to Our Town Reno this week saying she was wondering if there were motel vouchers available for people like her in dire straits. She was staying in a local motel but then her money ran out.

She followed up with a text writing under pouring, cold rain: “I’m trying to find a warm place to go right now. It’s me and my wife and our two dogs.”

In a subsequent phone call, she said she’d moved from Fallon in the summer thinking there were more job opportunities here, but says the salary her wife now makes working full time at the Renfield Manufacturing makeup factory, making $900 every two weeks, hasn’t been enough this month. They don’t have a car so sleeping in a vehicle isn’t an option. Her wife carpools with a friend to her job.

“We’re just sitting outside,” she said at the time of our call. “It’s just hard.”

Cortney says they tried living with her mom and brother for a while, but she says that didn’t work out.

Cortney, 39, pictured with Misty May.

Weeklies she says cost about $220 a week, and also sometimes require initial deposits.

Cortney says she can’t work herself, and has applied for disability payments, but she hasn’t started getting government money yet. She’s heard of the RISE shelter for women and families, but she says she has been confused by the application process to get in. She hadn’t heard of the Nevada Cares Campus.

She said if someone wanted to help, she’d be grateful and happy to talk about her situation some more. We recommended attending the Tuesday night Family Soup Mutual Aid to meet with local activists who might be able to help as well.

Our Town Reno reporting, December 2022

Scott: "I ain't trying to go any further. There's too much pain."

“Scott is my name. I've been here since, off and on, since 1996.

I did some traveling, all the way to Florida, to Frisco, back and forth here, because I have family here. 

Home is …wherever I lay my hat.

My typical day is … just sitting here on this bench, all day long, talking to people, mostly about the weather and their dogs.

Some people give me some food, some people give me some money and some people just give me conversation. I don't do programs. I'm on a couple of lists for housing. So I have a case worker. There's a place on Washington street called Accept.

They are the ones who are helping me with insurance, doctors, housing, social security, and disability.

I just turned 50 right before I came out here. I ain't trying to go any further. There’s too much pain. 

I don't want to do a hundred or anything like that. I'd rather just do my time here and go to heaven. I tried the shelter but they don't treat the homeless good so I won't go over there 

The cops, they can't find me. I get up real early, at five o'clock. Everybody is one paycheck away from being where I'm at.”

1st person reporting by Brad Vincent and Troy Welling

Teacher Cites Lack of Security, Support, Recent Attack for Sick Out at Dilworth Middle School

“It has become very clear that staff and student safety are not a priority for the school district in a lot of ways,” a teacher who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told Our Town Reno today, following a Thursday lockdown at the school.

The teacher was among those who called in sick Friday forcing the cancelation of classes at Dilworth Middle School in Sparks. They said they talked to 25 of their colleagues who all called out as well.

A meeting this week with an employee from the Washoe County School District didn’t lead to any promised change or reassurances to keep staff feeling safe, the teacher said.

Then the teacher said a coworker was injured Thursday after being pushed into a locker.  The sick out the teacher said is “their only bargaining token” as they can’t legally strike. 

 “We're sort of all at our wits end at this point. We don't know what else to do,” the teacher said.

There have been repeated sightings of students wearing gang colors, and school fights which are broadcast publicly such as in screen grabs above and below on multiple Instagram accounts with variations of Dilworth Fights in their names.  

The teacher said there are two to three fights every day, and Dilworth’s school administration, who they wholeheartedly support, is overwhelmed.

“Even things that would be considered major behaviors previously, like continued disrespect toward a staff member, that kind of thing, are not being reported and documented at this point because our Dean's office is too overwhelmed to deal with that,” the teacher said. 

School Board Trustee Joe Rodriguez said on his Facebook he plans on addressing the recurring violence as soon as possible.

“I’m glad that he's backing the teachers and that he didn't try to just make this seem as if we're doing this for nothing. I really appreciate that he is standing behind us and that he understands that this is an issue that we're going to continue to try to solve no matter what,” the teacher who spoke to us said in reaction to that statement. 

The teacher explained the school has been having difficulties with students in a specialized program called SIP, for students with past trauma who require higher support for their behaviors.  The teacher said there are 22 students on site in the program with only one certified teacher in the classroom with them, where they said the ratio should be one teacher for every 13 students. 

More and more of these students have been brought back into regular classes due to their high number, whereas it used to be only based on when they met certain criteria, and earned enough special points to get back into the regular curriculum. 

“It's supposed to be a privilege. Right now, that's not happening,” the teacher said.

The teacher also said just a few of the Dilworth SIP students are zoned for Dilworth and that that’s a problem that could be fixed as well. 

“Even if we can't get a teacher at our school, having 22 students in a classroom where the ratio is supposed to be one to 13 is ridiculous. We're denying them their services. So we're being put in this position where the district just keeps saying, you have to just keep them there. You have to keep them there. And we keep asking, can we just move them back to a different school? That way there's not 22 of them. And even if we get half of them to a different school, that would be success.” 

Many of the repeat offenders the teacher said are also children in transition, often unhoused, who have different rules apply to them, such as just one day suspensions rather than three day suspensions for other students, they said. 

There are also different rules for troubled students who qualify for what are known as Individualized Education Plans.

“Some of our students qualify for an IEP under emotional disturbance, which is solely a trauma background,” the teacher explained.

“Some of them qualify under educational disability, medical disability, all of that kind of stuff. It's essentially a plan to help them succeed,” they said.

“However, one of the limitations of that is that they can only be suspended for ten days because otherwise they're denied those educational services that they qualify for. And I'm not saying that we should be denying our students their services. Obviously, I am all for students receiving whatever they need at school. I think that school should be a safe place for everyone, though,” the teacher said.

Ideas the teacher suggests include having a school police officer stationed at the school and different treatment of repeat offenders.

“It's the same people every day who are trying to cause violence and havoc in our school. So I think that there needs to be a plan beyond just that to possibly remove these students from our school and put them in a more specialized school where they can get their services still,” they said.

“Another solution that was brought up is potentially moving these students to fully remote learning and giving them a device and WiFi that they can take with them so that they can still access school, but are not in the building to cause those issues,” the teacher said.

The teacher said colleagues with 20-plus years experience say it’s been the worst behaviors they have seen and that they themselves spent three quarters of their time on behavioral issues rather than teaching.  

“I got into this profession because I love teaching. And so when I'm just babysitting and trying to fix behaviors, I can't do that. I can't do what I love,” the teacher said. They said they were reconsidering their career at this point as our other many colleagues despite loving their school community. 

Our Town Reno reporting December 16, 2022

City Council Votes for Two Convenience Stores Catering to Lower Income Residents to Lose "Privileged" Alcohol Licenses

Reno’s City Council voted Wednesday for two convenience stores serving mostly lower income populations in difficult areas to lose their business licenses allowing them to sell packaged alcohol.

Newly elected councilwoman Meghan Ebert joined Jenny Brekhus on the no side, while the two recently appointed council members Miguel Martinez and Kathleen Taylor joined other members Devon Reese, Naomi Duerr and Mayor Hillary Schieve on the yes side, meaning the licenses are being revoked.

Wrightway Market on Evans Avenue and Lakemill Maxi-Mart on Mill Street had already been barred from selling packaged alcohol since November after an administrative hearing officer determined their licenses should be suspended.  The police and the city’s code enforcement presented a case of numerous violations, one recent murder near one of the stores, and a high volume of service calls. 

Philosophies collided during the meeting as Schieve spoke of a “safe city being a prosperous city,” while Brekhus said a “prosperous city is a safe city,” calling for more economic investments which don’t lead to vacant lots. A lot of the new development in downtown areas has been unfulfilled, such as the Jacobs Entertainment project, or catering to a wealthy local and tourist clientele.

“What kind of a city do we want moving forward?” Schieve asked.  She compared the convenience stores to motels “preying on people,” and vowed for a “new day downtown.” 

Brekhus said these businesses close to bus stops with heavy pedestrian traffic were victims of “location.”  She also said the evidence connecting their liquor sales to the identified problems were “flimsy” and that the data approach was not “correct.” 

A representative for Wrightway Market Bianka Dodov called the revocation a “death warrant” due to tight profit margins, and alcohol sales allowing the store to survive. She said the immigrant-owned store was one of the few downtown allowing customers to pay with food stamps. 

“Where will these people go if Wrightway is gone?” she said of the downtown area she called a food desert for lower income people. 

A representative for Lakemill Maxi-Mart, Damon Booth, said his clients were being blamed for problems at the adjoining Lakemill Lodge. He said they had been leasing the convenience store from the motel for six years.

Ebert wanted more “thorough records of types of calls” which were being made.  She said she made a request for that two weeks ago and hadn’t received anything from city officials.

Ebert repeatedly asked for solid metrics to base such decisions on. Reese, meanwhile, vowed that the city would go after what he called “bad actors,” a stance reiterated several times by Mayor Schieve.

Early indications for this newly constituted Council are that Ebert will join Brekhus in asking more pointed questions on how decisions are being made.

Our Town Reno reporting, December 14, 2022

Mutual Aid Community Speaks Out Against Washoe County Proposed Ordinance to Criminalize Sleeping in Public Areas

After trying to punt it to later, but being told by legal that that wouldn’t be possible, the Washoe County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 to move forward on a request by the Washoe County Sheriff to ban what officials call public camping.

Staff will have a soft deadline of 90 days to craft ordinance language while seeking input from commissioners, several of whom will be newly seated, as well as from the community.

Two of those staying in their seats voted no: Alexis Hill, who has concerns about the initial proposal including a $500 fine and possible jail time, as well as Jeanne Herman, who did not speak. Two outgoing commissioners Kitty Jung and Bob Lucey joined chair Vaughn Hartung in voting yes.

One commission discussion point which came about was that this would be for unincorporated areas of Washoe County: outside of the city limits of Reno and Sparks, including Incline Village, Washoe Valley, Spanish Springs, Hidden Valley, Sun Valley, portions of Verdi and Cold Springs.

In over two hours of public comments before the vote, two dozen community members, many active in prominent local mutual aid groups, spoke out against agenda item 19 Tuesday.

What was presented would impose a $500 fine and or up to six months of jail time for sleeping or setting up tents in public areas, storing personal belongings, making a fire or cooking there, sleeping in vehicles or even doing any “earth breaking.”

The expansive request comes via the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office to update local rules around what it calls “unauthorized camping and/or storage of personal property which may pose a risk of significant harm to any person or public area.”

The first to speak out, Adrian Lowry, said it would criminalize poverty and make people have to choose between freezing to death or being arrested.

Spencer Banda called it “fascism” and said Washoe County was treating the unhoused as a “problem to be eliminated rather than a community to be helped.” “Where are they supposed to go?” he concluded, underlining that available shelters are not open to all and often have few beds available, with hundreds of people in food lines and seen in tents and vehicles at night, even during cold spells.

Bridget Tevnan said it was reflective of a systemic “breakdown,” saying we should “abandon failed models of correction.”

Often referenced by national activists is a 2006 article in the New Yorker titled “Million-Dollar Murray” which was about Murray Barr, an unhoused community member at the time in Reno. While cycling through jail and local hospitals, after being arrested dozens of times, Barr cost Nevada taxpayers one million dollars over a ten year period.

Above some of the community residents who spoke out against the proposed ordinance criminalizing homelessness.

Jake Maynard called the proposed ordinance “reckless,” and a “blatant attempt to criminalize the poorest people.”

Stephen Zipkin said it was “the worst possible thing” commissioners could be doing, calling it a “barrage of cruelty.”

Tara Tran called for safe parking areas to be set up locally instead.

Nicole Anagapesis called it an “incredibly lazy tactic,” “class warfare” and “sick violence.”

Dwight George said it was an “abuse of power,” while Erika Minaberry called it “government overreach.”

Ben Iness called it a “racial justice issue,” and an “economic justice issue,” while reminding the board of Martin vs. Boise. The 2018 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which has been updated recently, prevents Western cities from enforcing anti-camping ordinances if they do not have enough homeless shelter beds.

Lilith Baran with ACLU of Nevada also referenced that case and other recent rulings, saying the Washoe County Sheriff’s idea is “uncharacteristically regressive and counterproductive and raises some legal questions.”

The lone supporter was the last speaker during the initial public comment Valerie White, who has been on the payroll of her husband’s “tough love” anti-homeless organizations such as Quality of Life-Reno and Stronghold Institute.

An unhoused man, who said he had recently been kicked out of the Nevada Cares campus for alleged “masturbating” said he had no current housing options. He said he has prostate problems and was trying not to wet his bed when shelter staff decided to kick him out.

Our Town Reno reporting, December 13th 2022

Julia, A Local 12-Year-Old Compelled to Help the Hampton House Project

“When I was younger, I always thought everyone was exactly like me and lived in a house and had a great life,” Julia, 12, told Our Town Reno during a recent interview at her cozy home with her joyful golden retriever Rosebud on her lap.

Growing up Julia was of the idea that every individual on this earth is happy and has everything they want. Her thoughts changed when she was in the back seat of her mom’s car in Reno recently, traveling to some place for work. 

“We stopped at the stoplight and I saw someone with a sign and they were asking for money and I felt bad for them,” Julia remembers. 

Julia’s eyes had welled up, her mom recalls. She immediately asked her to help the person with some money. 

After returning home, Julia asked her parents if she could make some food and help people in need. Her parents instantly agreed. 

“I had seen someone, like an employee of McDonald’s, give food to someone who didn’t have any food and I wanted to do it,” said Julia.  

That very same week, with the help of her mom, Julia made around 13 bowls of vegetarian black bean chili and packed equal amounts of chips and cheese to go with it. She and her father went and dropped the food at The Hampton House Garden Project at 638 Elko St in Reno. 

She has continued to help since, recently dropping off yogurt drinks and lunch packs.

Lily Baran in center of above photo has mentored others while developing the Hampton House community garden. File photo by Rachel Jackson.

The community initiative is run by Reno activist Lily Baran (above, center), who also happens to be a friend to Julia’s mom. Baran grows fresh fruits and vegetables and pollinates flowers to help the Nevada community through donations and collective gardening.  The group runs an outdoor fridge, where anonymous volunteers can deposit food and people can serve themselves. Dry goods, clothing and Narcan are available for pickup as well.

“Julia is an example of springing into action when you see a hole in the fabric of your community,” Baran said. “To regularly practice community care is not only a needed element, it is a wonderful feeling.”

“We look forward to more gardens to establish healing areas with sustainable food sovereignty and expand to housing efforts for marginalized communities,” Baran said of her own ongoing efforts. 

Julia who is attending a local middle school loves to cook. She often makes pies for bake sales at school or bakes brownies for her school field trips. 

“When I was younger and experimental, I made this thing called Julia dough, it was basically flour, water and lots of sugar,” says Julia.  

Julia also loves reading, playing with her Legos and gardening. This year her garden was in full bloom with string beans, kale, baby tomatoes and peppers. Next year, she plans to grow more vegetables like carrots so that she is able to use those to cook fresh meals for helping more people in the community. 

Julia dreams of becoming a scientist, perhaps an astronomer or an astrophysicist she says, when she grows up. She dreams of inventing a teleporter so that navigation becomes easier. She also wants to befriend an alien if they are out there so that she can learn their language and communicate with them. 

Amidst all that, though, Julia wants to keep making food every other week so that she is able to help people in her community. 

“Everyone should be happy, the world should be happy and everyone should be equal. I really like Lily, she’s really nice and I look forward to meeting her always,” Julia says of Baran who has agreed to be one of her mentors on her journey in helping others. 

Baran feels honored. “It’s important that we all have intergenerational mentors and mentees. I can learn as much if not more from her than she can from me, I’m sure. I’m honored she asked me.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Kingkini Sengupta

Allie Blum, an "Ethical Rebel" Vowing to Reform Local Foster Care System from the Outside

Allie Blum was a social worker the past decade for Washoe County who retired last year on disability, after earning herself the nickname “Ethical Rebel,” always standing up for herself at her job and for the kids she was working with.

“I think there needs to be a call to action,” Blum told Our Town Reno of her reasons for coming forward in criticizing our local foster care system, which she views as riddled with shortcomings. “I think it happens in stages, right? You inform and then you raise awareness and then you act. And I feel like we're just stuck in this stage of informing and no one's listening or the information is not getting to them, so we can't even raise awareness yet.”

Blum said she helped with a Department of Justice investigation which recently found Nevada “unnecessarily segregates children with behavioral health disabilities in institutions.”

The October decision (in screenshot above) concluded that Nevada violates the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to provide adequate community-based services to children with behavioral health disabilities, relying instead on segregated, institutional settings like hospitals and residential treatment facilities.

Hundreds of children are isolated in residential treatment facilities each year, the investigation found, though “they could remain with their families if provided necessary, community-based services.  Over a quarter of these children stay over a year, and some of them are placed outside of Nevada, far from their homes. Nevada also fails to connect children who have been placed in institutions with services to allow them to successfully return to the community,” the report indicated.  

According to the press release above, Nevada officials expressed “a desire to work with the department to resolve the identified issues.”

This was a vague response Blum says, and she was disappointed the investigation didn’t get much attention.  

Her own conclusion is “that the state of Nevada has the resources and the ability to provide community-based mental health services for these children, and we're just choosing not to.“

There was also a recent Nevada state audit (in screengrab above) on its own child placements released earlier this year which pointed to several shortcomings including that “33% of homes had health or safety deficiencies, about 79% of foster placements had at least one regulatory violation, and there was no evidence of home inspection for 27% of placements.” 

Blum feels the internal audit could have gone much further, but that current employees are afraid to speak out. 

“I think the issue is the workers don't feel safe enough to say anything, and they're never going to get a clear picture of what is happening if we can't feel safe enough to say something,” she said. 

Blum hopes more lawyers from Washoe Legal Service would also speak up. She said she had high hopes when she started in 2013 with a pilot project called Safe Family Connections, which had 15 permanency workers, but that when the program was diluted it got derailed.  

“It was an amazing program. It was how I thought child welfare should be. But it kind of tanked after that. Safe FC was really focused on the caseload sizes where, it was 10 families, 15 kids was your caseload size and you would meet with the families every week initially, and then as they were doing better and making more progress, then it would be every other week, and then it would be monthly and then you would close the case. And everything was very client and family centered. So we really made their goals specific to them and to their situations and their families, their services were specific to them. But when we transitioned to the entire agency, the people who were coming in from the business as usual who didn't participate in the pilot program, I think they brought too much of their method of working with them. And so the case plans went back to being very cookie cutter,” Blum recounts. 

“We're just checking in with families once a month. And then our caseload sizes just kind of started getting pretty huge. And the demands were getting pretty big… And it got to a point where case workers didn't even have time to see their kids every month. They would just do like a five minute phone call to see how their kids were doing.” 

Blum missed the pilot component of the above project, which she said allowed for more focus for social workers.

Blum said she had several kids on her own caseload that were put into higher level of care which she says didn't require that.  She said these types of placements are paid more, thus creating financial incentives which get in the way of the child’s welfare. 

“And that's why I really started getting into a lot of trouble at work because I would go to court and tell the judge, your honor, he shouldn't be placed in a therapeutic level setting,” Blum said. 

Blum talks about the paramount importance of keeping siblings together which she experienced as being undermined in the overall process.

“They talk about how termination of parental rights is equivalent to the civil death penalty, but I think sibling separation is far worse than that. They've experienced these things together and they've gone through it all together. They have a trauma bond. And I think the agency sometimes takes the position that it's easier to separate siblings despite this,” she said. 

Blum would also complain against placements which had been made, she says, but it was frustrating to see little to no action despite her efforts to correct mistakes. 

“There was one case I had where the foster family was discriminating against my boy because he liked to wear girl clothes and he liked to paint his nails and he liked to wear makeup,” Blum remembers. “They made him sleep on a mattress on the floor with only a blanket. And they said it was because they had bed bugs. So then I told them to show me where his bed was. If they took the bed apart, it must be here somewhere. They didn't have anything to show me. He wasn't allowed to have any of his personal belongings in his room, no decor. There were several large holes in the wall that hadn't been fixed in months. That was one of the cases where I went to the judge and I said, your honor, we as an agency are neglecting this child.”

In the end, a still positive Blum decided it would be best to try to change the system from outside, rather than help make it better from within.

Our Town Reno reporting, December 2022

The Annex, An Extra Place to Help with Mental Health Challenges for UNR Students

Students checking in to mental health hospitals or having end of semester breakdowns and panic attacks is becoming all too common at UNR. Sadly, they are part of a global trend.

According to a study by Healthy Minds which collected data from 373 international university campuses worldwide, during the 2020-2021 academic year more than 60% of college students met the criteria for at least one mental health problem.

It is clear that student mental health is worsening, some would argue as a direct effect of COVID-19 lockdowns and being increasingly isolated. But even before the pandemic, schools had been facing a surge in demand for care that far outpaced capacity.

College students juggle a dizzying amount of challenges; from schoolwork, adjustment to college life, relationships, friendships, economic strain, social injustice, climate anxiety and other issues. As a result, college boards are starting to think outside the box to come up with ways to provide their students with the help and services they need since it is becoming increasingly clear that the traditional counseling center model is perhaps ill-equipped to solve the problem adequately.

The University of Nevada, Reno has offered students with various Counseling Services out of the William N. Pennington Student Achievement Center on campus. They’ve been providing UNR students with counseling sessions and treatment plans for various mental health issues for years, at no extra costs to the student outside of their tuition fees.

According to data from Penn State University’s Center for Collegiate Mental Health, the number of students seeking help at campus counseling centers increased by almost 40% between 2009- and 015 and continued to rise until the pandemic began – which is when that number skyrocketed. The rising demand for help, however, has not been equally matched with a corresponding rise in funding for these services, leading to higher caseloads for college counselors to juggle.

Given the increasing demand for services and the wide range of concerns students are facing, many schools are looking for new and innovative ways to incorporate a broader culture of “self-care” and mental wellness into their systems, policies, and everyday campus life. The University of Nevada, Reno introduced a new outreach center in addition to its long-standing on-campus counseling services, called The Annex. It opened at the start of the Fall 2022 semester and is open to all currently-enrolled students. 

The Annex is located in the southwest corner of Great Basin Hall, and is open to all current University of Nevada, Reno students. They are open from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Monday to Friday for drop-in mental health support, or to study in a relaxing environment with free coffee and tea.

Although The Annex falls under the jurisdiction of the University’s counseling services department, it doesn’t actually offer one-to-one counseling in the traditional sense. “At the counseling center you need to be an established client, fill out paperwork, and there are rules around confidentiality,” explains Carla Franich, Program Director for Outreach. “At The Annex, we adhere to confidentiality standards, but it allows us to serve the students in a way where they can just drop in for a chat whenever they need to.”

They call these drop-in consultations “Let’s Talk”. They’re very informal and brief, and staff members are on hand to provide an ear to any student who comes in seeking help. 

Franich explains that the informal nature of The Annex allows them “to service students in a very visible way, which we can’t really do at our confidential space in PSAC. We are able to do workshops, skill-building and mindfulness activities, support groups, and drop-in consultations which allow students to come and talk to us without having to go and sign in and complete paperwork.”

Alongside Let’s Talk, The Annex has offered various workshops since its opening at the very start of the semester. Previous workshops have included “Joy of Missing Out”, “Don’t Ghost Your Feelings”, and other mindfulness activities such as coloring and rock painting.

Feedback from the University of Nevada, Reno student body has been overwhelmingly positive so far. “They feel super comfortable being in the space,” Franich said. “We were very intentional about creating a relaxing environment.”

The Annex is indeed a very calm and zen environment, with relaxing music playing in the background, soft ambient lighting, and greenery sprinkled throughout. They offer free coffee and tea to students, as well as access to free printing services. “Students really appreciate having this new place to hang out and have the ability to consult with someone if they need advice,” said Franich.

As The University of Nevada, Reno – and college campuses all over the country – begin to move away from a sole reliance on individual therapy services for students, they’re also beginning to work towards shifting the narrative about what mental health care on campus looks like.

“The way it used to be before meant that unless you had gotten an initial consultation – which, we’re very busy [at counseling services] so appointments can be hard to come by,” Franich said. “You might not have the opportunity to talk with one of us right away, and have to wait a while for your appointment. So [The Annex] allows us to have a space to be able to talk with students and help them with any advice or troubles they’re having.”

The Annex is working to help towards the destigmatization of mental health on campus, and provide a safe and comfortable space to support students who might be struggling with their mental health. “Students should encourage their peers to reach out for help if they need it,” Franich said. 

Even though The Annex – which is housed in Great Basin Hall, one of UNR’s student residential halls – is in a separate building and part of campus from the rest of Counseling Services, the two are very much still connected and under the same umbrella.

“There are students that might need that more intensive, therapeutic intervention from traditional counseling. Even though we’re at a different location, we still have access to the system,” Franich explained. “I can look at our schedules and plug them in, and book them into sessions if that’s what they want.”

Even though The Annex doesn’t offer traditional one-to-one counseling sessions, they offer a variety of other services that could be just as impactful. “Everybody processes things in such different ways,” said Franich. “There is no cookie-cutter way to address mental health challenges. We have to look at each individual student and create opportunities that are different and can appeal to the different needs of our students.”

There are also special events, reaching out to different groups. The Annex recently hosted a “Transgender Day of Remembrance” event on November 17th, and also hosted an Iranian Support Group for international students on campus to have an opportunity to connect and come together to support one another.

The events hosted so far have been very well attended and received by students, as are regular days, highlighting the need there was for a place like The Annex on campus.

Reporting by Gaia Osborne for Our Town Reno

Our 2022 #GivingTuesday Recommendation: Tu Casa Latina

“We deal with victims of domestic violence, abuse, also human trafficking and labor trafficking. We help those who are looking for resources, like filing immigration paperwork. Essentially we're a resource center. We help the victims get to where they need to get to, to get help,” explains Yolanda Arzola, outreach coordinator for Reno-based Tu Casa Latina, a nonprofit which has been around since 2014.

This includes helping immigrants trying get visas, who may qualify for special visas as undocumented victims of crime and human trafficking. They can come forward at outreach events, via social media or by calling or writing the office, and quickly getting assigned a case worker.

“Nevada consistently ranks in the top ten in the nation for domestic violence fatalities. This sobering statistic, plus the estimated 20,000 undocumented residents in Washoe County, clearly calls for a systemic effort to support undocumented residents who fall victim to circumstances of domestic violence, sexual assault, or human trafficking,” the website of Tu Casa Latina explains.

Arzola says that given the nature of the population they help, donations are crucial to the organization. “We need to provide services, right. And then a lot of these people, they can't afford to pay for the services. So with donations, that would help to cover somebody's processing paperwork or even just allow us to have the ink to put into our printer so that we could print these documents out. Everything costs money at the end of the day.”

Volunteers and UNR social work interns also help out, and outreach to rural area recently started. Overall, the nonprofit’s caseload has expanded coming out of the pandemic.

“We are one of the few resources out there for the Latino community where they can feel comfortable and confident enough to come in there to look for resources. As a Latino community, it's really hard for us to understand that there are resources out there and we're kind of like a one stop shop. So we support all other organizations at the same time providing our services,” Arzola concluded to highlight the local value they provide.

Our Town Reno recommendation, November 2022

Whistleblowers Point to Problematic Group Homes and Many Other Challenges for Local Foster Kids

Siblings in foster care in California forced to eat their own vomit, agencies in Colorado reporting difficulties in placing LGBT+ youth and a priest in Kansas charged with wire fraud and money laundering while running a foster care nonprofit are some of the recent headlines of a child welfare system in disarray across the country.

Here in northern Nevada, current and former therapists, social workers and Department of Health and Human Services Division of Child and Family Services whistleblowers point to non nurturing group homes where a 10-year-old is still in diapers, there’s allegedly racial abuse directed at Black kids, and eating often consists of reheated pizza. 

Those who reached out to Our Town Reno to describe their work experiences within our foster care system wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.  They said they are frustrated with a model that has children constantly being shifted from one group home to another, carrying around trashbags with their clothes, suffering from repetitive trauma, ignored until they hurt themselves or another child in varying degrees of severity, overmedicated and treated like young criminals, with cops called on them when they fight, steal from each other and try to run away. 

Some of the kids in the group homes then spiral further downward into youth detention centers. 

The whistleblowers pointed to Three Angels, JC Family Services and Call to Compassion as local for profit “specialized foster homes” they have worked with. These typically deal with more difficult children and also provide training and licensing to individual families.

Messages to the three companies for interviews about their practices went unanswered.  

Local child and family advocates say the lack of family foster homes is creating an over reliance on these group homes. One of our interviewees who went several times to a Three Angels group home described it as “cold and sterile,” with the adult on site acting more like a “guard than a foster parent.” This account was not independently verified.

A positive media report about Three Angels recently described the company as “a therapeutic foster agency [which] nurtures children ages 3 to 17, trains foster families, and works in partnership with the Washoe County Human Services Agency.” 

Washoe County has been pointing prospective foster families to the above website.

“We have seen a pretty significant decrease in foster homes throughout the pandemic,” Amy Sandvik, the program coordinator for Washoe County’s Human Services Agency, confirmed in a phone interview on the need for more homes. 

According to county released figures, there are currently 201 licensed foster homes in our area, including the group homes, compared to 239 before the pandemic, with 175 fewer beds.

“They provide care for children with more significant behavioral or emotional mental health needs,” Sandvik said of the group homes.  “If there’s any complaint of quality of care, just like in a family foster home, we would investigate that complaint and make any corrections as needed.”

When asked if there have been any investigations or concerns of the local group homes, Sandvik answered “Nothing significant.”

Trish Prestigiacomo, the clinical director for WC Health Northern Nevada, which provides additional therapeutic support for kids in local foster care, stressed the importance of communication. 

“Whether that's communication between the clinician, the foster family, the child, if they're old enough to have a say, in what happens to them, as well as really just what we call the multidisciplinary team,” Prestigiacomo said. “So it's kind of everyone coming together and talking about how we can best help the child. So the therapist, the foster care worker, the social worker, sometimes the biological parents, as well as the foster parents…. So just making sure that that communication is happening and that everybody feels that they are a part of making sure that everything that's happening is in the child's best interest.” 

Typically in our region there are 600 to 800 children in and coming into foster care, with nearly 40% under the age of 5. A shortage of local childcare spots has prevented some potential foster families from signing up, while current families have complained of ever increasing requirements such as having to go to the time consuming Safe Babies Court established in 2019, which some say is too “mom-focussed”, or not having access to the MyChart medical records of the kids they are fostering. 

The whistleblowers we interviewed called for more efforts to keep kids within their original families and to loosen rules preventing safe relatives from taking in a child. They also said having higher pay for social workers and therapists could create better quality care. One of them suggested having more former foster kids brought into the system to guide current foster kids, and more resources and support for parents to keep their kids.  

Recent academic research has pointed to the systemic racism of our foster care system.

The whistleblowers also singled out “over reporting” and “blind reporting” by police and schools, which leads to what they view as kids unnecessarily being separated from their families. 

Recent state level data indicates 89% of children placed into Nevada’s foster care system are removed from their homes because of neglect, such as being dirty or not having enough to eat, rather than abuse.

One of our interviewees wanted to see more of what’s called “differential response” to check in on families, without any reporting as is the case with a visit from Child Protective Services. 

Recent academic research (including in screengrab above) points to systemic racism and classism, a foster to prison pipeline, and our child welfare as a “family regulation system.”

“Like the criminal legal system, the family regulation system serves as another way for the state to police, surveil and traumatize Black, Indigenous, Latinx and poor families,” Ava Cilia wrote recently in the Harvard Civil Rights - Civil Liberties Law Review.

“In fact, the majority of allegations that result in the removal of Black children from their homes do not involve abuse, but concern neglect arising from conditions of poverty or discriminatory welfare practices.  Empty fridges and pantries, children left unsupervised during work hours due to a lack of childcare, and the finding of multiple family members sharing one room are all reasons frequently cited for involving the family policing system,” her article indicated.

The above article in The Nation focused on a Washoe County adoption.

The whistleblowers we spoke to would like to see more individual foster families, while encouraging them to have as their goals getting kids to be reunited with their family, and still be there in case of relapse.

Whistleblowers also pointed to a recent case before the Supreme Court, involving a Washoe County adoption, which was outlined in detail in a recent article in The Nation (screengrab above). The decision expected in 2023 could gut a 1978 federal law known as the Indian Child Welfare Act, which has as its aim preventing family separations in Native communities. The adoption of a baby who was eligible for citizenship in a tribe in Texas by a local white family fits a trend of families turning to the foster care system to adopt, with diminishing foreign adoptions. The mom who adopted “Baby O” Heather Libretti indicates on her LinkedIn she started working for the Washoe County Human Services Agency this year.

Another Washoe County official is quoted as saying the “foster to adopt” trend is a positive development.

Sandvik encouraged those interested in becoming a foster family to reach out.  “I think in general, there’s a lack of awareness about really what the need is for foster care and foster homes,” she said in her interview with Our Town Reno.  “I would say that anybody who is thinking about it or has questions about it, we have informational videos on our website at https://www.haveaheartwashoe.us/.”

Prestigiacomo, the clinical director for WC Health Northern Nevada, stressed the earlier additional help arrives for children the better. 

“Our goal is to be able to assist them in living successfully and independently,  in the least restrictive environment by the time that, you know, they are aging out,” Prestigiacomo said. “It's very important. It can be difficult. A lot of foster children come with trauma and that's why they're no longer in their own families, is because of trauma. And so that is very difficult work, however, important work, because it's much easier to treat a child with trauma than seeing an adult for the first time with trauma and having to go back and having to help resolve some of that.”

Drop-in cots at the Eddy House above in 2020.

Locally, aging out foster youth have felt the brunt of rising rents and the Eddy House has stepped in to help this population as well as other at-risk youths in the 18 to 24 age range.  Some local advocates would like to see lower barriers for some of their programs. 

Trevor Macaluso, the Eddy House CEO, said the facility at 888 Willow Street is open 24/7 for intake, and that there are no barriers or limits to the length of stay at their emergency shelter.

“As long as they’re not a harm to themselves or others,” he said.  “If they start to have acts of violence where it’s not safe for them or other people, then we would help them find other accommodations.” 

The nonprofit is preparing to open up an independent living home for aged out foster youth, “so that they don’t have to experience life in our shelter, but can receive support and be able to transition successfully into adulthood.” The program is already operational and will soon add offsite living arrangements. The requirements to move beyond the emergency shelter at the Eddy House include sobriety and participating in classes.

“Increased services for foster youths is important,” Macaluso concluded.  “It’s unfortunate that they represent a third of the clients we serve.” 

Our Town Reno reporting, November 2022

Anwar, an Afghan Student in Metallurgical Engineering Trying to Get Asylum Here

Anwar, 24, a 2021 transfer, is the only Afghan student pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in Metallurgical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. When Anwar first came to the United States in 2019, he still had plans to go back to his country and help explore the mineral wealth there.

However, when the Taliban took over in 2021, his dreams of going back and setting up a business there were shattered. 

“I wanted to pursue mining and metallurgical engineering because universities back home did not offer that degree. I wanted to help build an income source that could help the economy of my country,” Anwar says.  

He has now turned his attention to getting asylum here and being able to stay beyond his degree.

“Going back to Afghanistan is not safe anymore,” he says.  

Anwar’s family was evacuated from Afghanistan a month before the U.S troops pulled out of the country, and his friends gave him details of the upheaval that followed.

“This all happened because the president [Ashraf Ghani] just ran away. He just left the palace. And all of a sudden, people panicked. It was like the ‘day of judgment’ we call it…the day the president left the whole city, the whole country just went into chaos.”

He says his family was fortunate to have evacuated right on time. 

“Many people who stayed were put in jails and are right now in prison. Afghanistan right now does not have free media. So most of that stuff is not being shared with the world. But the situation out there, people who are there right now are suffering from all the atrocities,” he says.

Anwar met us outdoors on a bright Friday afternoon in his traditional attire after attending Friday prayers at the Reno-Sparks mosque. 

Despite what his family and friends have gone through in the past year due to the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, he reminisces about the time he had spent earlier in his homeland. He says he often shows his friends here in Reno, the pictures of his previous family home and all the fruit trees around it.

“I have a lot of friends (here), but I miss people from my country,” he says. “Talking to them, sitting with them, going to weddings, the birthday parties we used to celebrate with friends… I hope that day comes again.” 

When friends in Reno ask Anwar about the situation back home, he is always willing to share his views and spread awareness.

“I've always told them (friends) that the people like the Taliban are not Afghans. They are not what we are. They are radical extremist people. They are uneducated, illiterate. They have not seen anything in their lives. They are very close minded. I don't consider them Afghan. I don't consider them Muslim even. That's not what Islam teaches us. Killing innocent people and being harsh to women, none of this is what Islam teaches us to do,” Anwar says. 

He is deeply saddened by the state of his country and believes that there should have been a peace agreement between the former Western-backed government and the Taliban. 

“If we could have gone through an agreement, I think that would have been a much better outcome. And we would not be forced to live here and going back would have been possible for us,” he says.   

Our Town Reno reporting by Kingkini Sengupta

"I'd Rather Die on the Streets," A Former Caretaker Avoids Cares Campus

“I was a caretaker for an old gentleman. And I cared for his home  and helped him do things, everything. And I lived there 22 years and when he died, I died. I've been out here ever since. And it's been rough, man. When you get out here, it's a whole different ballgame, buddy. When I was there in San Francisco, I had it made.  He was a dear old man.  He helped me tremendously. And when he died, that was it.  You've got no home, no more home. Before you know it, you wind up on the streets and stuff. But I'm 73 years old now.

When you live out here, you'll find out real quick, you suffer out here, man, This is like suffering really. It ain't no place to be, not on the street. I don't care where you're at, New York, whatever. This is just the streets that are just no good. 

They got a shelter here called Cares Campus. That place is so filthy and nasty. I've been in it. And that place is not fit for an animal. I'm serious. Just crazy people everywhere. It should be an asylum. It really should. That's what they should have made it. An asylum. I'm serious. And I quit going there and I said, ‘No way. I'm not living like this.’ I'd [rather] die here on the street.”

1st Person Reporting by Will Baker for Our Town Reno

Life on the Rails, A Modern Day Hobo Based out of Reno

“It was kind of crazy. There was the railroad cop and he was like shining his light all over the bushes and like yelling on his loud speaker, like, come out you fools and just all this yelling, all this crap.

And then it was like nighttime and we just like kind of snuck behind him and got on it. I got on my first train in Chicago. I guess I just kind of got started, like I started going to punk rock shows, like when I was in middle school. And then I just like started figuring out like a different way where I could live where I don't have to conform to normal society. 

Hobo is kind of like a term that's been misused a lot, especially recently. Like any bum could be a hobo, like where like, you know, it's like homeless people or houseless neighbors. They got all these different terms. Now, hobo originally was someone like a migrant farm worker. You would ride the trains to like a certain part of the country to go do that kind of farm work or you'd carry like a, your tool with you, like a hoe or something.

Most of hobo culture is embedded in secrecy and folklore. There's a lot of misconceptions. You know, a lot of people just assume you're on drugs. I don't know. It's just a matter of forgetting everything you were taught your whole life and I guess lowering your standards to where you're like, Okay, I could hold this cardboard, I'll sleep under this bridge, or these bushes or in this ditch, or like, I'll wake up and it's 10 degrees outside or something like that. Or just like generally I guess like most of the people out there are there because they're poor or because, it's like a poor person's hobby, I guess.

Some of the dangers are of course going to jail or getting caught or, falling off and dying or getting your legs cut off or getting frostbite or getting stuck in the middle of nowhere with no water. You don't want to get on something that's loaded because what's in there could shift and crush you. My great-grandfather rode trains and so I guess maybe it's in my blood.

The first train I ever rode was over here at Idlewild Park, the little train that goes around the pond. I guess I've kind of always liked trains. My parents, you know, they just, I guess they just want me to be happy. They think maybe I'm a little bit crazy sometimes, but I guess I'm not really trying to impress anyone … [I get to satisfy] wanderlust and adventure and see all those obscure places that you don't really get to see or go to. 

You meet a lot of interesting people too. Sometimes you just wake up under a bridge and you feel extremely lonely. You know, I'll be standing next to the train tracks and, you know, I'll be watching all the graffiti go by and, you know, sometimes I'll see markings or something from people that I've known who are like no longer alive and it's kind of like cool to see what people leave behind. I kind of just live it one day at a time at this point. I just do whatever kind of falls into my lap. [This] satisfies my soul.

1st person Our Town Reno reporting by Katelyn Welsh and Madison Lloyd