Did We Bury the Lede?

On the forces of gentrification vs. volunteers and the use of sidewalks, listening to a hard working advocate and debates over street photography.

Gentrification vs. Volunteers

As part of a story and picture series on the evolving Reno Soup for the Soul endeavor, there was one photo within our report above showing how a Downtown Reno ambassador, under instructions from the Record Street Brewing Company, essentially prohibited their mobile food distribution from taking place in the 4th and Record street area.

One response tweet we received started with “Buried the lede” and finished with “Imagine how much cooler it would have been to help.”

This banning of street outreach in that area has precedent to 2019 when community meals were forced to relocate to the space where there is currently a big tent temporary shelter.

Since March 2019, when a man was found dead on the roof of the VOA-run downtown shelter, there has been a gradual decrease of services there, compounded by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when the number of people sleeping there dwindled even more.

Also buried or rather muddled is the exact future of the Record St. shelter, as Our Place on Glendale Ave. now helps unhoused women, and the massive Nevada Cares Campus has an opening slated for mid-April.

Is this as some fear a continued push to move the unsheltered population out of gentrifying areas? Also, who do sidewalks belong to, resident volunteers with the biggest of hearts, or companies paying into the Downtown Reno Partnership “business improvement district”?

Podcast

Our podcast this week gives a more in-depth ear to Michael Carson who recently decided to turn a porch pantry into an entire garage pantry and vows to help with more awareness of any upcoming sweeps and coordinating additional river cleanups. Imagine if we scaled up these type of initiatives? Imagine if rather than one Facebook Live of a sweep, there were hundreds, or even thousands of them? Find our podcast where you listen to yours by searching for “Biggest Little Streets” to hear Carson directly, and search through our archives for other audio postcards with our unhoused neighbors.

The Value of Street Photography?

We occasionally get comments about our street photography on our Instagram which is an interesting debate, as indeed we don’t always ask for permission to take photos. We do believe in public space, and we also believe in the importance of documenting its gradual disappearance, as well as those who still utilize it, walking, pushing carts, going out at night, walking their dogs, skateboarding, having a smoke break, going in and out of motels and apartments, thinking by the river or cycling around. We don’t think we do it for our “clout” as one comment suggested, but for building awareness and for working as documentarians of downtown Reno, as we consider this project to be an ongoing multimedia documentary. Thanks for your interest in our Substack, and let us know if you have any ideas of what we should write and report about.