Neighbors Snowed Out without a Place to call their Own, while Conditions Alarm Advocates Pleading for More Emergency Services
Recap of our weekly reporting, plus bonus content.
With the official Washoe County shelter census dashboard showing full or near full capacity at the Cares Campus for even its overflow beds, while the Eddy House says it has had to add cots recently, and a leaked email from Northern Nevada Hopes with the subject line “FWD: It breaks my heart to turn patients away …” local advocates for the unhoused are pleading for emergency help during these harsh winter days.
One request is the urgency of having more publicly available easy access walk-in warming centers for days and nights.
Recirculated media narratives are indicating our unhoused population is going down, but the eye test and current needs for services suggests hundreds and hundreds of locals remain in dire straits. Official statistics also indicate numbers going back up recently, from 1,723 people experiencing homelessness in November in Washoe County to 1,935 in December.
The graphic for what is called “exits to permanent housing from Cares Campus,” went from 40 in November to just 27 in December. The most recent high was 44 in June 2023, and the low was 18 in February 2023, pointing to a dearth of accessible housing for our neighbors most in need.
Walking around 4th street and downtown Reno on Thursday morning after the most recent snowfall, we photographed a man who had been sleeping under a thin blue tarp surrounded by snow just as an outreach truck pulled up to check if he was ok, another sitting down in the snow dazed, not responding when we asked if he needed help, a young woman wearing just a cropped tee shirt walking around and asking others if they needed help, a bearded man in a doorway near a corner store on Virginia Street wearing just a flannel shirt, wrapped in garbage bags with icicles in his beard and eyelashes, who declined when we asked if he needed anything.
Advocates have asked for the former Record Street shelter to become an emergency drop-in but those efforts have so far been rebuffed by City Council with indications the inside is in need of costly repairs. In social media comments, advocates also point out some of our neighbors still feel unsafe or caged in at the Cares Campus despite continuous efforts to improve services there.
Advocates are now trying to fundraise to rent out a space and offer their own services there for winter months, another example of local mutual aid stepping in in a breach of compassion.
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Negative allegations regarding safety, etc the CaresCampus are most likely just cover to continue drug/alcohol use. Street homeless need to be in the campus (which while close has not run out of space) for their own safety and health and for the rest of us. There is no reason to install a plethora of "warming shelters" around town because there already is one: the CaresCampus (as well as some smaller spots here and there). All "Our Town" is doing is helping homeless endanger and eventually kill themselves. Availability of permanent supported housing remains a problem here but Washoe, Reno and Sparta joint effort is getting incredible results with what is available!