The Slog of the New "Cares Campus", and one Motel Still Standing
City Council members were active on social media responding to Tweets, including our own, while commenting on media reports about their meeting this week addressing the slog of establishing the new Nevada Cares Campus.
One by Naomi Duerr seemed cryptic to us at least. It read: “Another key take away - approaching a city job whether by fiat and force vs. assistance - can make a huge difference in effectiveness and result. Words AND actions both matter. So do goals and intentions.”
The sale of the Record street shelter to help pay for some of the envisioned campus seems less than certain now, based on comments by city council members this week.
Neoma Jardon mentioned bringing in a third party nonprofit to spearhead the new operation. More federal money might be available to help. Bonnie Weber praised the Haven for Hope model out of San Antonio. One difference is its location is much closer to their downtown. An initial disappointment is that the much vaunted camping area of the campus seems far off, and all that will be operating when it does open (still promised for mid-April) will be a new massive tent shelter with bunk beds, hardly welcoming.
Devon Reese mentioned a possible “homeless czar”, and there are fears over who might be chosen. Some programs in town get repeatedly praised with little scrutiny over how money is actually spent, and what the results actually are.
Another persistent fear is that the main motivation behind this push is simply to move the unsheltered population away from gentrifying areas, which like repeated sweeps, over time turns into a Whac-a-Mole paradigm.
Are we like other cities experiencing an “urban crisis of affluence” where money is ruining the soul of our downtown areas?
We published a picture series documenting the bulldozing of the Town Home Motor Lodge while another student reporter did a video update with the manager and a resident at the Desert Rose Inn, which for now has been resisting the Jacobs Entertainment buyout splurge on the western part of Fourth Street.
The Our Town Reno podcast episode this week is with Reno Soup for the Soul, which has been prevented from doing outreach by Record Street. Despite this, they have shown resilience to be compassionate.
Our April 13th event, promoted above on a screen at the Reynolds School of Journalism, is getting closer. Here is the Facebook post for it, where you can sign up and also leave initial comments or possible segment ideas.