The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at Our Shelters

The Good: Our podcast episode this week revisits our tour of the free boutique at Our Place, the RISE run shelter for women and families, empowering people staying there on their road to being rehoused.

The Bad: After ignoring our ask for months, Washoe County has now given us a flat out no on a tour of the Cares Campus. Other media which initially were given tours now seem to be on the outs as well. Advocates want to help make it a more humane place, but besides having a few of the games and books they donated placed in a corner, they seem to be forbidden from official entry as well with limited scope to improve the overall situation, despite all their best intentions and efforts.

Meanwhile, we see office seekers, media from out of town, consultants and elected officials regularly getting tours. We did get a tour at one point of the safe camp this past summer, but after asking for more details on the contract for the Karma Box operator there, we were told the tour was over.

When was restricting access to hard working local media ever a good idea?

The Ugly: Instead of getting in ourselves, we’ve had to rely on whistleblowers including current staff with Volunteers of America to describe conditions inside.

Their account includes allegations of sexual assault, which advocates have been alerting about during public meetings for months, regular theft of possessions, tensions between VOA workers and Washoe County, and the feeling staff has an impossible task, calling the situation “warehousing.”

Damning as well is official admittance that less than 6% of the hundreds and hundreds of people who have slept at the “Cares” Campus since its opening last year have been rehoused. Many have been forced into the compound after being swept from encampments. Above in top visual are photos we’ve received of what it looks like inside: black mold in showers, cluttered bathrooms, mystery meat and unhealthy food for meals, blood on beds, and security guards telling one of our photographers we aren’t wanted on the premises.

Shortly after we published photos of the moldy showers, it was reported the men’s showers would be closed for a few weeks due to a ceiling collapsing and that men would have to rotate time with the women in their showers.

Our elected officials will say this is what we could do with the stipulations of the massive federal COVID money. They will also say it’s an ongoing process, we are learning as we go, we are short staffed, this is just the early phase of this project, we didn’t expect the number of unhoused to grow … How long will they keep saying this? Didn’t they have multiple warnings that a mega shelter doesn’t work unless the only goal is to keep the unhoused “out of sight, out of mind,” in a Business Improvement, gentrifying, uniformed Segway riding spirit where the unhoused, the ragged and the struggling are unwanted in public downtown spaces, along the river or in parks?

Are the few available beds as indicated on official dashboards just a cover to be able to sweep?

Didn’t the officials who established this mega compound know there is almost no housing available for the credit underclass locally especially with fewer and fewer motel rooms? Our elected officials often complain about the state of motel rooms, or the dangers of camping outside, but what about current conditions inside the Cares Campus, where hundreds are now stuck in a drab, intimidating environment with nowhere to go?