On Student Perspectives, Police Intimidation, Million Dollar Murrays and Gentrification in Overdrive

An item suddenly placed on the “possible action” docket for the Dec. 8th Reno City Council meeting concerns selling the former Record street shelter estimated to have cost over $25 million to build and establish just 15 years ago. Advocates have been hoping it could be leased to the County and converted into a RISE-run downtown Our Place for women and families in need, with the Galletti Way Our Place often full, and many women not feeling safe at the Nevada Cares Campus.

Here’s what we wrote on our socials this morning: The gentrification of 4th street where services had been reunited is in overdrive. After the concentration of the unhoused was cynically useful to depress prices in the area, accompanied by artwashing, it's now ripe for a beer "district," boutique hotels catering to the few, ambassadors trying to move people along, and giving Jacobs Entertainment financing deals to destroy motels used by lower income, credit deprived, neighbors and replace them with speculative, empty, fenced off lots.

The above photo posted by advocates with permission to reuse was the scene at City Hall last night as students and other concerned citizens organized an affordable housing rally at the Believe Plaza and then entered the premises to participate in public comments at the Reno City Planning Commission. Why such a police presence?

Three students at UNR posted this essay before their protest making a call for rent caps based on lived experiences. Debates raged on our social media concerning the idea of rent control. Our position is: shouldn’t it be all hands on deck, everything tried at local, county, state and federal levels, to help our unhoused and housing insecure? Too often, we hear of non profits and low income housing developers, some of whom seem to be quite profitable in navigating all the administrative hoops and getting those contracts, saying it doesn’t “pencil out.” But why should it? Shouldn’t our elected officials see decent housing as a priority for all our residents, which in turn would reduce emergency shelter and health care costs? Didn’t we learn our lessons with our very local, nationally famous, Million Dollar Murray? (A 2006 New Yorker story about an unhoused man in Reno showed that over the course of 10 years he cost Nevada taxpayers one million dollars due to his repeated jail and hospital visits, a direct result of him not having stable shelter.)

Another student reported about a tent village right behind his classes at UNR, which also made up a portion of our weekly podcast. It also included audio from the below audiogram of repeatedly jailed Evitt, staying at the same encampment. Doesn’t that also ring a Million Dollar Murray bell?