The Most Important Metric To Measure our Community’s Progress in Helping Neighbors Most in Need: Unhoused Deaths
A recap of our recent reporting plus bonus content.
With public records requests to the Washoe County Regional Medical Examiner’s Office, the new tragic number should be out soon. How many people living without a fixed address died this past year in Washoe County, after a staggering increase every year since 2016, from 22 then, to 135 in 2023?
No matter how many color coded data the county come up with within its much touted Built for Zero program, this is the one that we believe matters the most.
Built for Zero is aimed at ending homelessness, with a data-driven approach. But what happens if the data go the wrong way?
Ever since the Cares Campus opened, in 2021, there’s been a spiritual zeal in colorful charts from local leadership, which so far have not shown a decrease in local unhoused populations, quite the opposite.
This reflects national trends with official statistics indicating the total unhoused population in the U.S. rose 12.1% from 2022 to 2023, reaching its highest point since at least 2007.
When the county says it’s being cutting edge and unique, and written up as a success story by national outlets, it can’t use an overall excuse anymore can it?
When the Community Homelessness Advisory Board meets just once in 2024, compared to 13 times in 2020, and 12 in 2021, does it seem like our leadership really cares or believes the “problem” is solved with the quickly put together with COVID flush money Cares Campus, for which by the way we are still trying to figure out what the total cost has been to this day?
When the county decides to skip out on the upcoming point in time count for the unsheltered, which also used to be the “Super Bowl” of caring and outreach as Meredith Tanzer explained in our documentary Help at the Circle, what optics does that communicate?
We are getting an out of sight, out of mind, criminalization of poverty vibe. We predict that as 4th street keeps gentrifying, the next “Cares Campus” will be built even further away with even more lip service “services” integrated.
A recent Citizen’s Forum we published is about an email #sheroesofreno OG Lisa Lee sent denouncing how county leadership has effectively “exiled” advocates for the unhoused trying to help with their hearts, care and compassion. They’ve continued their work, but are seen by many as part of the problem, rather than the life savers they are, such as the volunteers behind the newly established Good Neighbor Warming Centers. Undoubtedly, their heroic action is bringing the number of unhoused deaths down as we wind down this calendar year.
Our Recent Reporting
A Call for More Community Homelessness Advisory Board Meetings, With Plenty of Questions
What is Going on at Canyon Flats? A Disturbing Photo Series
Local Student Navigates Risks and Rewards of Chaturbate to Help Pay For Studies
Armon Johnson, Now the Head Basketball Coach at Hug High, Giving Back What He Once Received
RareTea Boba Gets a Rave Review
Add to counting people who live in shelters and on the streets, as well as their unfortunate and avoidable deaths, a quarterly count of vacant rental units in Washoe County and Reno/Sparks. A vacancy tax should also be implemented on landlords who keep vacant rental properties off the market in the hope of making a larger profit. People, not profits. Housing is a human right.
But no one in government has the courage to do this because they're beholden to landlords. Property is more valuable than vulnerable citizens.
Shalom!